Daniel Negreanu won $177,000 during the first 200 hands of his heads-up grudge match with Doug Polk. Those first 200 hands of the $200-$400 head-up no-limit hold’em match were played live at the Aria, however.
Since then, the match, and its remaining 24,800 hands, has moved to the online streets of WSOP.com and the results have heavily tilted in favor of Polk. After two more sessions, Polk went from down $117,000 to up more than $268,000 over another 806 hands.
Got my hand caught in the cookie jar early, but we rallied back for another strong session (+$166,239.03 over 382 hands)
This brings the total up to +$268,031.82 over 1006 hands. So far so good!— Doug "Truck Driver" Polk (@DougPolkVids) November 10, 2020
The pair played their first online session last Friday, which lasted for slightly more than two hours and 424 hands. They played two tables with automatic top-ups to the 100-big blind, $40,000 buy-in and it was pretty much all Polk from start to finish.
Polk won a little more than $218,000 and swung the match in his favor. Negreanu was on the wrong side of variance throughout the day. He was on the bad side of cooler situations and his bluffs ran into the top of Polk’s range.
Negreanu lost a buy-in when he got all in preflop with his A-Q against Doug’s Q-Q, and then another one when he floated the flop and turn with 9
7 on an 8
8
5
8 board in a three-bet pot. The river was the 9 and he called a shove but lost to Polk’s AA.
The nine-high float was one of the more controversial hands of the session, but in a post-match interview with GGPoker Ambassador Kevin Martin, Negreanu said that given the suits in his hand, he had plans of taking the pot away on the river.
The six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner said that since the 8 was not on the board, and he had the 9 and 7 in his hand, it was highly unlikely that Polk would have quads. Especially since Polk’s most likely hands to three-bet preflop that contain an eight were 98 or 78.
On the river, Negreanu was left with about $42,000 in his stack and there was a little more than $45,000 in the pot. If Polk had checked the river, Negreanu was planning on bluffing. It was an unlucky event that he hit a nine and made a full house and could then beat some of Polk’s bluffs.
Polk’s former video editor, Thomas Keeling, had a little fun with the hand on Twitter. He synced up the hand with an edited version of a now-infamous tilt session Negreanu endured while encountering internet problems during his stream of last summer’s online WSOP. [Warning: Video contains graphic language]
Wow what a river card! pic.twitter.com/AjFwdLc2dC
— Thomas Keeling (@SrslySirius) November 8, 2020
It was more of the same on Monday as Polk continued to stretch his lead. Over another 382 hands, Polk won another $166,293.
In tweets published following Monday’s victory, Polk acknowledged that Negreanu had run below expectation over the match’s first 1,000 hands.
“I will say he is obviously running bad in a bunch of standard cooler spots,” tweeted Polk. “His game does have some issues though.”
Polk also noted that even though his Canadian opponent is stuck more than $268,000, it’s a very standard swing given the stakes and sample size.
“Just cause the number is big doesn’t mean DNegs is down that much,” tweeted Polk. “He is down a little under 7 buyins. That is a completely normal result over 1k hands of [heads-up no-limit hold’em].”
The duo will continue their grudge match Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT.
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