Team PokerStars Demolishes Team Full Tilt in Heads-Up Challenge

Last month, Team PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu and Full Tilt Poker “Professionals” member Gus Hansen got into a friendly war of words over Twitter, resulting in Negreanu issuing a challenge to Hansen via a YouTube video. The challenge: Full Tilt’s Professionals – Hansen, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom – against Negreanu and two of his PokerStars teammates in “Battleship” style, heads-up matches. Hansen accepted the challenge on the condition that he gets to set the match-ups once Negreanu selects his teammates. Negreanu was fine with that, the other two Professionals were on board, and the contest was slated to be held during the European Poker Tour (EPT) London stop.

EPT London is underway and thus the time has come for the challenge. Daniel Negreanu selected Isaac Haxton and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier to complete his team and Hansen decided he would play against his captain counter-part, while Dwan would take on Haxton and Blom would square off against Grospellier. The format was best-of-three, with the matches taking place online at three simultaneous tables. The competitors would still see each other in person, though, as they played “Battleship” style, meaning they would be playing on their laptops right in front of each other. Normally, the laptops are setup back-to-back, hence the homage to the Battleship game, but in these matches, the players sat at opposite ends of the table. Starting stacks were 3,000 chips with 15 minute levels.

The first match-up pitted ElkY versus Isildur1 and ElkY quickly took a 1-0 lead. With blinds at only 10/20 and both players with good-sized stacks (3,843 to 2,127 in favor of the PokerStars pro), Grospellier min-raised to 40 and Blom called. On the flop of J♣-K♦-T♦, Grospellier bet about half the pot, only to be raised by Blom. At that, a raising war ensued, with both players getting all their chips in the middle. Grospellier showed Q♠-9♠ for the flopped second-nut straight, while Blom had Q♦-4♦ for flush and straight draws. The K♣ on the turn and 4♠ on the river did not help Blom and Grospellier took the first match.

As the game at Table 2 went on, Grospellier eventually worked his way to a huge lead, building his stack to over 5,000 chips. Similar to the final hand at Table 1, Grospellier made a min-raise pre-flop and Blom called. Again, they got into a raising war until the chips were all-in after a flop of 5♣-5♦-K♠. And once again, Grospellier had Blom nailed, A♣-K♦ versus K♣-T♣. Grospellier’s kicker held up and he clinched the match, 2 games to none.

Grospellier then went on to win the meaningless third table to sweep the contest from Blom.

Haxton and Dwan were next. Haxton took a huge lead early, forcing Dwan to muck his cards in a large pot. On just the 23rd hand on Table 1, Haxton finished him off. Haxton min-raised to 40 pre-flop and was called by Dwan. On the flop of 4♥-8♠-T♠, Dwan check-raised to 145 and Haxton called. Haxton bet 99 chips and Dwan called when the 4♣ was dealt and when the 5♠ fell on the turn, Dwan called when Haxton shoved, putting himself all-in. Haxton tabled 8♣-4♠ for trips to win the first table.

On Table 3, Dwan was able to win the first Sit-and-Go for the Professionals. With less than 400 chips remaining, Haxton moved all-in pre-flop with K♥-9♥ and Dwan called with J♠-7♦. Dwan hit a 7 on the flop to win the hand and even up the match.

That left Table 2 as the deciding game. On the 156th hand, Haxton raised pre-flop to 100 only to see Dwan shove for over 1,100 chips. Haxton called quickly, turning over two red Aces, dominating Dwan’s A♣-J♣. Dwan couldn’t hit the running cards he needed and Haxton won the match, 2-1.

That meant that with Hansen and Negreanu still left to play, Team PokerStars had already won the challenge.

Long story, short, Negreanu swept Hansen 3-0. He won Table 2 in just six hands, made a huge comeback when he was down to under 400 chips to take Table 1, and used Big Slick to complete the sweep after 81 hands on Table 2.

For the thorough destruction, each member of Team PokerStars received $50,000 from Full Tilt’s Professionals as well as $10,000 in tournament entry fees on Full Tilt Poker.