Daniel Negreanu wins $436K, cutting deficit nearly in half

Daniel Negreanu is not going down without a fight in his poker challenge match against Doug Polk.

After being down more than $1 million, Negreanu has won $436,886.63 over the past two sessions to cut Polk’s lead nearly in half at $565,708.96. They have played 19,362 of the scheduled 25,000 hands in their heads-up No-limit Hold’em showdown.

Negreanu won $390,032.13 on Friday, then $46,854.50 on Monday to slice into the deficit. Polk had been up $1,002,595.59.

Negreanu and Polk are playing at stakes of $200-$400 (a $40,000 initial buy-in for each session). The match is being played two tables at a time online on WSOP.com after the first 200 hands were played live at the PokerGO studio by the Aria.

They are generally playing sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The match started Nov. 4.

Negreanu and Polk have a long-standing feud, with Polk attacking Negreanu for his actions while an ambassador for the online poker site PokerStars as well as some of his personal behavior.

Negreanu, a 46-year-old Las Vegas resident, is a six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner with $42 million in live tournament earnings, according to the Hendon Mob Poker Database.

Polk, a 31-year-old Henderson resident, is a three-time WSOP bracelet winner with more than $9 million in tournament earnings. But he made his name in poker by beating the best players in the world in heads-up No-limit Hold’em online, while Negreanu is known primarily as a live multitable tournament player.

Before the match, Polk was a -556 favorite to win on pokershares.com (Negreanu +410).

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.