Chess Queen Alexandra Botez Takes Down Streamer Heads-Up Tourney for $250K

Famous American-Canadian chess streamer Alexandra Botez won the Poker Champs Heads-Up tournament for $250,000 on Sunday, September 27th. Poker Champs ran on ClubWPT Gold, and it featured eight Twitch streamers with large audiences, including Félix “xQc” Lengyel, Thomas Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris, and Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp.

The promotional heads-up tourney had a $500,000 prize pool, and was broadcast on Doug Polk’s popular poker YouTube channel.

Of the featured streamers, it was definitely Botez who came into the contest with the best chance of winning. Not only is she already an accomplished chess player, thus very familiar with game theory concepts, but she has some poker experience as well. 

She has $150,873 in live tournament winnings, according to her Hendon Mob profile. Her largest cash to date on the live felt is $67,300, which she got for coming in 187th in the $25,000 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event in the Bahamas in December 2024. Botez has almost quadrupled that score with her online heads-up victory.

Alexandra Botez vs Sodapoppin in Poker Champs Heads-Up Final

Botez defeated Erobb, then Paymoney Wubby to get to the final. There, she faced off against Sodapoppin, who had bested xQc and Tyler1 to get there on the other side of the tournament tree. As per the format, a player had to win two heads-up matches with escalating blinds out of three to advance.

Before the grand final, Doug Polk complimented the two players, claiming they were playing the best poker throughout the tournament.

Botez took down the first of (potentially) three matches, handing Sodapoppin his first loss in the tournament overall. 

And there was no need for the third heads-up match: Botez sealed her victory in the second game! 

Before the final hand, she had built up a little over 2:1 chiplead, but the stacks were getting short already. Bigger stack Botez was sitting on 55 BBs, while Sodapoppin had 26 BBs. 

Botez got dealt ♥10♦10 for red pocket tens in the big blind. Her opponent on the button opened ♦K♠4 to the minimum, prompting a natural 3-bet from Botez to 8 BBs, which Sodapoppin called.

The flop came ♠2♦A♠A. Botez c-bet out of position to the exact same size, 8 BB again. Sodapoppin did not have too much on that board, but put in a bluff min-raise, leaving himself just about 3 BBs behind.

At this point, Polk in his virtual commentary booth suspected the entire tournament was coming to an end. And it did: Botez 3-bet all-in; and Sodapoppin did not want to play with 3 BBs, so he called. 

The board ran out ♦6♣J, giving chess master Botez some heads-up NLHE accolades as well — along with a $250K payday.

OMGGGG WE WON THE POKER TOURNAMENT! $250,000 FOR FIRST PLACE! 😭🤠☺️🙌😮 pic.twitter.com/rDhigBqClI

— Alexandra Botez (@alexandrabotez) September 27, 2026