Daniel Negreanu offered a challenge to the 3 FTP pros, Gus Hansen, Viktor Blom and Tom Dwan for $50,000 each. They accepted, so Negreanu gathered 2 fellow Team Pros, Isaac Haxton and Bertrand Grospellier to join him. The challenge went down on 10 March with the pairings below:
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier vs Viktor "Isildur1" Blom
Isaac "luvtheWNBA" Haxton vs Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu vs Gus Hansen
Since all six players travelled to the EPT London, the HUSNG challenge was held in the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, but not at live tables, but facing each other on laptops playing at FTP online. All players had to bet $50,000 plus the losing team had to pay an additional $10,000 buy-in to all the winning players.
1st match - Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier vs Viktor "Isildur1" Blom
Isildur1 vs ElkY - Negreanu's Perspective
Isildur1 was clearly the favourite of the first match, he has much more HU SNG experience than his opponent he is clearly one of the best NL players today. However, the match started out with a surprise, ElkY finished his opponent in less then half an hour, winning 3-0. On the first table Isildur1 flopped an open straight and flush draw, and went all-in, ElkY called with a nut straight, and Blom's flush didn't come. 1-0. On the second table, Isildur1 quickly became the underdog, and was utlimately finished when he went all-in on the K-5-5 flop with K-T, but ElkY had A-K. 2-0. The third table didn't matter that much as Isildur1 was already defeated, but ElkY managed to win here as well. 3-0.
ElkY's statement:
“It went amazingly well. The whole PokerStars team had dinner together last night, and Daniel Negreanu, Eugene Katchalov and above all Isaac Haxton – because he's played a lot against Isildur and had a lot of information to share – all gave me advice.
"I had also watched a lot of his matches from when he did the SuperStar Showdown on PokerStars, so I had a lot of information about his style, more than he did on mine, since I haven't been playing as many heads-ups as I used to.
"Our game plan went very well, and I had just enough luck too. Everytime I had good hands, they held through, especially that first all-in when I got a straight at the flop with K-J-10 (with 2 diamonds) to match my Q-9, and he had Q-4 of diamonds.
"I think it was very important to win the first match, it put more pressure on him. We also worked on finding what aspects of his game I could use to my advantage, and what I could do in certain situations to make him feel even more frustrated.
"I think that the fact that we played sit-and-gos was also in my favor, because the game isn't as deep, and that's when he's really good. His specialty are overbets.
"It was also good for me that we played these three games pretty fast. He's an excellent player who doesn't need much time to figure out what's going on with his opponent. So no matter how good my strategy was, he could have adapted quickly, so I'm not sure I could have won if we had had to play for a dozen hours.
"Winning, especially 3-0, feels all the nicer because I remember losing against him at the 2011 PCA, in heads-up. It was also an important match for the PokerStars team, because it was supposed to be our toughest match, he was clearly the favorite.”
2nd match - Isaac "luvtheWNBA" Haxton vs Tom "durrrr" Dwan
The second match of the challenge was particularly important, as Haxton stated in his most recent interview that he never considered durrrr an outstanding NLHE player. Of course it's an unusual thing to say about Dwan, Haxton was very determined to prove his views; he quickly won the first table. 1-0. The second table went to durrrr: he went all-in on the flop with a flush draw and a queen overcard, Haxton calling with top pair, but the river was a queen, earning durrrr a massive lead. In the next hand, he beat Haxtons's suited K-9 with J-7, 1-1. The third table was dominated by Haxton again. Durrrr found himself handicapped rather quickly, he shoved with a stack of about 1,000 chips (starting stacks were 3,000) but ultimately ran into Haxton's pocket rockets with suited A-J. 2-1.
Durrrr's statement:
"Well, I didn't win. I wanted to win, and I didn't. That's about it."
3rd match - Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu vs Gus Hansen
The 3rd match of the challenge only decided ratio of PokerStars' win, and of course it was about prestige, as the whole heads-up challenge was brought to life following Gus Hansen's cheeky tweets aimed at Daniel Negreanu. Hansen started out really well, he took the lead on all three tables, but Negreanu managed to climb back, and with almost even stacks they both went all-in on one of the tables. Both players flopped top pair, but Hansen's queen kicker gave him better odds. The turn brought an 8 to Negreanu's 8-9 hand, the river was blank. 1-0. Hansen built major stacks on the 2 remaining tables, but the Canadian pro bounced back again; Hansen ran into Negreanu's kings with jacks, then lost to his A-K with J-9. 3-0.
Negreanu's statement:
"Well, I did predict that we'd win all 3 matches and it went just as I'd predicted. Gosh, my heart dropped when I misclicked – twice ! I did it twice, I wasn't used to the software, on PokerStars it has this little beep-beep when you have to pay attention.
"And there I was, showboating, laughing, and I ended up almost screwing the team, so I felt bad about that, but luckily I won anyway.
"I didn't think we'd win 8-1, but I really felt like we were more prepared, we had a really good team, and Isaac actually helped all of us – he had a lot of information on everybody, so he coached us and everything. It was a combination of effort and teamwork.
"I won that first match, which was great. But then when I misclicked, the momentum really switched. I was about to win that match, and then I was down in both matches, and he had me crushed in both.
"I got a little bit lucky, made some hands, and above all I focused, told myself 'forget about that hand, it's over. Just focus.'
The FTP team was ultimately defeated by the PokerStars pros by 3-0, the total of the matches is 8-1.
