For all that Daniel Negreanu has achieved throughout his decorated poker career, including six WSOP gold bracelets and two WPT titles, there was one thing that had always escaped him. That all changed on Friday night at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.
Negreanu entered the third and final day of play in the prestigious $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl second in chips with five players remaining. “Kid Poker” had been in this position before. In May 2018, at Super High Roller Bowl IV, Negreanu returned to the final day second in chips with six players remaining. He ultimately went on to finish second to Justin Bonomo for a $3,000,000 score, falling just short of grabbing one of poker’s most illustrious titles.
Negreanu has also finished second in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller in 2011, the WSOP $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop in 2014, the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic $100,000 Super High Roller in 2017, and the WSOP $100,000 High Roller in 2019.
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Until Friday night at the final table Super High Roller Bowl VII, Negreanu had never won a six-figure buy-in event.
“A few years ago, I was heads up for one, a Super High Roller Bowl,” Negreanu told PokerGO’s Jeff Platt after the victory. “I had the big crowd of friends come and I punted because I was trying to get out with them. This year, I told people, ‘Don’t come. Really, don’t come. Let me just win this and I’ll come home and we’ll open a bottle of champagne and then we’ll go to the hockey game tomorrow. Just let me do my thing.”
Negreanu did his thing and went on to win Super High Roller Bowl VII for $3,312,000. Check out the final results:
| Place | Player | Prize |
| 1st | Daniel Negreanu | $3,312,000 |
| 2nd | Nick Petrangelo | $2,016,000 |
| 3rd | Andrew Lichtenberger | $1,152,000 |
| 4th | Justin Bonomo | $720,000 |
Negreanu won one of the most exciting hands on Day 1 when he knocked out Bryn Kenney by making runner-runner quads against Kenney’s top full house, and he rode that wave all the way to the winner’s circle.
After losing more than $1,100,000 at the 2022 WSOP and getting crushed further at the 2022 Poker Masters, including a brutal bad beat with pocket aces on the money bubble of the $50,000 buy-in finale, Negreanu was all smiles after this victory put him back in the black for the year in a big way.
“Oh, we’re doing good,” Negreanu said on the PokerGO Podcast. “I’ll do the numbers and of course I’ll release it at the end of the year. I didn’t do so bad at the beginning of the year. I won a couple of tournaments, I think here [at the PokerGO Studio], and the World Series [of Poker] was obviously a disaster for me, Poker Masters the same, but this three-point-three, that’ll do the trick, a little extra gravy.”
Negreanu finished Day 1 of Super High Roller Bowl VII with the chip lead. He battled on Day 2 to reach the final five players second in chips behind only Nick Petrangelo. Heading into Day 3, Negreanu and the other four players were on the money bubble. Fifth place would take home nothing, but fourth place would get $720,000.
High roller Orpen Kisacikoglu ended up busting on the bubble, falling at the hands of Andrew Lichtenberger. After that, Justin Bonomo, a three-time Super High Roller Bowl title holder and the player who beat Negreanu in this very event back in 2018, busted. Bonomo also went down to Lichtenberger.
Three-handed play between Negreanu, Petrangelo, and Lichtenberger was ultra competitive as the three players took turns with the chip lead. Eventually, Negreanu got on top and then eliminated Lichtenberger in third place to set up the final duel with Petrangelo. Negreanu started with a chip lead of better than 4-1 over Petrangelo and got to work quickly.
Petrangelo did find one double up through Negreanu, but it came after he had dipped down to 10 big blinds ad only brought him back to where he started the heads-up match. Negreanu kept the pressure on and started to pull away again, pushing Petrangelo back down to around 10 big blinds. On the final hand, Negreanu shoved from the button with queen-seven of clubs. Petrangelo made the call with king-five. Negreanu flopped the best hand and held from there to win it all.
"I'll tell you what, heads up, I went through that crazy streak where I lost so many and I think I've won five straight heads-up matches in tournaments when I've got there,” Negreanu said on the PokerGO Podcast. “Obviously it feels great. The last two years have been really, really difficult mentally because I know my game is better than ever. But who cares? The public looks at it like, 'No, no, no, Daniel. You've got to look at your results. Your results are no good. You're playing bad.' I know how I'm losing. I've been doing this for 30 years. I know when it's me. I know when it's me making mistakes, and it isn't. I played a pretty close-to-flawless Super High Roller Bowl here and luckily the structure is so deep that it's not just a shove fest. If you play deep structures all the time, I'm going to be one of the favorites each and every time."
During his run to the finish line, Negreanu deployed a strategy he’s known for. He played small-ball poker. Preflop, Negreanu could often be seen limping with a wide range of hands in an attempt to see more flops where he is confident he can do damage. Post-flop, Negreanu didn’t get crazy and controlled the pots he was in as best he could. He was never all in for his tournament life during Super High Roller Bowl VII, and it’s hard to lose when you’re never all in and at risk.
“I was testing out some new material at Poker Masters, and with some good success, actually,” Negreanu said. “I feel like professional tournament players today, they study a little bit of limping around 10-15 big blinds, but none of them study this theory on 100 big blinds deep. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. I played in the days of Doyle [Brunson] when you limped those suited connectors and pocket pairs up front, so I know how to do it. What it allows me to do, it allows me to get to more flops, whereas when you’re raising and three-betting you can’t. When I get to more flops, I’m deadly because I have a good defense. It’s hard to get my chips. It’s really tough to get all of my chips because I play such pot control. It’s very frustrating. I think my style is annoying to play against. It’s not annoying in the same way as [Michael] Addamo, who is just always seven-x bombing. With me, it’s like, ‘My god, he always just has it.’”
Going forward, in the tough fields against elite competition that Negreanu frequents, we’ll see if his opponents start to find ways to combat Negreanu’s rebirthed style of play. If it happens, Negreanu says he’s prepared, and that preparation is in his ability to adjust.
“The good news is this, I‘m confident in being able to adjust to whatever I gotta do,” Negreanu said. “Ultimately, I think part of the last couple of years I realized that I gotta be me. I don’t need to play like anybody else. Watching some of the other guys, I take tricks. A lot of the things I learned about ‘don’t do this, or don’t do that,’ I see Mikitia Badziakouski doing it, and Mikita really impresses me. There are a couple specific things he does, and I’m like, ‘Man, that’s all the stuff my coaches said not to do,’ but it’s good. It’s good in tournaments, so I sort of always learn from these guys and use my own wrinkles and adjust. I still have an understanding of theory, but I’m not going to be a slave to the sim ever in my life.”
The win didn’t just give him $3,312,000 in prize money and the Super High Roller Bowl championship ring. With the victory, Negreanu also picked up 600 points for the PokerGO Tour (PGT) leaderboard. That was enough to move him into the top 21 of the leaderboard. If he remains in the top 21, Negreanu will be eligible for the season-ending PGT Championship. In that event, the top 21 points earners from the 2022 PGT season compete for a winner-take-all $500,000 purse, and starting stacks will be based on the number of PGT points earned over the course of the season. While this win does put Negreanu above the qualification line, he’ll have some work to do for the remainder of the year if he wants to stay there.
“I was really disappointed to not be in it,” Negreanu said of the top 21 on the PGT leaderboard. “During the World Series of Poker, I felt like that’s going to give me a good chance - ‘I’m a lock for the top 21!’ I really did. After the World Series [of Poker] I’ll be in there. Then I’m like, pfff, and I whiff the Poker Masters, too, so this is a big one. It puts me back in contention. I do have to leave town for a week, but I’m going to come back and grind as many as I can to ensure that I get into that because it’s such a great idea and event. When Cary [Katz] announced it, I said, ‘I want to be in that for sure.’”
To relive Negreanu’s $3,312,000 Super High Roller Bowl VII victory, check out the following highlight video from PokerGO.
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