Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth are at it again. Ahead of their highly anticipated heads-up contest, the two Poker Hall of Famers now have a prop bet on Hellmuth’s tournament prowess. On Tuesday, Negreanu tweeted that he is betting against the 15-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner being able to profit in the Aria’s $25,000 buy-in tournaments:
If Hellmuth profits over the course of 50 tournaments – that’s $1.25 million in buy-ins – Negreanu has to pay $400,000. If Hellmuth suffers a net loss, he will be out $200,000. Negreanu is so confident that Hellmuth can’t pull it off that he is willing to lay 2-to-1 odds. Or, if you want to be more charitable, Negreanu is rewarding Hellmuth for taking on the risk playing in the 50 tournaments.
There are no $25,000 events on Aria’s poker calendar right now, as all of the tournaments listed are currently the poker room’s $140 dailies. Sean McCormack, Aria’s director of poker operations, did respond to Negreanu’s tweet, however, that his poker room has “a few month on average,” and usually more during summer months and “busier times.”
Hopefully for the Aria, one of those busier times will be this summer if and when the World Series of Poker takes place at the Rio. The word “if” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.
Most poker players and poker adjacent who have chimed in on this prop bet believe that Negreanu will barely have to sweat it. Of course, casual poker fans may wonder why everyone is laughing at the idea of Phil Hellmuth, the man who is miles ahead of the field in all-time WSOP bracelet wins and thus is clearly a great multi-table tournament player, thinking that he could profit across 50 high roller events.
The idea is that a $25,000 tournament is going to be filled with very strong players, with the occasional rich donk thrown into the mix. Most World Series of Poker tournaments are not nearly as densely packed with contenders. Though Hellmuth’s WSOP record is incredible and he is without a doubt one of the best players of all time, you are simply not going to be sitting at a table with top-notch players as consistently in the normal WSOP event as you would in a $25,000 buy-in tournament.
At to that the fact that many pros believe Hellmuth’s style of play lends itself better to larger, weaker fields than it does to tougher, smaller fields, and it is understandable that many think this is an easy win for Negreanu.
Former WSOP Main Event champ Joe Cada doesn’t even think Hellmuth will complete the challenge, asking on Twitter, “Can I bet this challenge doesn’t get completed? Has Phil even played over 50 25k’s in his lifetime?”
Max Silver tweeted that regulars in $25,000 events should be thanking Negreanu for convincing Hellmuth to do this:
Long before the prop bet is decided, Hellmuth and Negreanu will go head-to-head on PokerGO’s High Stakes Feud sometime in the middle of this month.