Doug Polk up $500K on Daniel Negreanu in poker match
Doug Polk has taken a sizable lead in his heads-up poker challenge match with Daniel Negreanu.
Polk is up $578,417.57 after 6,227 hands of No-limit Hold’em at stakes of $200-$400 (a $40,000 initial buy-in for each session). The poker stars have agreed to play 25,000 hands, though the player who is losing can end the match after 12,500 hands.
Session 13: -$17,780.32 over 476 hands
Total: +$578,417.57 over 6227 hands
It was looking like we were gonna lose 2 or 3 buyins then we hit an extremely nice top pair to win a 3 buyin pot to close out the session. Daniel is playing much better imo, lots of new moves.
— Doug "Truck Driver" Polk (@DougPolkVids) December 1, 2020
The match is being played online on WSOP.com after the first 200 hands were played live at the PokerGO studio by the Aria.
Polk and Negreanu have played 13 sessions so far. Negreanu won $17,780.32 on Monday, but that came after Polk booked a massive $332,178.14 win Saturday to extend his lead to nearly $600,000.
The match could last up to two months. Negreanu and Polk are typically playing three sessions per week. The sessions are usually streamed online on the players’ separate Twitch and YouTube channels.
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.
Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.