A few days ago, “Kid Poker” Daniel Negreanu came up just short of a bracelet at the World Series of Poker Asia Pacfic (WSOP APAC), placing fourth in the A$2,200 Mixed Event. Today, he completed the journey, winning the WSOP PAC Main Event, defeating a total field of 405 players. For the victory, Negreanu won A$1,038,825.
This is the fifth WSOP bracelet of Negreanu’s exemplary career, pulling him into a tie with John Juanda, Jeff Lisandro, Scotty Nguyen, Allen Cunningham, Ted Forrest, Chris Ferguson, Stu Ungar, Berry Johnston, and Gary Berland. It comes almost five years since his last WSOP bracelet, won in 2008 in the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event. Aside from the final table earlier in the WSOP APAC, the closest he had come to nailing down that fifth bracelet was in his tremendous 2009 World Series of Poker, when he finished as the runner-up in the $2,500 Limit Hold’em Six Handed event as well as the WSOP Europe Main Event. Negreanu cashed a total of nine times in the 2009 WSOP.
This win brings Daniel Negreanu’s career live tournament earnings to just under $17.5 million, good for sixth all-time. Keep in mind, though, that the top two on that list are Antonio Esfandiari and Sam Trickett, who earned most of their money in the 2012 WSOP Big One for One Drop. Behind those two, the battle for third is extremely close, with just $400,000 separating third (Phil Hellmuth) from sixth.
As for the tournament itself, Negreanu went into the eight-handed final with the second-largest chip stack. It was a fairly divided final table, with four players above the 2 million chip mark and four players under a million. 2012 WSOP “Octo-Niner” Russell Thomas and Mikel Habb were two of those short stacks are were also the first two to hit the rail. Benny Spindler, the chip leader to start the day, couldn’t keep up his good run and finished in sixth place.
After Kahle Burns and George Tsatsis were eliminated in fifth and fourth place, respectively, it was down to Negreanu, Daniel Marton, and the lucky Winfred Yu. We say “lucky” in reference to Yu because he was the shortest stack going into the day and doubled-up an astounding eight times to make his way to the final three. But his luck didn’t take him to the title. After an all-spade flop, Yu moved all-in with top-pair, top-kicker once Negreanu checked to him, only to watch Negreanu insta-call and reveal a flopped flush.
Negreanu was far and away the favorite going into heads-up play, holding an 11.01 million to 1.15 million chip lead on Daniel Marton. Marton hung on for a while, doubling-up a couple times, but time finally ran out for him. On the final hand, he raised to 125,000 pre-flop and quickly called when Negreanu went all-in. It was close: Marton held A♠-7♠ while Negreanu had a pair of Deuces. Marton picked up gut-shot draw on the turn, but couldn’t find any of his outs on the river, giving Negreanu crown.
Tweeted Negreanu after his victory:
“I won!!!!!!!!!!!! YES! Very happy right now. Thanks to all my friends and family for giving me the confidence I needed! So happy!!!!”
2013 World Series of Poker Asia Pacific Main Event – Final Table Results
1. Daniel Negreanu – $1,038,825
2. Daniel Marton – $637,911
3. Winfred Yu – $423,225
4. George Tsatsis – $284,715
5. Kahle Burns – $201,994
6. Benny Spindler – $146,205
7. Mikel Habb – $107,730
8. Russell Thomas – $82,721
