Daniel Negreanu expressed frustration with the distribution of cards on the WSOP.com poker site following Monday’s losing session against Doug Polk.
Day 29 was arguably the wildest session of them all. And that says something, considering the intense back-and-forth nature of Day 28 on Friday. For quite some time, both players had over $120,000 on each of the two tables, the first time that has occurred.
Given the stack sizes that accumulated throughout the session, Negreanu had perhaps his best opportunity to put a serious dent in Polk’s lead. But, he squandered that chance, and he believes luck was a major contributing factor.
In the post-game interview on the GGPoker YouTube channel, a seemingly tilted “Kid Poker” wondered how he could be getting so unlucky so frequently. Although he didn’t straight up accuse WSOP.com of being rigged, he complained about what he considers uneven card distribution. Throughout the challenge, Negreanu claims, he’s missed an improbable amount of draws.
“I’m not suggesting the software’s rigged, but man it feels like it,” Negreanu said on YouTube. “It just doesn’t feel real, and I’ve been playing poker 27, 28 years. This doesn’t feel possible. I know it’s possible, and I know variance is a thing. But it doesn’t feel f*****g possible. It just doesn’t feel possible.”
Even more costly, he isn’t having much success with called all-ins with cards still to come. He hasn’t won in this spot with less than a 43% chance to win the hand during the entire match. On Monday, he won once and lost once in all-in, pre-flop hands in race situations.
Caught Up in the Emotions
After three hours of back-and-forth play, with numerous huge pots played, Polk booked his third straight winning session, this one for around $74,000. He now leads the overall $200/$400 No-Limit Hold’em heads-up challenge by about $705,000 with approximately 8,000 hands remaining.
Following his losing session on Monday, Negreanu cursed up a storm about his bad luck. That’s been a common response to frustrations in recent months for the GGPoker ambassador.
What Did Polk Have?
Day 29 was full of monster pots. Both players won $80,000 pots in pre-flop, all-in race situations. On one of the last few hands, Negreanu flopped the nut flush draw with A-K against Polk’s Q-9 on a queen-high board and missed, losing an $83,000 pot.
But, he also won some huge hands, including coolering Polk with A-10 on an A-A-10-3-2 board. Polk had pocket 3’s in the hand and lost the $157,000 pot.
Those hands were exciting, but there was one pot that nearly ballooned into the biggest hand of the entire grudge match. A few hands prior, Polk check-raised Negreanu’s $3,000 bet on the turn to $65,000 and got a fold. The cards weren’t exposed so we have no idea what they had, but Polk may have used that bet to set up a future hand.
Moments later with 3♣ on a board of 10-6-6-2, Negreanu bet $3,998 on the button into a pot of $5,968. Polk went for another massive check-raise, this one to $27,332, and Negreanu made the call. Both players still had more than $100,000 behind heading to the turn.
With $60,634 in the pot, Polk shoved the river (A♣, making a four-liner to a flush) for $133,999. Negreanu went into the tank and folded one of the most memorable hands they’ve played. In his post-game interview, Negreanu said he had the Q-J of clubs, giving him a flush on the turn. But we don’t know if Polk pulled off an insane bluff or if he had the goods. Perhaps, one day after the challenge concludes, he’ll let us know.
Negreanu and Polk now have about 8,000 hands left to play. Polk leads by around $705,000, the equivalent of 17.5 buy-ins. They’ll get back to the virtual felt Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT.
