Daniel Negreanu Secures Second Title of 2024 With PGT PLO Win

Daniel Negreanu kicked off 2024 with a public commitment to focus on ‘quality over quantity’ this year after posting a $2.2 million loss on the poker tournament circuit in 2023. The 49-year-old Poker Hall of Fame member’s efforts to pare down the number of events he enters to ensure proper rest and focus has seemingly paid off. He has managed eight final-table finishes and two titles so far this year, with his first win being a victory in the kickoff event of the PGT Last Chance series that ran just a few days into the new year.

The six-time bracelet winner and two-time World Poker Tour champion’s most recent victory saw him defeat a field of 118 entries in the 2024 PGT PLO Series $5,100 pot-limit Omaha event. He earned $147,500 for the win, bringing his career total to more than $51.5 million. Negreanu now sits in seventh place on poker’s all-time money list.

Negreanu also earned plenty of ranking points for this victory. The 480 Card Player Player of the Year points he was awarded grew his total to 2,140. As a result, he climbed into 16th place in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker. He also claimed the third-place spots on both the PGT season-long points race leaderboard and the PGT PLO series rankings thanks to the 148 PGT points he earned in this event.

This event played out over the course of two days inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas. The top 17 finishers made the money in this event, but only six moved on to day 2.

Negreanu held the chip lead after day 1 concluded, with Anuj Agarwal sitting on the next-largest stack. Lance Patel was the short stack to start. He was ultimately the first to hit the rail when Curtis Muller cracked his pocket aces. Patel earned $29,500 as the sixth-place finisher.

Pocket aces fared better for Negreanu in the next big showdown, as they held against the A-K-9-8 with ace-high spades for bracelet winner Dylan Weisman. A pair of aces was still best by the river and Weisman was eliminated in fifth place ($38,350).

Muller soon got all-in with a flush draw against the pocket aces of Agarwal. He added an open-ended straight draw on the turn, but bricked out on the end to finish fourth ($50,150).

Brutno Furth lost a big chunk of his stack in a clash with Negreanu. The rest soon went in on a K993 board with Furth holding K776 facing the Q1093 of Agaral. The A on the end meant Furth would have to settle for $64,900 as the third-place finisher.

Negreanu held better than a 2:1 chip advantage over Agarwal at the start of heads-up play. Agarwal got off to a quick start and soon overtook the lead. He began to pull away a bit before Negreanu kicked off a comeback of his own. Negreanu scored a crucial double-up to take a sizable lead when his flopped jacks and fives held against Agarwal’s flush and straight draws. The turn improved Agarwal’s straight draw to a wrap, but an ace on the river sent the key pot to Negreanu.

In the final hand Agarwal raised from the button and called all-in when Negreanu three-bet pot with AKQ9. Agarwal held A543. The board came down KJ32J and Negreanu made the ace-high flush to win the pot and the title. Agarwal earned $91,450 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded on the final day:

Photo credit: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.

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