Daniel Negreanu leads $179k and is $160k below all-in EV

Since our last report there have been three new sessions played in the Grudge Match between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk. In session 5 Daniel creeped into a lead, which has gotten even bigger now after session 8 yesterday and it stands at $179,363.71 over 3422 hands played (13.9%).

https://twitter.com/DougPolkVids/status/1329603119374688256

The current result is even more impressive if we take into account that Negreanu is running $161k below EV in all-in spots!

We know, we know, all-in EV is hardly a meaningful stat, but is also one of the rarest things that we can extract from the actual match with cards being down. And you know how poker players like to share their “EV graphs”, mostly when running bad, so we decided to check every all-in hand played so far and do something similar for Daniel’s and Doug’s battle. Plus, it’s fun to play with numbers.

You can check all the hands in this google sheet that will be updated after every session. All the numbers you see are from Daniel’s perspective. Feel free to share it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j3TPsckSvmG6qT0fDm6PpoBF3eoEhu6772acd6t1gkE/edit?usp=sharing

Session 7

The biggest loss (-$222k) for Doug so far came in a session just after a “Bill Perkins’ controversy” when he paused the match due to alleged disagreement over some rules regarding datamining.

https://twitter.com/DougPolkVids/status/1328819703003766784

It really was nothing, but we guess it might threw Polk out of rhythm a bit. Watch some of the highlights down below.

Session 8

More interesting than the match itself was a Doug’s tweet after the session, pretty much doubling down on Daniel playing bad (preflop), even though he is currently down 4 buyins and a half himself. Or is he?

https://twitter.com/DougPolkVids/status/1329624227436142594

There was one insane setup yesterday, just while Koray Turker and Jeff Platt were, funnily enough, talking about all-in EV on GGPoker’s YT stream.

Grudge Match continues with Session 9 today at 2:30 PST / 5:30 EST / 23:30 CET. Livestreams as usual on GGPoker YouTube channel or DougPolkPoker YT / Upswing Poker Twitch channel.