A new poker show is here! High Stakes Heads Up Poker is probably the purest form of Poker there is, two players sitting down, one on one, a battle of minds and metagame. Well, that’s the idea behind the new show High Stakes Duel, created by PokerGo.

The first two players are two that have always challenged each other at the tables, with Antonio Esfandiari claiming that he would play Hellmuth for $100k and the loser gets shot with a taser gun whenever and wherever the Poker Brat wanted.

Well, the wait is over… the two have played their first battle on this new show… The format will see the stakes double after every match. Meaning that if the show runs to Round 8 the total prize pool will be $12,800,000! Now you can’t just hit and run here, you need to win 3 matches in a row to be the champion in this exciting format before Round 6 or 2 games in a row after Round 5.

If there are no challengers within 30 days of the last victory, then the current winner will walk away with the winner take all prize pool. The match started with Phil and Antonio both anteing up $100k, with plenty of trash talk the two took it to the felt…

Going For Thin Value

Antonio came out with all the right moves, betting this one for value right until the end on this dangerous board, getting Hellmuth to look him up with his pair of Jacks and bagging up a decent sized pot early on.

Chipping Hellmuth Away

Antonio managed to get Phil down to 150k at pretty early on in this matchup and 3-Bet this nut flush draw flop to push out Phil’s equity with his gutshot bluff.

The commentators seemed surprised at this play, however, I really like going for it here, you have the chip lead, you can get called by worse flush draws and if all the money does go in you have two shots at hitting a spade rather than getting forced off your equity on the Turn if you miss the draw.

The other thing that can happen is if Phil is testing the water with a hand like a weak Ace on this board he might even just make a laydown once another bet goes in here.

Nitty Fold From Esfandiari

Phil pulled off a huge bluff here, he would have been down to just 69k if Antonio had just called with his trip Kings in this spot, but he made the fold based on Hellmuth’s image and Phil dragged a huge pot.

There are a few reasons I don’t like folding here, we could easily have a split pot with Phil valuing the other case King like this, Phil has also just made River calls in spots like this with hands like Straights or Three of a kind, so which hands is he actually finding a value raise with if he usually just calls with monsters…. this limits his range massively, for instance, he wouldn’t raise here with a straight anymore, so he has to have a hand like a full house, which is harder to have especially with Antonio holding a King himself.

Paying off with a bluff catcher

Phil was zigging and zagging at the right times, flopping a set and getting three huge value bets in here, with Antonio beating all the missed straight draws with his pair of fours, he looked up his near pot-sized River bet and Phil in two hands made a massive come back.

Bluffing with Outs

Phil floated the flop here with bad intentions, playing a pretty protected strategy due to him often limping with big hands on the Button. He chose the Turn to make a raise and try and buy the pot, but Antonio didn’t budge with his full house, Phil then Rivered a better full house when he connected with his Five and bet small for value.

This was a pretty tilting moment from Antonio, jumping out of his seat and nearly ripping his cards in half.

It all comes down to huge flips!

As is quite common with Poker tournaments, it usually comes down to a massive flip, with nearly all the chips in play in the middle with Antonio re-jamming his 30bbs against Phils 3x raise pre-flop.

We won’t spoil the outcome here…. just watch the game for yourself to see all these hands and more!