Another Mucking Blog

Call him the European Warrior! Call him an Epic Gladiator! Call him Kid Poker! But unfortunately you can not call Daniel Negreanu the 2009  World Series of Poker Europe Main Event Champion. He came so close and so far in what would have been the biggest win of his career.

At the start of day 5 of the WSOPE there were 9 contenders left battling for the gold bracelet and Negreanu KO’d 6 out of 7 to bring it to heads up. Seriously, he was like Ryu, from Street Fighter, throwing out Shōryū-ken blows left and right to give him a commanding chip lead (6,180,000 to 3,855,000)  at the start of heads up play.

Cue the epic announcer voice: “Daniel Negreanu Vs Barry Shulman!”

Negreanu looked for the final blow going all in when a flop came out 6h, 8h, Kd. Shulman quickly called and revealed Ah & 5h. Negreanu at this point was ahead with pocket aces (both black). However, the 2h that hit on the turn snapped that lead faster than Homer Simpson can eat doughnuts.

Negreanu, now being the shorty of short stacks, refused to let the lions eat him and like bold Leonidas stood his ground and fighting one hand at a time, eventually regained the chip lead of about 2 million over Shulman.

If this were Street Fighter, this is the part where we see Shulman’s health meter virtually empty, with only 1 hit from Negreanu being the final blow, yet some how Shulman pulls off the flawless-free-flowing-combo to win the round.

Now let me translate that into poker:
Flop comes out 5d, 8d, Jc. Shulman bets 300k. Negreanu raises to 900k. Shulman goes all-in. Negreanu calls flipping over Qc, Jd. Shulman flips over pocket aces! “EEEK!” says Negreanu (not literally). Then came the turn…Jh!!! Giving Negreanu trip jacks and 1 card away from claiming the WSOPE main event championship…Unfortunately Shulman hit one of his 2 outs on the river (yup an Ace) and won the hand.

It wasn’t long after that that Shulman took home the bracelet, defeating Negreanu’s all-in with pocket 4’s with pocket 10’s!

I got to say that my heart reaches out to “Kid Poker”. I have had some bad beats in my life and seen some epic contenders but never have I seen such mastery of the cards loose out to a string of bad beats. Congrats to you both.

Now the question is can Shulman’s son ( Jeff Shulman of the November 9) follow in his Dad’s footsteps come November.