A unique heads-up charity poker tournament will be held online later today at PokerStars.net between last year's World Series Of Poker (WSOP) main event champion Peter Eastgate and runner-up Ivan Demidov.
Both players are members of PokerStars.net's team of sponsored professionals and are set to slug it out on Friday starting at six o'clock in the evening New York time.
When the pair first clashed last November there was over nine million dollars at stake and the bout went down in the history books as the longest main event heads-up event in the history of the WSOP.
The charity contest will replicate the exact circumstances under which the two contestants played in 2008 with Denmark's Eastgate starting with 80,300,000 chips while Russian pro Demidov will take to the table with 56,600,000. The blinds will be set at 120,000/240,000 with a 30,000 running ante.
The special match will see $10,000 donated to the players' chosen charities, the Danish Refugee Council in the case of Eastgate and The Hospice Charity Fund ‘Vera' Inn for Demidov.
In the 2008 final, Demidov managed to snatch the chip lead early before losing it when Eastgate's queen high beat his jack high. During the 39th round, the blind reached one million chips, the biggest in the history of the WSOP. Demidov was unable to recover his chip lead and Eastgate was crowned champions after 15 hours and 39 minutes of play.