There has been a change in scheduling for the PokerGO-created series High Stakes Duel. For the first time ever, the made for streaming event was to have gone up in stakes to each player posting $400,000 for battle. That originally was slated to feature Tom Dwan squaring off against the “Poker Brat” Phil Hellmuth in the rubber match of their tete a tete, but a situation has arisen that will require someone new to step into the breech.
Scott Seiver Taking Over for Dwan
The matchup between Dwan and Hellmuth was supposed to have taken place on May 12, but poor scheduling on one players part caused a bit of an issue. Apparently, Dwan, who has a sponsorship deal with Triton Poker, was supposed to be taking part in the Triton High Roller Series in Madrid, Spain, and failed to recall that when setting up the High Stakes Duel date. Thus, it put PokerGO in a bit of a spot – wait for Dwan or find another competitor.
PokerGO went with finding another competitor, much to the chagrin of Dwan.
The new competitor will be Scott Seiver, who also has a tremendous history of success in tournament poker. Seiver has been a part of the tournament poker community since his first cash at the World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker in 2006, racking up three World Series of Poker bracelets alongside one WPT title (2011 WPT Five Star World Poker Classic). For his career, Seiver has been able to rack up over $24 million in earnings, but he has become more known of late for his cash game prowess.
How We Got to This Point…
Hellmuth, despite his recent antics, has been proving that he is a force to reckon with in the heads-up format. He won seven matches in a row, defeating the likes of Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, and amateur Nick Wright in the special PokerGO event streamed on the channel. When Wright backed out of moving the stakes up to $100,000 for a second-round event, it seemed that there was not anyone available to continue this particular series.
Enter Tom Dwan…
Dwan stepped in to take over for Wright, picking up the $100K tab and giving Hellmuth a challenge that he did not expect. In that encounter, Dwan would put an end to Hellmuth’s run on High Stakes Duel at seven events, but Hellmuth did not back down either. He nearly immediately challenged Dwan to another match, this time with both men putting up $200,000, and Hellmuth won that even handily in January.
In facing Seiver, Hellmuth could very well be facing his most difficult challenge. The stakes are not going to bother Seiver, who routinely plays in the highest stakes cash games in Las Vegas. It is also arguable that Seiver’s game is more suited to the heads-up format; Hellmuth’s previous opponents, other than Dwan, were not noted for their heads-up poker skills. It will be a strong test of Hellmuth’s heads-up abilities against Seiver’s skills.
The match has been rescheduled for Tuesday at the PokerGO Studios in Las Vegas at 5PM (Pacific Daylight Time). If PokerGO holds true to their format, they will have a teaser on their YouTube channel of the first hour (or so) of the battle between Seiver and Hellmuth before switching over to exclusively streaming online. For those that have not taken the plunge, you can subscribe to PokerGO (who will also have twenty-one events of this year’s WSOP on tap) and enjoy the action between Seiver and Hellmuth.
