The WSOP has hosted some of the most famous heads up encounters in the history of the game. There are none bigger than the heads up encounter to decide the WSOP Main Event champion. This summer as the WSOP rolls into the Rio for its 8-week stay they are hosting a series of grudge matches. These grudge matches are famous WSOP Main Event heads-up encounters of the past as voted for by the fans themselves.

The fans voted for Chris Moneymaker v Sammy Farha (2003), Johnny Chan v Phil Hellmuth (1988) and Johnny Chan v Erik Seidel (1989).

The first match featured was Chan and Hellmuth. Just to put things into perspective Tom "Durrrr" Dwan was only three years old when these two first "got it on!" Chan was the dominant force in world poker at the time and he was on course for his third straight Main Event title. Then up stepped Phil Hellmuth and he ended Chan’s hopes whilst simultaneously becoming the youngest ever WSOP champion, a feat that would stand for two decades.

In the grudge match it was Johnny Chan who finally got a little bit of redemption (albeit a bit of fun) when he was victorious in his match against the self- proclaimed world greatest Hold’Em player.

In the other grudge match Chris Moneymaker beat Sammy Farha 2 v 1 in a best of three series. At the time of writing the third grudge match had not yet been played because Erik Seidel has gone deep in event number 3 so we will have to wait to hear the result of the Seidel v Chan rematch of 1989.

Written by Alex C, Alex is an online editor who contributes to gaming sites like this one with articles she has written on a range of online gaming topics. She likes Poker and casino but enjoys playing online bingo with poshbingo.co.uk.