Seventeen months later, it's finally happening.
We’ll be tuning in to see how Negreanu gets on against some of HCL's best regs, who play a very different game to the big tournaments where we usually see Negreanu.
We’re particularly excited to see him square off against Nik Airball – and there’s already been beef on X. There are definitely two big personalities here, and neither one will want to come off second best.
Airball might regret that post. Negreanu has a lot of experience playing in the biggest live cash games, going right back to the early days of High Stakes Poker. However, Airball is the self-proclaimed "King of LA" and recently became the winningest player on HCL.
The full line-up was announced by Hustler Casino Live on Thursday night – and it includes the return of Andy Stacks. Sam Kiki (Senor Tilt) also has a seat at the table. Add in the other players and the $100/$200 game with a min $50K buy-in could end up playing really big.
Hustler Casino Live lineup – Friday, August 28
- Daniel Negreanu
- Andy Stacks
- Sam Kiki
- Nik Airball
- 3Coin
- Steve
- Dr. H
- Jellyfish
The stream is kicking off early. It’s a 2pm start PT, which is 5pm ET and 10pm UK time.
The dream opponent who's missing
The one player we would have loved to see on the line-up is Alan Keating.
The high-stakes cash player called out Negreanu ahead of the HCL Million Dollar Game in 2025.
Negreanu was quick to respond.
“First of all, I don’t like to travel, even though LA isn’t that far away. To go there and play in a million-dollar cash game I don’t give a f*** about at all… When you play cash, what are you playing for? Money. Meh. I want to win trophies.”
And in case people didn’t believe him, he continued:
“A lot of people think I’m going to show up last minute. Here’s a secret: no, I’m not playing... I’m not going to be playing; I just don’t care any more. I’m not in a stage of my life now where I need to whip it out. I enjoy tournaments. Tournaments are fun."
He also directly responded to Keating saying, “You were literally calling me, out of all people. Why me? Because you want to get the most amount of eyeballs on this. I like him [Keating] a lot... I just didn’t care."
Whatever's caused it, we’re happy he’s had a volte-face. Negreanu was always our go-to guy on High Stakes Poker. And maybe a big win on his HCL debut will remind Negreanu that cash games aren't so bad after all – and tempt him back for a future showdown with Keating.
