Phil Helmut beats Tom Dwan in another round of heads-up battles

Phil Helmut, also known as PokerBrat, managed to beat his main rival Tom Dwan, who plays under the alias “durrrrr”. The battle took place in a heads-up battle. Helmut “squeezed” a $400,000 round from Dwan. However, Tom has already revealed that he expects a rematch, which is estimated at $800k.

Phil Helmut has won the WSOP 16 times. Interestingly, his winning streak was broken in August 2021. He had won 7 games in a row on the High Stakes Duel heads-up show. However, Dwan spoiled the whole picture by interrupting Helmut’s championship streak. Despite the latter being the unchallenged leader in terms of the number of World Series bracelets available, it’s still possible that Dwan could compete with him.

PokerBrat is one of 34 professional poker players whose combined winnings exceed $20 million. But he doesn’t want to stop there, continuing to mercilessly crush his opponents. Having beaten Dwan, Helmut adds another victory and a tidy sum to his piggy bank account.

Rivalries

Despite their fierce rivalry, Helmut and Dwan have a respect for each other. Phil called Tom one of the greatest players in the world, adding “a born Hold’em player”. In his opinion, Dwan is one of the few such talented poker players.

The start of Phil’s winning streak was marked by a victory over Antonio Esfandiari. The next ‘victim’ was Daniel Negrean. The seventh win came from Helmut in a game against sports commentator Nick Wright, followed by Dwan.

Last August’s landmark game ended with Phil’s defeat by Tom’s tens of aces. The two legends then found themselves at the same table again. The stakes were each $200,000. The prize money in full went to the winner.

Match details

The match took about 3 hours. Throughout the entire game it was difficult to determine a clear leader, as both opponents were on par. Nevertheless, Helmut had clearly analysed the previous fight with Dwan and had drawn some conclusions. Therefore, he either put together the proper combinations or dropped even promising sets in time.

Fluctuations in the match were noticeable throughout. At the same time, there were no pronounced mistakes by the opponents. On the contrary, Helmut and Dwan were extremely cautious and rarely took significant risks. Phil opted for the tactic of dropping decent combinations if the situation was moot.

At the end of the game, the poker community began to discuss the likelihood of a rematch. Dwan decided not to stall and announced that such a game would take place, as he had already agreed to it. The upcoming game is no longer valued at $400,000, but at $800,000. There is no word yet on when the event will take place.

Poker fans have already started speculating and predicting the winner of the upcoming match. According to the most popular opinion, the odds are quite even. Nevertheless, Helmut still has a slight advantage, as he demonstrated a brilliant game last time.