Daniel Negreanu defeats Eric Persson in $100k High Stakes Duel Battle

Image courtesy of PokerGO.com

Daniel Negreanu took out Eric Persson in the opening $50k per player bout of High Stakes Duel IV last night. DNegs is now looking for a new opponent at stakes of $100,000 for round 2 after Persson took to Twitter to announce he won’t be taking up the rematch clause...

Negreanu entered the new, fourth series, of HSD hoping to better his previous effort, a painful 3-0 whitewash by Hellmuth back in HSD I round 2.

His opponent, Maverick Gaming CEO and highstakes amateur, Eric Persson, came into the HSD arena for the first time, though an infamous heads-up victory over Hellmuth showed he has game - and plenty of attitude.

What Persson didn’t reckon on was Kid Poker out-muscling him in every way, Negreanu turning up in a fake muscle suit and monster one-finger-salute hands!

That nod to Persson’s always-on-show physique and his double-bird handling of the Poker Brat set the tone for a friendly match, but the cards were going Negreanu’s way from early doors...

Negreanu: K♥ J♦
Persson: 8♥ 6♠

Flop: 8♦ Q♠ 7♠
Turn: 10♦
River: 9♥

Persson had to pay off with the idiot end of the straight and Negreanu took an early lead in the SNG-style heads-up match.

Whenever Persson hit, Negreanu had hit something better, such as in the following hand which extended his chip lead to 2:1

Negreanu: 5♥ 5♣
Persson: 4♦ 2♣

Flop: 5♦ 3♣ J♦
Turn: 2♦
River: 4♥

Matters didn’t improve for Persson and when the end came it was probably written in the stars that it would be a cooler...

The rules off HSD IV have been changed so that a player can cash out after two wins instead of the previous three wins, but Negreanu is now looking for another opponent after Persson declined the $100k per head rematch due to “scheduling” reasons...

It wasn’t long before poker Twitter was piling in with suggestions, Phil Ivey, Matt Berkey, Doug Polk, and Garrett Adelstein all showing up in the comments.

The winner of the HSD IV ‘undercard’ earlier this week, Mike Matusow, would make for good viewing against Negreanu, though the $100k buy-in may be a bit steep for him.

A rematch with Phil Hellmuth was also mooted by one Negreanu fan...

For those who haven’t followed the High Stakes Duel heads-up battles, Negreanu’s $400k whitewash courtesy of Hellmuth’s “white magic” came in HSD II, with Hellmuth having already scooped $400,00 by defeating Antonio Esfandiari 3-0 in the inaugural HSD.

Highstakes Duel III was an altogether different affair, Hellmuth facing four different opponents before losing his crown. First up he beat amateur player Nick Wright for $50k, the Fox Sports host unable to justify spending $100k on a rematch.

Tom Dwan stepped in as a replacement for round 2, toppling the Poker Brat but then losing the $400k rematch. When a scheduling conflict meant Dwan couldn’t make the $800k decider, Scott Seiver stepped in.

Hellmuth saw off Seiver’s challenge but his next opponent would prove to be the toughest of all, Jason Koon.

First up there was talk of Bryn Kenney as the challenger for round 5, although that talk mostly came from the Brooklyn man himself.

With Kenney still under a cloud of suspicion due to cheating allegations at the time, squeaky-clean Koon got the potentially lucrative gig, and he turned up with an anti-Hellmuth strategy to win the $1.6million showdown.

With the stakes by now at the eye-watering $3.2million level, it wasn’t completely surprising that highstakes crusher Koon got no takers at the start of the year.