The winds might finally be changing.
After weeks of getting squeezed by one of the greatest to ever click buttons, Owen “Pr0digy” Messere threw a serious wrench into Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger’s plans on Friday, booking a $30,000 win at the $100-$200 no-limit heads-up tables on CoinPoker.
Sure, $30,000 is only a buy-in and a half. But make no mistake, this session felt different. It was not about the dollars; it was about the shift.
Linus has been doing what Linus does, which is crushing souls (well… not against Kayhan). Coming into today, he had racked up nearly $200,000 in profit across their sessions, putting on a cold-blooded display of precision poker that had even hardened railbirds tipping their caps.
Messere? He was hanging tough, but the beatdown had been real.
Today, though, Pr0digy flipped the script. I was there, commentating on it live the whole way.
Linus vs Pr0digy – Clash of the Titans | Best Heads-Up Players in the World? https://t.co/FRIaWWii0I
— CoinPoker (@CoinPoker_OFF) April 25, 2025
From the jump, it was clear something had changed. Messere came out with a totally different approach: mixing his sizings more creatively, finding lighter call-downs, trapping where he used to barrel, and running some truly well-timed bluffs that even Linus could not sniff out.
One spot that stood out saw Messere float the flop light, pick up equity on the turn, and then rip the river on a brutal scare card, forcing Linus off what looked like a bluff-catcher. That is not the kind of play you pull off unless you are locked in, and today, Pr0digy was.
He even had another monster moment when he three-bet pocket nines, triple-barreled on an 8-5-5-4-3 runout, and stacked Linus for $50,000 when he could not get away from A-8 suited.
The $30,000 swing does not erase the nearly $200,000 Linus had already stacked. However, it sends a louder message that the gap is closing.
Watching in real time, it was obvious. Pr0digy was not just surviving, he was thriving. Setting traps, dictating pace, asking all the right questions. Against Linus, that is no small thing.
If you want to catch all the action yourself, these sessions are streamed live at the CoinPoker YouTube channel.
Is it just a spark, or the start of something bigger? Time will tell.
Today, for the first time in a while, the hunter looked just a little bit hunted.
Bobby James is a professional poker player, European Poker Tour champion, and one of the game’s leading strategy minds. He specializes in tournament analysis, player advocacy, and the evolution of competitive poker.
