Phil Hellmuth defeated Antonio Esfandiari in the first episode of High Stakes Duel

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In the beginning of February, PokerGo acquired the well-known poker show High Stakes Poker and PokerGo representatives immediately started working on the new season.

At the end of July, it became known that two legendary poker players Phil Hellmuth and Antonio Esfandiari would fight in the first episode of High Stakes Duel show in a heads-up.

This battle took place on 30 July. Both players paid $50 000 each, the starting stacks amounted to 300 000 chips with the initial blinds of 500/1000. The levels lasted 20 minutes.

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In the first two hours of play, Esfandiari obtained a strong stack advantage. Hellmuth, in turn, made mistakes and complained about Esfandiari's luck.

However, soon the luck was on Phil’s side and he quickly started to accumulate stack. At some point, Hellmuth became overconfident and this cost him most of the chips. Nevertheless, Phil managed to apply few successful bluffs in his play and reestablish dominance.  

In the last hand of heads-up battle, Antonio shoved with Q-J suited and Phil called him with pocket sevens. 4♦-A♥-8♠ appeared on the flop, the turn with 5♥ and river with 2♥ didn’t improve Antonio’s hand, and Phil Hellmuth became the winner.  

Antonio Esfandiari decided to challenge Phil Hellmuth again in a new round of High Stakes Duel. However, the date of "revenge" is still unknown.