Team PokerStars vs. Team Full Tilt ends in lopsided win

The challenge match hatched in the mind of Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu soon after Gus Hansen Twitter-needled him about a years-old hand from High Stakes Poker took place on Sunday at the European Poker Tour (EPT) London tournament series. The match itself was played online at Full Tilt Poker with the participants sitting a specially designated table with their laptops while Day 1a of the EPT London was taking place across the room.

Team PokerStars included Negreanu, as well as two of the Internet Generations most successful players, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Isaac “Ike” Haxton. The trio faced off against the only three players currently sponsored by Full Tilt Poker, Gus Hansen, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom – I suppose if you’re only going to sign three players it would be pretty tough to come up with a more formidable lineup.

However, the match itself was a one-sided affair, with Team PokerStars decimating their sister’s site’s players. Each head-to-head matchup featured three matches (played across three Full Tilt tables simultaneously) and Team PokerStars won eight of the nine matches; a complete domination, or as Daniel Negreanu called it on his Facebook page, a “massacre,”:

“Team PokerStars destroys Full Tilt’s Professionals winning 8 out of 9 matches! I ended the massacre with a 3-0 beating of the other team captain Gus Hansen! Proud of my team, all the preparation and support really made the difference. Looking forward to a rematch is they are up for it!”

In the first match ElkY squared-off against Viktor Blom, which I have to say is a pretty odd matchup considering the history between Ike Haxton and Blom. Elky dominated the match, winning all three tables against the online phenom, and giving Team PokerStars a 1-0 edge in the match.

The second match pitted Haxton against Tom Dwan, and while not completely one-sided, Haxton cruised to a fairly easy victory, winning two of the three tables and sealing the win for Team PokerStars. But the final match still had some meaning, as it was Negreanu and Hansen who got this whole ball rolling with their Twitter “feud”. Negreanu closed out the Team PokerStars victory with a 3-0 victory over Hansen.

It’s still unclear how these “challenge” matches are received by casual fans, and once we have some idea of the viewership and social media impact of the Stars vs. Tilt matches we’ll have a pretty clear indication if they’ll try any more “Challenge” matches in the future.

You can check out some pictures and videos from the matches by scrolling through the PokerStars Twitter account: @PokerStars