One of the biggest online heads-up players, Doug "WCGRider" Polk is taking on poker veteran Phil Hellmuth in Poker Night in America’s heads-up tournament called King of the Hill. In this tourney, four well known players put up $50,000 each for buy-ins and the winner takes the whole $200,000 prize pool. Hellmuth and Polk battle each other for the final in one bracket; meanwhile on the other side of the tournament tree Daniel "Jungleman" Cates is playing Frank Kassela.
The event will take place on August 22nd and 23rd in the Rivers Casino in Schenectady, New York – Poker Night in America will be streaming it live on their Twitch channel. The heads-up matches will consist of one freezout session only.
One of the biggest TV networks in America, NBC used to air a heads-up championship every year between 2005 and 2013. Hellmuth is very familiar with the format, as he won the first one in 2005 and made it to the final in the last one in 2013. Polk also can be considered a heads-up specialist, he frequently played one-on-one for very high stakes online, playing millions of hands and winning millions of dollars. The two poker pros already clashed in front of the cameras of Poker Night in America before, they were playing at the same cash game table in the last season of the show.
The winner of the Polk-Hellmuth match will take on the winner of the Kassela-Cates battle for the $200K prize money. Kassela has three WSOP bracelets, but none of them are in NLHE – he’s more of a mixed game player.
"Jungleman" Cates is mostly known for his unfinished heads-up challenge against Tom "durrrr" Dwan. It was by no means his fault that the challenge remains incomplete: he amassed a massive lead over Dwan who in turn refused to play any more hands and relocated himself to Macau. The two were both present at the Maestral Casino grand opening in Montenegro last month but we’re unaware of any discussion about continuing the heads-up challenge.
