First Round Matchups Announced For King of the Hill II

Phil Hellmuth will be hoping for a repeat of the ‘white magic’ which he used to defeat Doug Polk and Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates last month as the pairings for Poker NIght in America’s King of the Hill II were released, the defendning champion taking on Parker ‘tonkaaaa’ Talbot and hoping to meet the winner of Shaun Deeb vs Olivier Busquet.

The $50,000 buy-in, winner-takes-all-format was a resounding success last time out, the 14-time WSOP bracelet winner downing Doug Polk in the semi-finals before launching an amazing comeback to take out Cates in what ‘Jungleman’ had described as ‘New School, the math’ versus the ‘Old School’.

Scheduled for October 6th at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, Doug Polk will be in the commentary booth for the televised event and will be sure to have a few words of ‘encouragement’ for the man who had characteristically ‘expected’ to win against the younger generation.

His first opponent, Parker ‘tonkaaaa’ Talbot is a 25-year old Canadian known throughout the online poker community for the massive amount of tournaments he plays – over 160,000 so far, a phenomenal record which has seen him hit SuperNovaElite no less than three times! – and also for his excellent and ground-breaking TwitchTV broadcasts.

Big Phil will no doubt be relishing another opportunity to take on a youngster from the online world, although so far he has been reserved, only tweeting the news…

The other match-up features the well-known and often controversial Shaun Deeb taking on the might of Olivier Busquet, the latter hitting the headlines last year when he defeated fellow poker pro JC Alvarado in a hard-hitting MMA fight which saw almost $2million exchange hands in side-bets.

Deeb is a regular on Poker Night in America, with a proven track record in both live and online play, although he’ll have to be at his best if he hopes to take down high-stakes pro Busquet. It hasn’t stopped him from setting the tone of the event, his ability to entertain and annoy people in equal measures already apparent…

The winner of the event will walk off with $200,000 and PokerTube will be bringing you the best of the action.