Day 1 of PGT Heads-Up Showdown Is Done And There Were Some Surprises

The first round of the first-ever PGT Heads-Up Showdown is under the roof and 16 players advanced to the second round. Most notable players that advanced are Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Sean Winter, and Shannon Shorr. All player bought in for $25,000 and are competing for a $400,000 top prize.
 
One of the first highlights of the day was the match between Daniel Negreanu and Jared Bleznick. Negreanu had built his way into a sizable chip lead before finally sealing the deal with king-queen against Bleznick’s ace-seven. Although Bleznick flopped an ace, Negreanu completed an inside straight draw on the turn to win the hand.

All the biggest matches will be available to watch for free on PokerGO Youtube channel and Negreanu match was the first one on the schedule:

Joining Negreanu and advancing from the first flight were Erik Seidel, Darren Elias, Tamon Nakamura, Chino Rheem, Jeremy Ausmus, Jake Daniels, and Bill Klein. Nakamura beat Stanley Tang, Rheem defeated Nick Schulman, Ausmus topped Chris Brewer, Daniels got past Ali Imsirovic, and Klein advanced over Phil Galfond.

The biggest surprise of the day came in the second flight where Phil Hellmuth took the center stage. His opponent was Eric Persson and it became one of the most entertaining matches we have ever seen. Plenty of verbal jabs were hurled at one another, and Persson even flipped double middle fingers to Hellmuth.

The two were both given a warning, and ultimately it was Persson coming out on top. Hellmuth fell short on chips and moved in with king-three. Persson had two aces, quickly called, and his aces held up.

The story hasn’t finished at the tables but has moved to twitter later that day.

A lot of poker players expressed his opinions about Phil’s behavior yesterday and in many previous instances where he was the one being out of the line, saying Persson only gave him his own medicine.

Hellmuth blocked numerous people on Twitter, including Daniel Negreanu!

 
The full replay of the match is a must watch:

In addition to Persson advancing from the later opening-round flight, are Isaac Kempton who beat Scott Seiver to move on, Dan Shak topped Nicholas Rigby, Justin Young beat Richie Sklar, Alex Foxen beat Simon Yu, and Scott Ball defeated Alex Livingston.

On day 2 players will play two rounds down to the semifinal. First will be the Round of 16 starting at 12 p.m. PT.