Poker Stories: Daniel Negreanu’s World Series of Poker, Part 6
Poker Legend Daniel Negreanu begins his 43rd day of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) on day 2 of the 1500 mixed No Limit Hold ‘Em / Pot Limit Omaha tournament with 54 big blinds (BB), a good stack that’s well above the average of 32 BBs.
It doesn’t take long, however, for his luck to start going downhill. He plays a big pot against pro player Dylan Weisman, who bluffs Negreanu off a pair of aces with absolute air: 89o on a turn board of AKTK. Negreanu figured he must have a king, but he was wrong.
He goes to break with a little less than average, but when he comes back he doubles up by going all-in on the river with a check call. “This is great, everything is going well today,” he beams.
Things turn sour when a guy calls him down with a bad hand just so that he can be on the Vlog. Despite having terrible odds, he sucks out and busts D-Negs out at 18th place, holding a pair of pocket aces.
Negreanu buys into the final levels of the 10k Razz and wins some pots to triple his stack size before the night is over.
Photo: PokerNews
The day starts out good, playing Razz with other all-timers like Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth, who is giving out bottles of Dom Perignon. Ah, to be a poker millionaire!
Laughs aside, Negreanu can’t catch a break. He loses pot after pot until his stack is piddly in comparison to what he started with. He loses multiple all-ins until he finally busts.
“I’m okay,” he vents. “It sucked, but I’m okay.”
Loading another bullet in the chamber, he decides to buy into the 5k NLHE freezeout. The tournament barely seems to have started before he busts out again.
Once again, Daniel Negreanu is down over $1,000,000 for the series so far.
“I love the drama, bottom of the 9th type stuff,” he says in the morning as he prepares to go play the 50k NLHE, his last chance to get unstuck for the series. This high roller tournament will make or break his summer.
It only takes a short time for him to lose his first buy-in, and he heads back to the cage to rebuy.
He plays some good hands and even wins a big pot in what he calls a “heeby-jeeby spot” where he hero-calls against a big bluff.
Still, it doesn’t last. “Well, not our day here obviously,” he fumes after busting again. “It just didn’t sting the way it should, for 2 buy-ins at 50k.” Perhaps he’s becoming desensitized to the abuse.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to roll over and give up though! “It’s winding down. I’m starting to feel it,” concludes Negreanu. “45 days of not a great series. But I’m going to finish it. Let’s play!”
At the end of day 45, he’s down $1,103,848 for the series. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
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