Just over a year ago, Dan Bilzerian was introduced as GGPoker's newest brand ambassador. The self-proclaimed "King of Instagram" was supposed to create a stir in social networks as a well-dosed enfant terrible and make headlines for GGPoker.
Bilzerian started making headlines immediately, calling then-GG-player Vanessa Kade a "Hoe" after she questioned why Bilzerian, of all people, was chosen as the new brand ambassador.
Shortly after, GGPoker held a Bilzerian-Freeroll with a prize pool of $100,000. The winner of this freeroll was promised a heads-up match with Dan Bilzerian (online or live), in which 10,000 dollars would be played out. This freeroll was won by the author and amateur poker player Alex O'Brien from London.
However, this promised heads-up never took place. On December th this year, a year after O'Brien won the freeroll, she carefully pointed out via Twitter that she had been waiting a year for the duel against Bilzerian.
Happy Birthday? https://t.co/00hSVqwbVa
— Alex O'Brien (@obrientweet) December 7, 2021
Americas Cardroom steps in with Vanessa-Kade-Heads-Up
The poker site Americas Cardroom (ACR) took up the idea of this heads-up match and asked O'Brien if she wanted to play against one of the pros from ACR's grid instead of Bilzerian. The background to this offer is surely that Vanessa Kade, who had been insulted by Bilzerian, has meanwhile joined ACR as a pro player and still holds a grudge against Bilzerian.
O'Brien was excited by the idea of a replacement heads-up, if only it was against Vanessa Kade. That duel will now take place shortly.
Vanessa Kade agreed to the heads-up and wished her opponent to win: "I’m glad ACR has agreed to step in and give Alex a match in the interim, and I’m honored that she chose me to play. I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but I’m not specifically a heads-up pro by any means and although I’m not going to soft play her, I sincerely hope she wins. I think that result would make the most people happy, especially Alex, which would make me happy. She is clearly a very intelligent woman who has put in a lot of study time and I think it will be a tough match."
GGPoker makes good on promise
In parallel with ACR's offer to take over the promised duel, GGPoker offered to pay Alex O'Brien the $10,000 that was to be played out in the match against Bilzerian. O'Brien accepted this offer and immediately donated the prize money to charity.
Thus, for almost everyone involved everything turned our for the best. Only Dan Bilzerian made himself look silly, as it seems that the self-declared highstakes professional doesn't have the cojones to play a sponsored heads-up against an amateur player.
PokerListings Christmas raffle
Take part in today's Christmas raffle sponsored by GGPoker.
Today's prizes are two GGPoker hoodies.
How to win? Just leave your GGPoker nickname as a comment below. We will draw and announce the two winners tomorrow.
- Only comments made before Dec. 15th (UTC) are considered.
- Please note: Comments will not appear immediately after posting them.
If you don't have an account at GGPoker, sign up via this link: » GGPoker Sign Up
And the winners are:
Thank you all for participating. The two winners are:
- Trip2Vegas
- fizzzzy
They will be contacted via mail.
Kakashi1
I’ll play, Heads Up- Chips down!
Let’s go! Username GTOGTFO
Lafa_Ru
BreakingBad
TheBandit32
EUROVISA
SaadS
reebs
molga67
Trip2Vegas
gnosis4ever
fizzzzy
PROSTOZIDAR
Maurizio
GGpoker Nickname : CLeonard
Bucky
valerion06
Robotonius