Daniel Negreanu Wins WSOPC Poker Championship
Daniel Negreanu, shown here playing at 2005 Festa al Lago, wins Tunica WSOPC Championship worth $755,525.
Daniel Negreanu won the WSOP Circuit Championship at Grand Casino-Resorts in Tunica, Mississippi. The $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Circuit championship event attracted a field of 241 players and offered a prize pool of $2,289,500. Daniel's win paid $755,525 and is the first major victory for Negreanu in more than a year. Holder of three WSOP gold bracelets, the 2004 Poker Player of the Year ends the string of tournament losses from the past year. Some of his lackluster year may be attributed to his increasing involvement his business interest. The Wynn poker room deal took up the first six months of 2005, and Daniel writes a syndicated poker column carried in 40 newspaper...read by millions. He does all of that, stops in Tunica and wins it all.
In an interview with WSOP Media Director, Nolan Dalla, Daniel said of his win:
I had a strategy designed for each individual player and pretty much followed it at the final table. The key to winning for me is that I stayed out of marginal situations. I don't want to get into a race with 6-6 against A-K and hope to stay alive. I think what I am best at is playing after the flop, and I wanted to get as many situations as I could where I was up against (an opponent) and could take them on after the flop. My goal is to see the most flops I can. I like to set traps. I let (opponents) get involved, and then trap then. If I get them drawing dead (which happened twice at the final table in big pots)-that's always the plan.
For a final table elimination run down read Nolan Dalla's WSOPC Report from the Grand casino-Resort in Tunica.
Heads-up play lasted just six hands and on the sixth hand Bryant 'BK' King of Spokane, Washington was all in, he finished in second place when his pair of kings with a 4 kicker was bested by Negreanu's pair of Kings with a 9 kicker. King received $416,690 for runner up. Complete tournament results are available at PokerPlayerNewspaper.com.
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