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Daniel Negreanu Continues Battle With Doug Polk

Daniel Negreanu is nothing if not a fighter. The Poker Hall of Famer is down over $700k to Doug Polk in their grudge match. When the battle reached the halfway point, Negreanu had the option to quit and let Polk have bragging rights.

Instead, Negreanu has opted to battle on and continue the battle against Polk. The pair resumed their match on Monday, but Negreanu has some work to do if he hopes to win this match.

Daniel Negreanu is Not Quitting

If you were down $750,000 to one of the greatest heads-up poker players in the world, would you consider cutting your losses and walking away? Most of us would. Daniel Negreanu is not most of us. The midway point was reached in his grudge match against Doug Polk and rather than walk away a loser, Negreanu decided to tough things out.

It’s Jan 1st 2021 and we have reached the halfway point of the challenge having played 12,500 hands.

As agreed upon in the rules I have the option to quit.

That is not going to happen.

The second half resumes Monday, Jan 4th 2:30pm

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) January 1, 2021

Through approximately 12,500 hands, Negreanu was down $770,254.09 against Doug Polk. The match will go 25,000 hands total now that Negreanu has decided to play things through. If you ask some in the poker world, it appears that Negreanu thinks that he is simply running bad and that he can make a comeback in this match. That is certainly a possibility, but he has to put together some better runs.

Negreanu Posts a Winning Session – But Not Much of a Win

The pair resumed their challenge on Monday, playing approximately 500 hands. Negreanu managed to post a win, but it was a meager $27,005.80. Unfortunately, a lot of Negreanu’s recent winning sessions have been on the smallish side. That’s opposed to Polk who has posted multiple winning sessions of $100k to $200k.

Looking ahead to the rest of this challenge, Negreanu needs to do two things. First, he needs to put together a series of winning sessions. Often, he is winning a session and then losing a couple of sessions. Consistency is what he will need if he hopes to pull this out.

Next, he needs to put together some larger wins. These $15k to $25k wins are great if he was rolling off 5 to 10 of them in a row. However, he tends to roll off a small win followed by a sizable loss. He needs to put together a few nice winners in the $100k and up range to give himself a realistic shot at winning.

However, we do like what we are reading. It appears that Negreanu is studying more, and we all know that studying poker is one proven way to improve your poker game. Of course, Doug Polk is studying and playing more poker as well. The question is whether Negreanu can study enough to overcome the huge advantage Polk appears to have.

At This Point The Lead May Be Too Great

When we first started reporting on this match, I predicted that Polk would win, but it would be a small win. I expected Negreanu to put up more of a fight. Some will state that Polk has run incredibly well at times and that is part of the reason he’s where he’s at. However, it is clear that Polk has played incredibly well over the course of the match.

I originally thought that ring rust would help balance things out. However, that hasn’t been the case. Negreanu simply seems to be outmatched and when you include some of Polk’s good fortune, it is hard to see Negreanu putting together a comeback.

Will Polk go up over a million before the end of the challenge? I think it is entirely possible. However, what I think will much more likely happen is that we see some .500 level poker and that the final tallies will be about where they are now. Sorry Daniel, but I don’t see a path to victory for you.

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