Hellmuth Defeats Cates to Win King Of The Hill Title and $200k!

It was ‘White Magic’ all the way as Phil Hellmuth took down the King of the Hill title on Poker Night in America fans, Daniel Cates unable to fight off the legendary 14-bracelet winner in what ‘Jungleman’ called ‘New School, the math’ versus the ‘Old School’ ahead of the final.

The epic battle saw an amazing recovery from Hellmuth, who at one point had less than 6K in chips against almost 200K of Jungleman, launching an incredible comeback which included a fantastic bluff which set the ‘pokernet’ alight…

On the 2+2 forum, posters were enthralled by the match which was live-streamed on the Live at the Bike TwitchTV channel, ‘Jam-Fly' echoing the sentiments of most when he wrote:

‘Can't remember the last time I've intently watched a poker show but this is pretty entertaining. The T5 fold was an out loud wtf moment.’

‘This is the most entertaining hu match I've ever seen,’ was NeA’s take on it, with LittleGoliath adding: ‘This hu match is just pure insanity’.

Before getting to the final of the winner-takes-all $50,000 buy-in event, Hellmuth advanced from a classic semi-final match up against ‘the best online heads-up player of all-time’, Doug Polk, after an hour-long battle in which Polk too often called with second-best hands – even leaving one call up to chance by ‘tossing a coin’ using his reveal card.

“I have a weird hand. How do you have a seven? Seven-x of hearts? Ten-seven?” Polk could be heard talking to himself on the live Twitch stream: “It’s such a big bet too. It’s really weird to have a seven here,” before his plaque flip compelled him to call, giving him the bad news that Hellmuth had rivered the straight against Polk’s 2 pair.

“I’m pretty sure I was going to shake your hand and be happy anyway,” Hellmuth said to Polk as they shook hands when it was all over, already knowing that he would face Cates who had won his semi-final in short order.

Jungleman was facing Frank Kassela, the 3-times WSOP bracelet winner from Vegas out of Tennessee, the Rivers Casino in Schenectady, New York witnessing a sharp battle from the off. Less than 15 minutes in, on only the fourth hand of the match, Kassela was all-in and fighting for his life needing to fill his boat on the river against Cates turned straight.

 “I have the nuts,” Cates told Kassela, receiving the reply “The nuts is good,” as they watched a brick three appear on the river, telling those spectating:

“Sorry. That would have been fun if it had lasted a little longer.”

The King of the Hill event is sure to draw even more viewers to the Bike’s live streams and this week will see the likes of Antonio Esfandiari and Ryan Fee sitting down for a cash game starting at $50/100 but likely to get even higher.