A battle took place in PokerGO’s Las Vegas studio between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk, and with $100,000 and a championship belt that was about as big as the players up for grabs, High Stakes Duel 4 was a poker spectacle between two of its better-knowns.
Polk made the challenge after Negreanu’s first round knock-out of casino owner and high-stakes poker player Eric Perssons, a favorite of producers of live poker streams and shows.
Polk stepped in with the $100,000 buy-in that was required after Persson declined a round-two rematch (the losers of High Stakes Duel have the option to play again — of they want to put up the money. If they decline, other players can step in).
This is the first season the show required only two wins in order end things, so Negreanu went into Thursday’s match with the chance to walk away with the cash and the belt if he won.
And that’s exactly what happened.
It took a few hours, but it was Negreau who left Polk with nothing standing on the set besides his million-dollar smile. Negreanu now can add High Stakes Duel season champion to a resume that is longer than Santa’s naughty list.
PokerGO gave fans a one-hour tease:
Rule change shrinks payout
Negreanu joins Jason Koon, who was High Stakes Duel’s season three champion, and Phil Hellmuth, who won its first two seasons, as champion. But thanks to a rule change, his $200,000 cash ($150,000 profit) is the lowest of all the three players.
In past seasons, players had to win three matches in a row in order to have the option to walk away with the money (up until round 5, when it then switched to two-in-a-row). The first two seasons, Hellmuth turned his two initial $50,000 buy-ins into $400,000 payouts by simply winning six matches in a row.
And he did it by beating both Antonio Esfandiari and Negreanu three times in a row the first two seasons.
Season three would be different for Hellmuth and the show. Starting in 2021, it went to round five where Jason Koon had to put up a whopping $800,000 to challenge Hellmuth. He beat Hellmuth in January 2023, and since no one stepped up with the $1.6 million necessary to challenge Koon within 30 days, he walked away with the money and the belt.
If players only had to win two matches in a row last year, Hellmuth would have been the champion for the third time in a row, as well as $800,000 richer.
History between players
Negreanu is still way down against Polk after he lost more than a million during a heads-up challenge that was called High Stakes Feud. The match took place in 2020-21 on WSOP.com, and was broadcast by PokerGO. The sessions are available on YouTube and was a bloodbath for Negreanu.
The two men agreed to play at least 25,000 hands of $200/400 heads-up. They started in the Fall of 2021 and finished after 36 sessions in February 2022 with Polk up $1,202,284.75.
No word on which players will ante-up $50,000 to kick-off season five of High Stakes Duel.
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