Negreanu ends WSOP summer series with a miss; Next on schedule: HU challenge against Doug Polk

While many poker fans were closely cheering for GGPoker ambassador Daniel Negreanu to claim his seventh World Series of Poker bracelet, the long-time poker icon unfortunately ended the summer festival with a miss. Unable to break his seven-year bracelet drought, Negreanu is left with no choice but to stick with his six-bracelet standing until the next WSOP festival. As tournament wins are relatively hard to come by, poker pros are no exception to the standard, with roughly 70% of the players who join the games end up losing their money.

Despite missing out on a WSOP title across 85 events on schedule, Negreanu did make a total of 35 cashes for the series to cover some of his losses. His tournament winnings however, were not near enough to put the pro at a profit. Based on SharkScope, his results show a loss of $92,507 for his GGPoker festival grind. A small price to pay for a chance of a coveted WSOP victory, Negreanu had a couple deep runs and even a final table finish for the last official event. Sad to say, the pro was the first to bust out settling for ninth place and an end to his search for a bracelet in the said series.

Negreanu loses $100,000 prop bet

In addition to his recent tournament swing, Negreanu’s exciting side action included prop bets of a maximum of $100,000 allowed by a single person with fellow notable pros, depending on who would successfully claim WSOP gold for the series. Online pro Connor Drinan was quick to snag up a deal for the maximum amount against the Canadian poker icon, who would surprisingly end up in the losing end. Bosnian poker superstar Ali Imsirovic and partypoker ambassador Patrick Leonard likewise chimed in to get a piece of the side action Negreanu proposed but similarly fell short of a title.

After weeks of action teeming in the online poker scene, it would seem that no money between both parties would be paid considering the participants had yet to score the prestigious victory. It was only until the final event where Drinan landed his first WSOP title along with over $1.4 million and a WSOP Europe event package for his triumph. Drinan, although lacking a WSOP title under his long list of poker achievements, was a strong contender to win the bet especially that the said summer festival was to be held online. Just earlier this year, Drinan rose to become the first player to land five SCOOP titles in a single series, solidifying his skill and prowess over the online MTT field. Aside from his online success, the 32-year old American pro also has an outstanding record of live tournament earnings amounting to over $11.2 million with his best live cash at a $3.2 million mark.

Coming out on top of the $10,000 WSOP Super MILLION$ event, Drinan almost did not make the money, having only two big blinds right on bubble time. Counting in his skills with a significant heater, Drinan managed to quickly recover and make his way to dominate the final table play. One of Drinan’s crucial hands saw him outflopping initial chip leader Suraj Mishra with pocket nines for a set against Mishra’s pocket tens to take on a 4:1 chip lead entering heads up play against Daniyar Aubakirov. Drinan eventually sealed the deal with an additional $100,000 from the famous Poker Hall of Famer, Daniel Negreanu for the impressive win.

On the bubble this guy had 2 big blinds now he is crushing the final table!

How sick would it be to lose the bet on the last event of the year! Good luck @ConnorDrinan I’m rooting for you to come a solid second 😂 https://t.co/dxuZOOfoTk

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) September 8, 2020

What’s next for Daniel Negreanu? $200/$400 Heads up challenge vs Doug Polk

Following Negreanu’s emotional outburst directed at one of his viewers while live streaming his WSOP grind, talks of a heads up battle between the two poker icons began brewing in a series of tweets. The public feud between the two well known players has been going on for quite some time dating back to 2014 when it seemingly began. Continuing the “More rake is better” controversy back when Negreanu was an ambassador for PokerStars, the recent backlash from Kid Poker’s profanity-laced episode brought up another social media altercation between the two.

Podcaster Joey Ingram proposed an obvious solution to end the feud tweeting, “Can Doug and Daniel settle this by playing poker against each other HU at some point please???” which raised discussions of the upcoming match to be in progress. Thousands of poker enthusiasts revealed their full support and are closely waiting for further developments in relation to the challenge. While the schedule for the game has yet to be settled, Polk remains hard at work, training on Americas Cardroom poker site in preparation for the interesting event. With a history of being one of the best online cash game players in heads up No Limit Hold’em, one would think that it’d be easy for the pro to get back on the felt after retiring from the game merely a year ago. In his Twitter page, he shares with his fans the troubles he’s facing in getting back to the grind and a possible glum disposition if his results do not improve in time.

“All in all, either my fanbase of small to mid stakes players are either some of the strongest hunl players on the planet, or there may be trouble in paradise”, Polk posted in a tweet.

I have played 110 hours of poker in the last month and have made $16 and feel great about it

— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) September 12, 2020

So far, both players have confirmed to playing the talked-about heads up match with stakes set at $200/$400 between 10,000 to 25,000 hands. Numerous interested fans are closely keeping tabs of its schedule given the two’s huge fan base and prominent visibility in the poker community. Considering the WSOP online summer series just recently concluded, it’s just a matter of weeks when the event will be due and the social feud finally resolved.