Doug Polk said before the challenge began that he was going to back the truck up and clean Daniel Negreanu out. "DNegs" is far too wealthy for that to happen, but this match is no longer even remotely competitive.
The truck is officially being backed up after Wednesday's lopsided session. Polk won just a shade under $300,000 in a little over four hours of play. That brings his total profit to over $1 million for the first time. After 17,878 hands, perhaps luck isn't as big of a factor as Negreanu claims.
Polk entered the session having won three straight. He had already erased Negreanu's momentum that saw the GGPoker ambassador win six of the seven prior sessions.
Earlier in the match, it appeared that Polk was destined to win by well over $1 million. Some estimated he'd book a $2 million profit, or possibly even more. But then Negreanu came back and began to show he can compete at a high level against one of the top heads-up no-limit specialists of all-time.
Polk's $950,000 lead had dropped under $500,000 before long. Those days are over. The Upswing Poker founder has completely taken control of this high stakes grudge match,
It wasn't even close
Heading into Day 30, Negreanu complained frequently about his poor luck after losing sessions. That irked Polk, who mocked his rival and bashed him for complaining about luck.
While luck may have contributed to some of the deficit, the fact of the matter is that Negreanu is struggling to compete in heads-up no-limit hold'em against a HUNL specialist.
On Wednesday, luck again played a factor in the outcome, but only a small one. Negreanu lost two massive pots to coolers. In one pot, he pitted a weaker two-pair against Polk's superior two-pair. And in another hand, he unluckily rivered a straight because it gave his opponent a better straight.
But his play was also exposed repeatedly during the session by the heads-up star. In many hands, Polk fired away a massive river bet, forcing Negreanu to tank before folding.
Viewers can't see the hands that don't go to showdown so we can't say for sure if he was bluffing a high percentage of those hands or if he was catching cards. But there were certain times he fired bluffs, as shown by Polk on Twitter.
Polk shared numerous hands during play with his Twitter followers. He continually mocked Negreanu for complaining about bad luck. Negreanu didn't address Polk's Twitter posts in the post-game interview on GGPoker's YouTube channel, likely because he wasn't paying attention.
But the GGPoker ambassador seemed a bit humbled following the brutal session. This time, he didn't complain much about running bad and even admitted that Polk played great.
After over four hours of play, Polk booked a $298,984 win in 770 hands. His lead is now at $1,002,595 with 7,122 hands remaining before this high stakes heads-up battle concludes.
At this point, there's very little, if any, shot for Negreanu to win the match. The focus for him is now on trying to lose as little as possible. Polk recently announced he plans to move elsewhere outside of Las Vegas, perhaps to Florida or Texas. It appears that Negreanu is going to pay for his new house.
Featured image source: Twitter
