Daniel Negreanu went eight years without winning a live poker tournament, a stat that is still hard to believe. After Sunday's win in Poker Masters Event #5: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em for $178,200, he now has two victories since June. And he just might have an old rival — Doug Polk — to thank for the recent success.
On July 11, Polk posted a video on his YouTube channel about the length of time it had been since Negreanu won a poker tournament. One day later, "Kid Poker" scooped a $50,000 buy-in PokerGO Cup event for $700,000 and would eventually be crowned the overall series champion.
Fast forward exactly two months later to Sunday afternoon at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, and the GGPoker ambassador is back in the winner's circle. Negreanu beat out a field of 66 entrants to win his first ever Poker Masters event.
He earned 179 points for his second cash of the high roller series, giving him 281 overall, putting him atop the leaderboard in the race for the Purple Jacket. But there are still seven events remaining, so it's still way too early for his fans to get too excited.
Polk's video likely had no impact on Negreanu finally getting over the hump to win a couple of tournaments. But it's still an odd coincidence either way.
2021 Poker Masters Event #5 Final Table Results
| Place | Player | County | Points | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | 181 | $178,200 |
| 2nd | Nick Petrangelo | United States | 132 | $133,000 |
| 3rd | Vikenty Shegal | United States | 86 | $66,000 |
| 4th | Jake Daniels | United States | 66 | $69,000 |
| 5th | Jeffrey Trudeau | United States | 53 | $52,800 |
Rough Hand Ends Petrangelo's Run
During heads up play, with both players relatively close in chips — Negreanu slightly out in front — one pseudo-cooler hand propelled the Poker Hall of Famer to victory.
Nick Petrangelo raised on the button to 180,000 with a♣️
On the river, which was the 4♠️, Negreanu went big, betting out 1.8 million. Petrangelo made the call to find out the bad news and admitted the check on the turn was a tricky but strong play by his opponent. The hand left him with just 760,000, less than 10 big blinds.
Moments later, "DNegs" picked up a♠️a♣️ on the button and limped. Petrangelo took the bait and shoved all-in with q♠️10♠️. The board came out clean for Negreanu — 4♣️k♦️5♥️6♣️k♣️ — and that was all she wrote.
Negreanu, the champion, took home $178,200 for his impressive performance and the runner-up received $133,000. The PokerGO Studio also played host to Day 1 (of two) of Event #6: 10,000 8-Game. Registration was still open at the time of publishing but 30 players had entered.
