Before the 2020 World Series of Poker Online began, Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu offered up a couple bracelet prop bets, as he often does. One for which he got a couple takers was an even money heads-up bet on who would win a bracelet. Ali Imsirovic and Connor Drinan took him up on it, betting that they would win a bracelet during the 2020 WSOP (online or live, if that happens) and Negreanu would not. It looked like no money would exchange hands a couple days ago, as none of them had won a bracelet this summer and the WSOP was winding down, but on Tuesday, Drinan came through in the very last event of the 2020 WSOP Online to win his $100,000 side bet against Negreanu.
Negreanu is always very confident in his ability to win a WSOP bracelet, as he should be. He has won six of them in his already storied career, but he has been in a drought since 2013.
As mentioned, Negreanu proposed two different bets. The first was on himself, and himself alone, winning a bracelet this year. He offered to be up to a total of $1 million (all bets combined) at 2.5-to-1 odds. Thus, he was willing to risk $1 million for the possibility of winning $2.5 million.
The one Drinan got in on was a head-to-head bet. If one of them won a bracelet and the other didn’t, the bracelet winner naturally wins the bet. If neither won or both won, then it was a push. Drinan wagered the max Negreanu allowed by a single person, $100,000, at even money.
Only one of the 85 events of this year’s WSOP had yet to be decided going into Tuesday night. Wrapping up the Series was the $5 million guaranteed $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em “Super MILLION$” event. Drinan almost didn’t make the money; he had an extremely short stack on the bubble, but managed to chip up just in time and enter the final table in sixth place. Negreanu wished his rival well, but not THAT well:
With 9.8 million chips, Drinan was right in the mix with most of his eight opponents, but was still way behind the chip leader, Suraj Mishra, who had 18.7 million.
One of Drinan’s biggest hands of the final table was against Mishra. He had already knocked one player out, but found himself way behind when he called Mishra’s 14.85 million chip all-in, T-T versus 9-9. Drinan hit a set on the flop, however, eliminating Mishra and jumping into the lead.
From there, he cruised, entering heads-up play against Daniyar Aubakirov with a 4-to-1 chip lead. While Aubakirov was able to make a few moves, the gap was just way to wide to traverse. Drinan did get lucky on the final hand, though, picking off Aubakirov’s A-J with A-9 when he spiked a 9 on the river.
Drinan earned $1.4 million for his first-ever bracelet win, plus an extra $100,000 from Negreanu.