Jason Koon Dethrones Phil Hellmuth on High Stakes Duel with a Dominant Performance
3 minutes
Last Updated: December 8, 2022
The latest round of High Stakes Duel is over and Jason Koon landed a decisive win in what was one of the shortest and most one-sided games we’ve seen on the show thus far.
Koon went into the match considered a favorite by most of the poker community, despite Hellmuth’s incredible 9-1 score leading up to the match, which certainly doesn’t tell the whole story of those games.
The high-stakes pro made sure not to disappoint all those who supported him and cheered him on, as he took command of the match in the early rounds and never looked back.
The biggest High Stakes Duel so far won Jason Koon a prize pot of $1.6 million, which he will now have to defend against further challengers. This means we are about to watch even more epic matches on this exciting PokerGO show!
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Jason’s Path to Victory
The Wednesday night match started with both players sitting down with 800,000 in chips, equal to their $800,000 buy-in, and the blinds set at 1k/2k, giving both players plenty of room to maneuver.
However, it didn’t take too long before the chips started to fly. The Poker Brat got some momentum going in the early hands and made a few nice plays, only to give it all back by trying an overly ambitious 5-bet bluff holding Q6 against Koon’s pocket Aces.
A rivered flush for Hellmuth put him back into contention for the chip lead, but this did not last long. Koon soon started to catch some cards and play the kind of poker we have grown accustomed to seeing from him.
While Jason certainly got the better of the card distribution, Hellmuth’s overly aggressive play often got him in trouble, especially as he attempted to make moves in situations that didn’t warrant it going by usual patterns of play.
Phil kept trying to push his “White Magic” style of play throughout the match, making a number of questionable 3-bets and 4-bets, along with a few folds that raised some eyebrows.
As the match went into the later levels, Jason kept dominating and his chip lead only grew with every passing minute.
In the end, Koon decided to stick his chips in against Hellmuth’s 3-bet holding Q♣8♦, and was up against A♦K♣ for a total of 103,000 each at 3k/6k blinds.
Those who watched the match live were not surprised to see the board run Q♠10♣4♠10♦3♠, giving Koon the victory in what was a completely dominant display in every way.
Few players in the world could have won against Jason on the night given the way the deck treated him. However, it is worth noting that the 16-time WSOP champion likely got ahead of himself in quite a few spots and didn’t play his A-game last night.
Give max credit to @Jasonkoon, he played great poker in our “High Stakes Duel.” Congrats on the win Jason, you are a class act and a great player and everyone knows it. I enjoyed playing the first 11 matches of HSD, finished 9-2 #POSITIVITY pic.twitter.com/DuTIj9GDG0
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) December 8, 2022
What’s Next on High Stakes Duel?
Now that the $1.6 million match is behind us, the entire poker world will be watching closely for any announcement of the next High Stakes Duel round.
Given that Koon has only just entered the show and ponied up $800,000 of his own money, he will not be able to cash out any of it for at least two more rounds.
The Poker Brat will have dibs on a potential rematch, but given his well-known approach to poker bankroll management, it’s likely that he will not enter the ring for $1.6 million of his own cash.
Instead, the likes of Dan Smith, Wiktor “limitless” Malinowski, and some other online and heads-up phenoms might take his spot, creating a truly epic matchup for all the diehard fans of the game.
🥊 AND DOWN GOES HELLMUTH! 🥊@JasonKoon puts on an expert performance and finishes off @phil_hellmuth!
Koon will now sweat the next 30 days waiting on a challenger, and if nobody steps forward, he’ll collect the $1.6M payout.
▶️ – Event Replay: https://t.co/wmAvL8wXt3 pic.twitter.com/x0cHYaOX4i
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) December 8, 2022
Whoever takes up the challenge, it is safe to say that the next round of High Stakes Duel will be one of the biggest heads-up games we have ever seen, and even bigger matchups are likely to follow in the rounds to come!
