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Poker Pro Daniel Negreanu Considers Forgoing Re-Entries In 2020 Poker Tournaments

Six-Time WSOP Bracelet Winner Feels Re-Entries Shouldn't Be The Standard In Tournaments

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Six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and newly crowned GGPoker Ambassador Daniel Negreanu is considering playing his entire 2020 tournament schedule without re-entering an event. Not even once.

The Canadian pro tweeted Monday that even though this would hurt his bottom line, he wants to do his part to help reduce the number of re-entries in every field.

Re-entries have become an integral part of the tournament poker world. With guaranteed prize pools becoming the standard over the last several years, organizers have gradually loosened its re-entry regulations.

When the poker boom was first getting started, outside of a select few events, the tournaments were freezeouts where players were only allowed a single entry. When that player lost their chips, they were out and had no chance at winning the tournament.

Now, most major and mid-major events outside of the World Series of Poker allow players to re-enter as many times as they want in order to sustain the huge prize pools and first-place payouts that players have become accustomed to.

In a subsequent tweet, Negreanu acknowledged that in the past, he would re-enter (or rebuy in the case of early days of the poker boom) as many times as he wanted to, but now feels guilty about hurting the experience of amateurs in the process.

Other prominent names in the poker world agreed with his sentiment that re-entry is bad for the game in the long run.

Although the idea likely wouldn’t work because of the incentives for players to defect, three-time bracelet winner Frank Kassela even tossed out the idea of boycotting re-entry events.

Negreanu’s tweet comes at one of the busiest times of the Las Vegas tournament schedule with four major series running this month.

One of the biggest tournaments of the year, the $10,000 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic kicks off at the Bellagio next week. It is an unlimited re-entry event along with most other prelim events on the schedule. As is the $5,300 no-limit hold’em Wynn Winter Poker Classic main event and the Card Player Poker Tour main event at Venetian.

The WSOP Circuit main event at Harrah’s features a single re-entry for each starting flight, allowing players to fire a max of four bullets into the $1,700 buy-in.