Daniel Negreanu’s Heads Up Limit Hold’em career may have ended after just 937 hands of the PokerStars Limit Hold’em Challenge. German limit specialist rUaBot wiped out Daniel’s $75,000 bankroll in a little over 4 hours of two table play.
The match started on Saturday afternoon with $8,000 stacks on two tables. Blinds were $200/$400 and both players had auto rebuy options enabled. After losing his $75,000 well before the end of the planned 1,250 hand match, Daniel was clearly suffering:
rUaBot: sorry for the sick run
KidPoker: its ok just glad it’s over!
KidPoker: have never in my life played 2 tables HU LH and I never will again
Sick run indeed. The river continually thwarted Daniel’s efforts to win. After one hand with a board of Th 7d 8d 3h 5h—which gave rUaBot’s 6c 4s a rivered straight—Daniel’s frustration was evident:
KidPoker: one day you need to teach me how to keep doing that lol
KidPoker: any 5 then Bink!
rUaBot: if i just knew
The real damage came after a devastating sequence from hand 353 to hand 407 that saw rUaBot increase his lead from $17,900 to $44,200. He won 11/12 hands on one table and 10 straight hands on the other.
After 810 hands Negreanu didn’t have enough money left to continue on two tables, so the match was paused to split his stack giving him $6,300 on each table.
The final hand saw Negreanu 3-bet pre flop with a pair of 3s. The Jh 9h 2h flop gave rUaBot top pair for his Js Td and Daniel’s bets on flop, turn and river couldn’t push him off it. When the fourth heart failed to come on the river rUaBot raised Daniel’s bet, Daniel called and it was all over.
The speed of the match, and the aggression that both players showed, will have pleased PokerStars’ management as much as the railbirds. The Challenge showed that Limit Hold’em can be as exciting as No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha.
The match might have put Team PokerStars biggest name off playing HU Limit Hold’em again, but there will be plenty of players watching who will want to try their hand at this traditional favourite.
More detail on the key hands can be found on the PokerStars blog.
