Matt Berkey Crushes Jared Bleznick in High Stakes Duel Thriller

Solve For Why founder Matt Berkey proved he has some superb heads-up skills as he beat reigning High Stakes Duel champion Jared Bleznick on PokerGO this week. Bleznick, who has made as much of a fortune trading sports cards as he has playing poker, beat Patrik Antonius 3-0 last year as he took the plaudits and the HSD  Championship Belt. He relinquished that belt on Thursday as Berkey brought all his skills to the purple felt in Las Vegas.

Opening Exchanges Set the Scene

Taking place across two days in Sin City, the PokerGO Studio hosted High Stakes Duel as Jared ‘The Backer’ Bleznick and Matt Berkey did battle in the sixth series of the popular winner-take-all and double-or-nothing match, the first between the pair to ever make it to broadcast. Berkey, listed as a poker pro, cash and podcaster due to his extensive work on the popular Only Friends poker podcast, was the challenger in the match, which feature $200/$400 blinds and was the first in the format to take place in the form of a cash game rather than a tournament.

Playing half No Limit Hold’em and half Pot Limit Omaha, Berkey and The Backer did battle with unlimited add-ons and re-buys. With a $100,000 minimum buy-in, that meant it would go on until one wanted to stop. Who would take the most punishment before the tap-out was activated and the belt relinquished? It wasn’t for the feint-hearted in poker terms.

All-in-all, the match played out over ten hours of cash game action on PokerGO as fans were thrilled and both men had their moments. Early exchanges went to Berkey but a huge pot developed when Bleznick flopped middle set. Berkey had an open-ender but it cost him half of his original stack to make the call from turn to river and failing to hit his straight – a six came to complete Bleznick’s full house – Berkey had to give it up on 5^th street, falling to a 3:1 chip underdog.

Berkey Gets it All Back

“You wouldn’t do this in PLO – admit that.”

Having fallen to a big underdog, it was crucial that Berkey got it back quickly to resist the reload. All-in on the turn once again with a draw, this time he had the wrap, with both an open-ended straight draw and a draw to the flush too. That flush came in on the river as Berkey made five spaded and went level once again. Bleznick was philosophical after the hand.

“There are a lot of things in life I can’t do,” he said. “I don’t know how to ride a bike.”

Bleznick managed to take the lead with a six-high straight when Berkey had two-pairs, and down 3:1 again, Berkey decided to reload for another $100,000 to keep the stacks even as they moved forward in the match. Now in $200,000 to Bleznick’s $100,000, the Solve for Why founder had work to do to pull it back in.

As Berkey won a series of smallball pots to pull into a 2:1 lead, Bleznick decided to make a decision with the session drawing to a close after over five hours at the felt.

“I’d be sick if I asked for chips. Gimme $100,000.” Said The Backer, waiting for his chips. “You wouldn’t do this in PLO – admit that.”

“I don’t know – we don’t normally play $200,000 pots.”

“You’re the only person I don’t mind losing to,” Bleznick said. “The fact you don’t have some massive deal with GGPoker blows my mind. He’s so good for poker!”

“Idiot! He doesn’t three-bet ace-king, still gets rewarded. I’m so smart and dumb at the same time.”

Second Day Goes to the Wire

“God, how good are you at poker? That’s so tilting.”

With the overnight scores being $194,800 to Berkey and $205,200 to Bleznick, the stacks were near level, with just a $22,700 swing to Bleznick the profit-loss column on the day. Just 24 hours later, the two men reconvened, with the stacks now back at $100,000 each for the ensuing battle.

Bleznick, a.k.a. The Backer, got the better of the early levels and once again opened up a 3:1 chip lead. A reload came from Berkey and with it, some fortune, as he flopped a set of jacks and beat Bleznick’s middle pair, a nice fold coming from the latter after some deep thought.  Another reload came from Berkey and that meant there was $400,000 in play, $300,000 of it Berkey’s.

Middle pair was no good for Bleznick in time against Berkey with pocket nines in NLHE and having dropped PLO a long time earlier, Bleznick’s preferred game of four cards rather than two not being on the table helped Berkey, who sat behind $400,000, as Bleznick added $100,000.  An intriguing hand where Bleznick’s turned set of nines took on Barkey’s hole card pocket aces led to a very good call from Berkey that saved him $80,000.

“I was trying to get you to jam. God, how good are you at poker? That’s so tilting. With the ace of hearts too?”

Turning to the producers, Bleznick quipped, “Hey! I’m never playing him again at No Limit.”

Over the course of the next hour, Bleznick reloaded again, putting him marginally behind in the contest for the first time. Ace-queen beat Bleznick’s ace-ten for another sizeable chunk and sitting behind close to $600,000, Berkey had the beating of his opponent. As the two men shook hands and departed, Berkey had lost over $314,900 to his opponent across 12 hours of play.

“Thank you for letting me out of the PLO.” Berkey said with a smile.

“It’s the biggest mistake of my life.” Bleznick joked.

If you’re a PokerGO subscriber, you can watch all the action, with Part 1 of the battle here and Part 2 on show here.