The Lodge Card Club in Austin, Texas, will be hosting The Heads-Up Open poker tournament. Day 1 kicks off on August 11, and depending on the number of entrants up to three days have been set aside for the action.
The Lodge is a big part of the Texan poker rush. Co-owned by Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme, and Doug Polk. It looks like at the very least Polk is planning to play the heads up event. He will switch to providing commentary for the live stream if he doesn't make it all the way to first place. So, fans of CoinFlex's most recent ex-ambassador will have a chance of playing the man himself if they buy-in.
Speaking of which, the buy-in is $1,000 — $900 to the prize pool, $100 in entry fees and mandatory tips — with the field capped at 256 players. If there is a round that requires byes, there will be a $400 bounty in play during all of the matches held that round.
Players will start round 1 with 20,000 in chips and blinds at 100-100. The blind structure will be more or less the same for all 8 possible rounds. However, they will start at a later blind level as the chip stacks double round by round — Round 2 will start at the 100-200 blind level, Round 3 will skip to the 200-400 level, etc...
The Lodge Twitter account tweeted about the event: "Want to be crowned as the best heads-up poker player in Texas? The first-ever Heads-Up Open is coming to The Lodge next month!"
The Heads Up Open
The Lodge is part-owned by Doug Polk who was, at one point, among the best heads up no limit hold'em players in the world. And may well still be among them — even a rusty Polk is likely to be a tough competitor. In his retirement from poker, he has maintained some of his heads-up fire.
He played a widely publicized match against Daniel Negreanu, taking $1.2 million of off DNegs over the course of 25,000 hands. The pair played $200/$400 no limit hold'em heads up for months, mostly two tabling online.
More recently, Polk has set up a monthly heads-up cash game to play live on The Lodge's Youtube stream. In the first episode, he took on Daniel Cates. These matches should be picking up soon, now that the WSOP is winding down.
So, this tournament fits nicely into that pattern of publicity stunts meeting his personal interest in heads-up poker. More importantly, if it proves profitable, it will help provide an example of successful heads-up tournaments for other poker rooms to follow. Due to the inefficiency of having just two players per table (and potentially per dealer) many sites are loath to put heads-up events on their schedules.
You can find full details for The Lodge's Heads Up Open event on the club's website.
Featured image source: The Lodge Card Club
