/ Matthew Pitt / 30 March 2011 / Leave a Comment 
A week ago Daniel Negreanu played the first of his two 2,500 heads up matches against the enigmatic Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and got owned by both the young Swede and the deck. In fact he was that badly beaten that he became the first of Blom's "SuperStar Showdown" challengers to lose their $150,000 bankroll before the allocated 2,500 hands had been played. However, that did not deter the plucky Canadian and he sat down across four tables of $50/$100 heads up no limit Hold'em tables on Sunday with a fresh $150,000 on the line.
A large percentage of the online poker community thought that Negreanu should have pulled out of this second battle because of how the first encounter went down but he was determined to prove he has what it takes to play the very best players at their own game. Within 1,300 hands it looked as if Negreanu's decision to play was one of the worst of his life as he was down another $120,000 and it looked as if he could go broke even sooner than the 1,439 hands it took in the previous match.
Negreanu cited the main reason for his early demise in the first match was the fact he ran massively under EV, especially in pots of $20,000 or greater. In fact he won only two of the 14 pots of this size. It appeared that he had really angered the poker gods because his horrific run continued into the second 2,500 hand match. He first lost an AsQc versus kings encounter all in preflop then in another hand he raised to $300, Blom made it $1,200 to play and Negreanu put in a further raise to $3,100. Blom called this then shoved on a 5h-4h-2h flop only to find Negreanu making the call with Jh8h for a flopped flush, but the turn and river were both fives, which gave Blom an unlikely full house!
This prompted Negreanu to type, "This is unreal," in the chat box before adding ,"You run insane against me." Blom admitted this in his response of ,"Yep its really insane." Negreanu then continue to run bad first losing with AcJc versus Kd3d with the money going in on a Ad-Jc-6d flop then getting the dreaded kings into aces situation that we all love to hate. Then something happened and Negreanu flopped the nut straight on a two-flushed board and won a substantial pot as he faded Blom's flush draw. This was followed by Negreanu calling Blom's $55,700 shove into a $4,000 pot on a Tc-9c-4d flop in a four-bet pot. Blom held 9h7h to Negreanu's KdKc and the comeback was well and truly on.
The outspoken Canadian then scooped a $56,300 pot when his aces held against QdJh on a Js-6c-5c flop and then 350 hands from the end he actually nudged in front when his Ah8h bested the 8d7d of Blom when the final board ran out As-7c-5s-6h-8c. With 38 hands to go there was an impromptu pause during which Negreanu admitted to going on tilt saying that he had "broke lots of stuff" in his room and that he had "smashed everything." In the last 38 hands there was only one all in encounter and Negreanu won that, his aces beating Blom's fours all in preflop. When the challenge came to an end they had actually played 2,502 hands and Negreanu, despite being down $120,000 at one stage, had actually won with a profit of $26,500. An epic comeback.
At the end of the match Negreanu was full of praise for Blom calling him "incredible" and saying that he hopes to be able to have some lessons from the 20-year old Swede as he "is the best." Blom takes on Scott "urnotindangr" Palmer this coming Sunday in another two 2,500 hands battles. Many believe Palmer will be Blom's toughest opponent since he began his so-called SuperStar Showdown challenge. This writer is of that train of thought too, it should be one of the true online battles.
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