Eight years ago, in February of 2014, NBC pulled the plug on the National Heads-Up Poker Championship after eight years of broadcast. The bracket-style poker tournament was a who’s who of poker elite. It highlighted the end stages of a poker tournament, producing champions such as Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, and Huck Seed.
This April, PokerGO is bringing back the fast-paced action of heads-up No-Limit Hold’em with the inaugural PGT Heads-Up Showdown. The 32-person invite-only poker tournament sees a buy-in of $25,000 with a prize pool of $800,000 up for grabs to the best Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em player.
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To mark the return of High-Stakes Heads-Up Poker, The Sporting News had the pleasure of going heads-up with the President of PokerGO, Mori Eskandani, for a Q&A sit down on the past, present, and future of heads-up poker.
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From a producer’s point of view, what’s different between televised poker events a decade ago versus today?
There are two significant differences. First, the poker viewing audience is a much more experienced one. It wasn’t too long ago when it was common for poker broadcasts to start every show explaining the rules of Texas Hold'em - how many cards are dealt, what a flop is, what a turn is, and what the river is. The industry is much further along now, including the audience, and we’ve all graduated to a much higher level of poker. From a production side, this means that the products we put out have to be in line with what today’s poker viewer wants to see. For example, with the PGT Heads-Up Showdown event, having Ali Nejad alongside Brian Rast gives us a great one-two punch of professional commentary with analysis from one of the top players in the game.
The second big difference is the players themselves. Just look up and down the PGT leaderboard. Today’s player pool is much different than it was 10-15 years ago. There will certainly be some very recognizable faces in the PGT Heads-Up Showdown who have been around the game for a long time, but there will also be plenty of new ones that we’re excited for the audience to come to know. On the production side of things, one of our jobs is to connect the audience with the players in today’s game. We strive to do that with all of our events, including the PGT Heads-Up Showdown.
What spawned the PGT Heads-Up Showdown event?
PokerGO takes great pride in finding various new ways to do two things. One is showcasing the game’s best players, and the other is producing high-quality poker entertainment. We believe the first-ever PGT Heads-Up Showdown will allow us to achieve both.
Heads-up, No-Limit Hold’em is pure. Think of it as poker’s version of hand-to-hand combat. It’s arguably the purest form of the game, and the stakes are raised, quite literally, when you attach a $25,000 price tag to it.
One of PokerGO’s most popular programs is High Stakes Duel, and with the PGT Heads-Up Showdown, we’re taking the exciting, fast-paced heads-up format and expanding it to a bracket-style tournament. Win, and you advance to the next round. Lose, and you go home. It’s a tremendous format for a live broadcast poker event.
Looking back on your time producing the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, what elements from that event do you feel can translate successfully to the PGT Heads-Up Showdown despite it being nearly a decade later?
We’ve got star players such as Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, and Phil Galfond slated to play, and they’ll be competing alongside some of the best players that the PGT has to offer. Throw in some celebrity invites, and the ingredients are there for a very entertaining and competitive field. Additionally, the $25,000 buy-in price point is nothing to sneeze at, leading to $800,000 in prize money on the line.
You obviously have a wealth of experience with this, having produced the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, but it’s been almost a decade since that event ended. How do you think poker fans will receive the PGT Heads-Up Showdown?
For many months now, our team has been working hard on gathering all of the ingredients to make the first-ever PGT Heads-Up Showdown a hit, and we believe everything is coming together quite nicely to give poker fans around the world a truly memorable event. From big names to a big buy-in, we’re making sure that we have everything covered to deliver the type of high-quality poker content that the viewing audience expects from PokerGO.
With the event taking place at the state-of-the-art PokerGO Studio, we have full control of the production, allowing us to provide an increased level of coverage. Furthermore, viewers will be pleased to know that they’ll get entertaining commentary and expert analysis from the duo of Ali Nejad and Brian Rast calling the action.
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The inaugural PGT Heads-Up Showdown begins on Thursday, April 21, 2022, and runs until a champion is crowned on April 23rd. Viewers can catch all the action live streamed on PokerGO.