Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu are all set and ready to go for Round 2 of "High Stakes Duel," which begins on May 5 at 8 pm PST. The heads-up poker battle is a rematch from Round 1, in which the "Poker Brat" made a miraculous comeback to win the $100,000 pot.
Hellmuth announced the date of the rematch on the recent episode of No Gamble, No Future, a PokerGO podcast hosted by Jeff Platt and Brent Hanks. He joined his heads-up opponent on the show to discuss the first match and to look forward to Round 2.
Both players were cordial on the podcast. Although they're long-time friends, there's been tension in recent months between the poker legends. Hellmuth fired the first shots by criticizing Negreanu's play against Doug Polk, a 25,000-hand heads-up challenge he lost by $1.2 million. "Kid Poker" didn't care for the critical comments so he called out Hellmuth and went so far as to question the 15-time WSOP bracelet winner's greatness. Thus, we have a heads-up match between the two that could end up getting quite expensive.
The format for "High Stakes Duel" requires both players to pay $50,000 to enter the first round, creating a $100,000 prize pool. Neither player can cash out after that match unless the losing player decides to quit. Negreanu called for a rematch, so we move on to Round 2 where the prize pool is increased to $200,000, but only the Round 1 loser adds the $100,000 to the pot. The stakes are doubled each round, and could potentially get as high as $12.8 million if the match reaches Round 8.
