Negreanu's quest for first US Poker Open title comes agonizingly close

Daniel Negreanu came oh so close to breaking his US Poker Open duck on Saturday night in Las Vegas, but eventually had to take second place to Matthew Wantman. As it turned out, Negreanu wasn’t too upset though...

The second half of the eight-tournament high roller series in the PokerGO studios at the Aria kicked off with another $10k buy-in NHL event. Pulling in 92 entries, 14 players would get paid spots from the $920,000 prize pool, along with the all-important USPO and PGT leaderboard points. 

By the time day two dawned and the final table of seven was set, the record books were being consulted. As Jeff Platt pointed out on Twitter/X, Victoria Livschitz had become “the fifth player in PGT majors’ history to cash in four or more consecutive events,” joining Sam Soverel, Sean Winter and Jeremy Ausmus. In addition, the fifth member of that elite squad, Rodger Johnson, had just gone one better, securing his fifth straight cash in this year’s series. Nobody has ever cashed six in a row. 

Meanwhile, Erik Seidel was hoping for a repeat of his success in Event 1, while Negreanu was looking for his third PokerGO Tour win of the year, and he looked set to do that. After taking out David Peters, Negreanu accounted for Grant Wang in a cooler for the USPO newbie who got it in with only to run in Negreanu's . 

Negreanu could seemingly do no wrong as he then toppled Livschitz’s pocket kings with pocket treys, and watched on as Wantman finally did some work to deny Seidel a second series win. Heads-up, however, didn’t go Daniel’s way. He lost a big pot A-5 against K-Q and despite doubling after that, he was unable to win when it mattered most...

2024 US Poker Open Event 5 results

Wantman’s win launches him to fifth place on the leaderboard. Negreanu’s runner-up finish sneaks him in at number 10 with just three events left on the schedule.

2024 US Poker Open leaderboard (after 5 events)

^{Images courtesy of PokerGO/Antonio Abrego}