When your table nemesis is leading the WSOP Player of the Year race – and his name is Alex Foxen – things are going to be tough. Even if your name is Daniel Negreanu.
Negreanu began Day 3 of the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller with just 19 big blinds, but for a while a spin up and a deep run looked very possible.
But then he ran into Foxen, who Negreanu has jokingly described as his nemesis this summer. Foxen has followed him to seemingly every table he's played at this summer — right down to Negreanu's final-table run in the $600 PLO / NLH Deepstack event.
Negreanu had chipped up in the first half hour of play from 995K to just under 1.4M with five players eliminated, but was still one of the shorter stacks. Foxen had maintained his perch atop the chip counts among the 26 remaining players when they clashed.
Negreanu: 'Poker's luck, too'
At blinds of 25K/50K (50K), Foxen raised to 135K from early position and was called by Negreanu on the button and Chance Kornuth in the big blind.
The 
flop lined up perfectly for fireworks. After action checked to Negreanu, he bet 300K. Kornuth folded, but Foxen appeared interested, asking Negreanu if he had about a million behind, which he did.
Foxen check-potted it for just under 1.4M, prompting Negreanu to grab his vlogging phone to record the showdown as he committed his remaining stack.
Negreanu: 
Foxen: 
Negreanu was ahead with his set of kings, but Foxen held the nut flush draw and aces for a couple more outs.
If Negreanu’s regal trio could hold, he’d vault into the top ten chip stacks. He asked the dealer to pair the board to end things quickly, but while the 
turn was somewhat clean, it gave Foxen a second flush draw.
With 19 outs now to fade, Negreanu couldn’t find another clean card on the river as the 
completed Foxen’s front-door flush to end Negreanu’s day in 26th place.
“Poker’s luck, too, I swear sometimes,” Negreanu told his vlog, then turned off his phone, wished the table ‘GG’ and headed off to the next one.
Needing a High Roller run
The result was worth $69,531, but far from the $2,161,056 first prize and an eighth bracelet, which Negreanu had his sights set on.
While prize money isn't Negreanu's primary motivation, every poker player wants to finish the summer in profit, and this cash did little to offset the cost of five entries.
Negreanu is always fully transparent with his profits or losses in the summer, providing an updated tally at the end of each episode of his vlog for his fans, some of whom have a small piece of his action on PokerStake.
In for a total of $125,000 for this event, Negreanu added $55,469 to his WSOP deficit, which now sits at $650,740.
There are still plenty of big buy-in events for Negreanu to get into the black, including the $10K HORSE Championship starting today, the $50K PLO High Roller on Friday, and the $50K Poker Players Championship on Sunday, an event Negreanu won two years ago.
Meanwhile, Foxen continues his march toward a fifth WSOP bracelet and a second title of the summer. Play is scheduled to pause with five players remaining at the end of Day 3.
