The WSOP has always been a special series for players, recreational and professional alike. However, few have the history, the success and the near misses associated with Daniel Negreanu. With 6 bracelets, he has accomplished more at this series than most players, and yet his years at the World Series remain marked by moments of what might have been.
This summer, he equalled Phil Hellmuth’s inglorious career record of ten 2nd places while making 4 final table appearances. Once again though, bracelet number 7 eluded the Canadian star.
If poker is ultimately about money however, Negreanu has plenty to be happy about. He went into the summer having made a clean break from PokerStars and put together another strong year, finishing with a mountain of profit, much to the delight of the fans he sold action to at zero mark-up.
Daniel Negreanu’s earnings and return for investors this summer
Before this summer’s festivities began, Negreanu declared that he would be selling action at zero mark-up. Of course, the moment he put those pieces of his action on sale, they were bought up in seconds. The buyers were quickly proven to have done a great bit of business when Negreanu began notching the deep runs.
By the end of the series, he had accumulated $1,282,753 in pure profit. This meant that his backers all got a share of a total figure of $481,026. Of course, Negreanu’s series wasn’t quite plain sailing. He was on course to book a significant loss until his 2nd place in the $100K High Roller event at the end of the series netted him $1,725,838.
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Career consistency
Having posted his results over a 5-year period back in early 2018, we have a unique insight into just how Negreanu has been doing in monetary terms on the live poker circuit.
Here is the breakdown of numbers he posted:
Events: 291
Cashes: 68
ITM %: 23.4
Buy Ins: $10,329,453
Payouts: $19,062,527
Profit: $8,733,074
Avg Buy In: $35,496
Hourly Rate: (Hours 2565) $3405
Since posting those numbers, Negreanu has had a sub-par 2018. But, his results in 2019, including those four final tables and two 2nd places have underlined the fact that aside from the odd blip in results, he is one of the most consistent players at the WSOP each year.
WSOP POY 2019?
Having posted excellent results while sadly, not winning any extra wrist decorations, Negreanu has put himself into contention for Player of the Year in 2019. The fact that he is the only player to have already won this accolade twice shows his strength across all game variants and a third title would put him firmly in a class of his own in terms of WSOP success. If not for variance in heads-up battles we would almost certainly be talking of Negreanu as one of the rare few players with 10 or more bracelets.
While his chances of a bracelet this year are now limited, Negreanu still has a strong shot at the WSOP Player of the Year title with the World Series of Poker Europe just around the corner. This extra mini-series offers a further ten bracelet events, and a few deep runs could easily settle the POY race one way or the other.
Negreanu does, of course have strong opposition in this contest, with Australian pro Robert Campbell leading the way, and defending Player of the Year Shaun Deeb close behind him. Negreanu’s 2nd place in the $100K event towards the end of the summer may have hurt in terms of missing out on a bracelet, but it has catapulted him into 3rd behind Deeb, and gifted him a chance of an unprecedented third Player of the Year crown.
Here are the current standings:
1st – Robert Campbell – 3,418.78
2nd – Shaun Deeb – 3,280.13
3rd – Daniel Negreanu – 3,166.24
4th – Daniel Zack – 3,126.13
5th – Phillip Hui – 2,881.67
Negreanu’s last WSOP VLOG
Article by Craig Bradshaw
