Interesting Post From Daniel Negreanu

Since poker news is pretty slow, here is an interesting 2+2post by Yuv:

Not that long ago, DN signed some contract with Wynn and as a promotion issued a HU challange to anyone in the world. I think it was anywhere between 100k and 500k, and the challanger picked the game.

I can't remember all the matchups he actually played, but the only "online" player to step up back then was Joe Cassidy, who played DN hu limit holdem and won 500k.

Lets assume DN issues the same challange today. How many online players will play him? How many 2p2ers would play him? Naturally playing live will hurt some of the edge of the online players, but will guys like aba, durr, jman, genius, larsluzak, krantz, urin, trex etc still step up?

And since Daniel is reading these forums, do you still feel comfortable enough playing these players HU today?


Daniel Negreanu's reply:

May 13 Limit Hold'em 2000-4000 200,000 David Oppenheim 0-1
May 16 Limit Hold'em 4000-8000 500,000 Mimi Tran 1-1
May 23 Limit Hold'em 2000-4000 200,000 Joe Cassidy 1-2
June 4 7 Card Stud 4000-8000 500,000 Barry Greenstein 1-3
June 15 7 Card Stud 4000-8000 500,000 Barry Greenstein 1-4
June 16 PL Omaha 1000-2000 500,000 Barry Greenstein 2-4
June 17 Stud 8 4000-8000 500,000 Barry Greenstein 3-4
July 15 PL Omaha 1000-2000 $500,000 Tony Bloom 4-4
Currently in Progress Pot Limit Hold'em vs JD -$491,000 after 32 hours

Totals +$109,000

Hours
1. 5 vs. DO LH
2. 10.5 vs. MT LH
3. 7.5 vs. JC LH
4. 13.5 vs. BG S
5. 18.5 vs. BG S
6. 3.5 vs. BG PLO
7. 17 vs. BG S8
8. 32 vs. JD PLH
9. 4.5 vs. TB PLO
Total Hours: 112

Hourly Rate: $973.21

Record in $500,000 Matches: 4-2 +$509,000
Record in $200,000 Matches: 0-2 -$ 400,000

Record in Limit Hold'em: 1-2 +$100,000
Record in 7 Card Stud: 0-2 -$1,000,000
Record in Pot Limit Omaha: 2-0 +$1,000,000
Record in Stud H/L: 1-0 +$500,000
Record in Pot Limit Hold'em: 0-0 $-491,000


I was sick about losing to the business man in PLH, I ran so bad it was creepy. As for the LH matched I was distracted against Oppie and he played well and ran even better. Versus Joe I was way down early and made a comeback to even. Then I made a strategy error and got too aggressive which is a style is is very used to.

Against Mimi Tran I made a ton of hands and ran really well. I felt like I had a chance in Stud against Barry but he ran good in the first match. I chose to play Stud again and then realized that he was just more experienced in the game than I was and he beat me again.

He then chose PLO heads up and I pwned him there. He won three huge all in pots, all of which were between 52-60 favorites. Yet still I had the lead and was able to win that match. Barry then chose stud 8 or better, I think assuming that he'd have a large edge there also since he pwned me in Stud. Heads up I think Stud 8 is my best game. Barry was never ahead for even one hand in that match.

I then played Tony Bloom heads up in PLO and assumed I would lose that match. However, he made a pretty crucial error in a hand where we both had the nuts straight but I had a straight flush redraw and he had no redraw, yet re-raised me all in on the turn. I hit the straight flush.

My last match was versus a businessman who played very weak. He didn't raise pre-flop and and never check-raised. How I lost... I'll never know, LOL.

All told after playing so many matches live I feel like it improved my heads up mind. Heads up poker is so much more about psychology than it is about the cards. Keeping your cool, recognizing when your opponent is tired or tilting, picking up tells, changing gears, recognizing when your opponent is changing gears, etc.

By the end of it I improved immensely and ended up winning a little bit. I might do something like that again in the future, but not at the moment.

The idea behind these matches were that I knew I could never be as much as a 2-1 underdog in any of the formats. That would be close to impossible. Also, I figured that I would get some action from lesser players as well, which I did. When you propose a challenge that says "I'll play anyone" you can't refuse anyone. I did say, though, that if someone beat me in a game, I no longer had to play them in that game again if I felt I was outclassed. If they wanted to choose another game, they could.

The higher the stakes the more play we actually had. The structures were decided by me:

500k 4000-8000 limit (62.5 bets)
200k 2000-4000 limit (50 bets)
100k 1500-3000 limit (33.3 bets)

This made sure there was enough skill in every match, but not so much that the best player would be guaranteed to win.

For the PLO matches I played, we used 1000-2000 blinds with 500,000 (250 bets).