Daniel Negreanu Selects Haxton and Grospellier to Battle FTP's "The Professionals"
The Team PokerStars-versus-Team Full Tilt Poker heads-up challenge is officially set for next week. On Friday, PokerStars announced that three sponsored pros from each site will square off for $300,000 as part of the European Poker Tour festivities in London on March 10.
Team PokerStars will be represented by Daniel Negreanu, Isaac Haxton and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Team Full Tilt Poker will be made up of its team dubbed "The Professionals" — Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan and Viktor Blom. The action will be played on Full Tilt Poker in a "battleship" style format with a best-of-three structure determining the winner. The victors of each match will collect $50,000 from his opponent and each member of the overall winning team will receive $10,000 in tournament buy-ins from the rival poker room.
The challenge kicks off on Sunday, March 10 at 10 a.m. ET and will be hosted online by Full Tilt Poker, allowing everyone to log in and rail the action.
Negreanu explained the full details in a video blog on Thursday:
Because Negreanu had a much wider selection of players to choose from, Hansen was given the option of selecting the matchups. Here's what he came up with:
| Daniel Negreanu | vs. | Gus Hansen |
| Bertrand Grospellier | vs. | Viktor Blom |
| Isaac Haxton | vs. | Tom Dwan |
The match is the result of some light-hearted ribbing between Hansen and Negreanu on Twitter. Last week, Hansen sent a random Tweet to Negreanu reminding "Kid Poker" of a famous hand they played on High Stakes Poker in 2006, and Negreanu responded by needling Hansen about his poor results on Full Tilt Poker so far in 2013. From there, a heads-up challenge evolved with Negreanu offering to select team fellow Team PokerStars members to take on Hansen, Dwan and Blom. All parties accepted the challenge, and Negreanu chose Haxton and Grospellier as his partners.
Players can get in on the action and earn up to $100 – as well as entry to three $10,000 freerolls – by making a real-money deposit or transfer of at least $10 on Full Tilt Poker until March 8 at 23:59 ET and choosing who they think will come out on top in each heads-up game. For more information about the event, visit FullTiltPoker.com.
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