Normally when you hear the name Daniel Negreanu, you think of the most successful live tournament poker player of all time. But you wouldn’t know that from his September online poker results, or fellow pro Isaac Haxton’s either.
But if September wasn’t a good month at the online poker tables for Negreanu and Haxton, just the opposite was true for Mikael ‘ChaoRen160’ Thuritz and Jason Mercier.
Negreanu doesn’t play high stakes games online much anymore. He only played one session during all of last month, but managed to dropped $131,057 in just 257 hands. Perhaps Kid Poker, understandably, didn’t feel like returning to his PokerStars account after a brutal session like that. Or, maybe he was just too busy bashing Donald Trump on Twitter to have time to play cards.
If there’s a silver lining in this for Negreanu, it’s that at least he didn’t grind 78 sessions to lose $152,798 during September like ‘philivey2694’ (Haxton). Nevada’s all-time winningest live tournament player had a month he’d like to forget.
But the no-limit hold’em heads-up specialist has long been a winner at the online high stakes tables. Everyone has a bad month from time to time. Even the great Tom Brady had a bad month in 2014 before leading the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl title.
Mike Gorodinsky, Andy Beal, and Daniel Cates also ended up in the red last month, each losing at least $37,000 on PokerStars. If history is an indication of future success, they’ll bounce back with a strong October.
Galfond and Superman Conquer September
Thuritz, sporting a Superman avatar online, won more money online than anyone else last month ($431,419). He did that over 92 sessions on PokerStars.
Phil Galfond had the second-largest profit ($216,908). Now using the screen name ‘MrSweets28’, Galfond became famous in the poker world during the Full Tilt Poker days as ‘OMGClayAiken’.
He was one of the early online poker grinders to shift to high stakes live poker. But he hasn’t forgotten his roots. Phil spends much of his time in Canada playing on PokerStars, since he can’t play in the international pools from the US. Even though ‘Stars has reentered the New Jersey market, there’s no liquidity with non-American player pools yet.
And Jason Mercier, the 2016 WSOP Player of the Year, had some success online last month as well. The Team PokerStars Pro turned a profit of $91,365, good for seventh-best in the world. It’s all fun money now for the guy who won millions of dollars over the summer in Las Vegas at the World Series.
2016 Leaderboard Shifts
Thuritz’ stellar month catapulted him into second place on the high stakes list for 2016, with a $576,817 profit. But that’s just halfway to the top leader, Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky, who is up $1,030,925 this year.
Haxton’s rough month dropped him to fourth place for 2016, but a good month could easily move him up to second. Sulsky might need to channel his inner Tony Romo to choke away that lead over the next few months.
