Daniel Negreanu has had a long stint as a tournament bridesmaid. After his victory at the 2013 WSOPE High Roller event in Enghien-les-Bains, he didn't win an open tourney for eight years. He broke that streak last month at the PokerGO Cup.
But he's still got a way to go before he can feel he' gets back the shine he had back in the noughties.
The WSOP Online looks like more of the same as he cracked the money but failed to make the FT in his first event of the series.
Event #3: $2,500 Limit Hold 'em Championship was Negreanu's first event in GGPoker's WSOP Online. After a promising start, he took a series of beats to find himself with just a couple of bets in his stack and the bubble coming up slow.
He managed to hold on until he made the money, but busted shortly thereafter. Negreanu tweeted his own commiserations on busting.
"Opened with a min-cash in the $2500 LH @GGPoker WSOP event. Thought we were gonna win it!" Negreanu wrote on Twitter. "Next chance Thursday in the $800 NLH and will be streaming again."
Pushing the limit
Negreanu's run was pretty smooth for most of the tourney. He accrued chips quickly, talking to his viewers and putting on a clinic in basic limit hold 'em strategy. The starting stack of 50k quickly rose to around 300k.
By the time registration closed there were 140 unique players brought into the event, and an additional 40 re-buys in the pot. This made for a prize pool of $450,000 before the rake.
Viewers were given the opportunity to grab a slice of Negreanu's action, as he put a quarter of it up for sale. While this was clearly a bit of promo for GGPoker's staking feature, it gave a few of his viewers an extra level of investment in his run.
"Selling 25% of my action at NO MARKUP in the GG client in the next five minutes," Negreanu tweeted ahead of the event.
From robusto to busto
Negreanu's decline came on fast.
With the bubble looming, he caught a pair of queens in the pocket and saw them cracked by a player who chased 97os to two-pair on the turn. That knocked his stack down from a little over 300k to 212k. The limits had hit 20k/40k, which didn't leave him a lot of room to maneuver.
A misread led him to play a pair into his opponent's flush, knocking his stack down to just 22k with the bubble still to be broken and the limits up to 25k/50k.
Negreanu limped on. When the bubble finally broke, he breathed a sigh of relief. His next hand after making the money was the A♣K♠. A perfect shoving hand. With just over two big blinds in his stack he bet and called off his last few chips to go all-in.
Unfortunately, he found himself called by Renan Bruschi with Q♠Q♦️ and K. Maslak, who counterfeited Negreanu's hand with A♠K♦️. With two of his six outs in another player's hand, things were not looking good for Negreanu.
The flop of J♣T♣5♣ gave Negreanu a flush draw and a gutshot straight. With two cards to come, you can see the hope in Negreanu's eyes on the stream.
Unfortunately, the J♦️ on the turn, and 2♦️ on the river were no help for Negreanu. He left the tourney with $4,062.67, turning a small profit for his stake horses.
The event continues today. The final table has been reached and a bracelet winner will be announced later today. We will have the full coverage as it comes in.
Featured image source: Flickr by WPT
