Team Stars Thrashes Full Tilt

What stated as a few words on Twitter turned very quickly into a clash of the poker titans. Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen have gone up against each other a few times and this time round they decided it was time to put their teams to the test. Three Full Tilt pros in Hansen, Tom Dwan and Viktor Blom took on three member of the PokerStars team which consisted of Negeanu, Ike Haxton and Elky Grospellier in heads up matches with the best of three winning. The first to hit the felt were Blom and Grospellier and on paper this promised to be a great game with two of the worlds best heads up players going at it. In reality however Grospellier wiped the floor with Blom in a resounding 3-0 victory which really did set the scene for the way thinsg would continue. Next we had Dwan taking on Haxton and although Dwan managed to win one game and get a point on the board it did nothing to change the fact that Stars were now in an unassailable lead. This was unfortunate for players and fans alike as it would have been much more interesting should the match have stood at 1-1 going into the Negreanu v Hansen game. That wasn't to be the case however and before the two even took to the table Stars had the Kudos and the cash in the bag. Although Hansen had Kid Poker on the run at times Negreanu just kept coming back and his eventual win finalized the demolition job. Ending 3 - 0 in Stars favor was a prediction by a few observers and the paycheck of $150,000 was tiny in comparison to the value of the bragging rights.

The Aftermath

More or less as soon as play finished the Tweets started but it was all just a bit of a ribbing and no harm done of course. The winners had a few words to say post event starting with Grospellier with, "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, 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." He was indeed the favorite with some huge wins going for him. Daniel Negreanu just couldn't help but say a few things but he was not quite as harsh as he could have been and on timing out twice he said, "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, 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." Hansen shared a few words but to be honest he just wanted the day to be over...."I am in pretty good shape in the first match and I'm way ahead in the second and third match. At one point I have a 8 to 1 chip lead when Daniel is all-in, but as time goes by he gets the advantage back and ends up winning with KK against JJ. Of course I am very disappointed." So there you have it, all the talk turned into a 3 - 0 turn over.