26 Oct 12

Top Ten Poker Challenges Part 1

This week Isaac Haxton and Daniel "Jungleman" Cates both revealed they were going to embark on some high stakes poker challenges. Barry Carter looks back on some of the best known poker challenges in recent poker history.

10. The Leatherass golf and poker challenge

leatherass
Dusty Schmidt
We start with a challenge that was never taken, but the fact that nobody was interested is worthy of mention in itself.

In 2009, PokerStrategy.com coach Dusty 'AdminLeatherass9' Schmidt made a $1 million challenge that he could beat anyone over 72 holes of golf and 10 heads-up poker matches.

Dusty made this challenge because not only is he one of the best online players in the world, he is also a former professional golfer. He was confident that no golfer would be good enough to beat him at poker, and no poker player would be good enough to beat him at golf.

Nobody took him up on his challenge, and given how popular golf is with poker players it probably demonstrates what a lock he was to win it.

9. Negreanu's $10 to $100,000 challenge

negreanu
Daniel Negreanu
Some of the challenges in this top ten will amaze you at the volume that poker players can put in at the tables.

This one will not.

In 2009, Daniel Negreanu announced he would take on the challenge of turning $10 into $100,000 on PokerStars, starting at the microstakes.

While this is clearly a massive treat for all the low stakes players out there who have a genuine chance to share a table with KidPoker, connoisseurs of grinding have been left wanting.

To date he has only played 7,347 hands. However, he has managed to build his bankroll up to $258.87, which is pretty impressive for the number of hands played so far.

It also hasn't helped that Black Friday struck right in the middle of the challenge, meaning Daniel is unable to play whenever he is in Las Vegas. The challenge is still ongoing and you can follow it here.

8. Annette_15 plays blind

One of the most fascinating and unique online poker challenges came from online phenom and WSOPE champion Annette Obrestad.

Known as an incredibly strong positional player, she famously set a challenge that she could win a 180-seat Sit & Go without looking at her hole cards. (the only time she could peek at them was when facing an all-in call).

Win one she did, and posted the hand history for all to see.



7. Isildur1's SuperStar Showdowns

isildur1
Viktor Blom
If there is one player who is synonymous with not backing down from any challenge it has to be Viktor "Isildur1" Blom.

Part of his sponsorship deal with PokerStars involved him taking on a number of high stakes opponents heads-up, including Tony G, Isaac Haxton, Daniel Negreanu, Eugene Katchalov and Daniel 'AdminJunglemandan' Cates.

Blom ended up winning 11 out of the 14 challenges in total, only losing to Isaac Haxton (twice) and once to Daniel Negreanu. He ended the challenge up by $1,196,745.96 after 37,788 hands in total.

6. ChigagoJoey's SuperNova Elite prop bet

Something of an unsung hero of volume bets is JoeIngram1, also known as ChigagoJoey. Having already won a prop bet that he could play 50,000 hands profitably in one day previously, last year he took on a challenge that he could make SuperNova Elite in 2.5 months playing low stakes PLO, with the stipulation that 50% of his hands had to be at $0.50/$1 or below.

He already had 350,000 VPPs at the start of the challenge and got 3-1 odds on his $15,000 bet (On top of the status of Supernova Elite being worth $120,000 to him).

He managed to get there on New Years Eve and in doing so set a world record of 450,000 PLO hands in one month. You can see how happy it made him here:



Join us later on this week for part 2 in our countdown.

By Barry Carter l Barry Carter on Twitter