Doug Polk pushes lead over Daniel Negreanu back over $700K

Doug Polk has halted Daniel Negreanu’s comeback in their poker challenge match.

Polk has won three straight sessions to push his lead back to $703,610.66 in their heads-up No-limit Hold’em match. Negreanu had shaved $286,180.15 off a deficit that stood at $770,254.08 after the first 12,500 hands of their challenge, reducing Polk’s lead to $484,073.93.

They have now played 17,108 hands of the scheduled 25,000 hands.

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.

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.