Negreanu’s smooth moves on display in the Bahamas

Earlier this year I was in the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, but instead of playing, I was providing commentary.

I’m going share with you a particularly clever hand played by poker pro Daniel Negreanu, who made it clear that he’s been working hard on his game.

In the $100,000-buy-in Super High Roller event, with blinds at 6,000-12,000 plus a 2,000 ante, world-class maniac Ivan Luca raised to 30,000 from the lojack seat (second to act at the seven-handed table). Negreanu called from the hijack seat (third to act) with 2h 2c.

Negreanu had a variety of options at his disposal with his pocket twos. Calling to try to flop a set in position was certainly an acceptable play. If Negreanu thought someone yet to act might reraise, he might have made a pre-emptive reraise himself. Calling essentially said that he wasn’t too worried about any of the players behind him getting out of line (which made sense given the way the play had gone throughout the day). Folding also would have been reasonable, but with stacks still deep at that point in the tournament, seeing the flop was ideal.

Everyone else folded. The flop came 6d 4c 3h. Luca bet 28,000 into a pot of 92,000. Negreanu raised to 95,000.

Many players in Negreanu’s shoes would have elected to just call, mainly for fear of playing a big pot with a marginal hand. But raising accomplishes a few objectives. By betting so small, Luca was giving himself a great price to see the turn, likely hoping to pair an overcard later in the hand. Negreanu’s raise negated those odds, forcing unpaired hands such asQ-J to fold and putting slightly better hands such as A-K in a rough spot. Raising could also help Negreanu bluff out better hands on the turn or river if the board got scary. All in all, I loved his raise.

Luca called. The turn was the 3s. Both players checked.

Negreanu’s check surprised me. If he had a full house, he would want to continue value-betting in order to build a giant pot, which made me think he should have continued betting with at least some of his bluffs for the sake of balance. While I wouldn’t have expected fairly strong hands like overpairs to fold to a turn bet, I would have expected some of those hands to fold to a turn bet plus a river bet. Perhaps Negreanu’s plan was to raise the flop to protect his hand from various unpaired

Daniel Negreanu’s hand

hands, then check down if called.

The river was the 8c. Luca checked, and Negreanu bet 400,000 into a pot of 282,000.

I’m generally not a fan of bluffing the river in this instance, mainly because the over pairs Negreanu was trying to make fold would all be quite strong. Also, I don’t think many players would have checked behind on the turn with a full house, so the only value hand that made logical sense to play this way was 8-8. Luca quickly folded 9-9. I was surprised by Luca’s fold, but if Negreanu’s line of play was convincing enough to force a strong opponent into folding an overpair, clearly it was a brilliant bit of maneuvering.