It’s the Limper vs the Tanker in the final stretch of the heads-up battle, which could go on longer than we expected.
While it has been a surprisingly cordial affair for the most part, Doug Polk vs Daniel Negreanu has inevitably gotten a bit more trash talky.
It started on Monday when Polk changed his strategy in the match to limping most of his buttons to reduce variance. At the time of writing he has a lead of $701,948 with just over 5,000 hands left to play.
Polk has a number of lucrative side bets on this match, so playing massive pots goes against his best interest. Negreanu, however, was very critical of the change in strategy:
Polk defended himself on Twitter saying it was a legitimate strategy:
“He cant win playing like this”
Im playing equilbrium preflop ranges for limp + single size😂
— Doug “Very Lucky” Polk (@DougPolkVids) January 26, 2021
TIL people dont know limping increases your winrate in HUNL
— Doug “Lock It Up” Polk (@DougPolkVids) January 26, 2021
You limp, I stall
Just as Polk was happy to reveal his strategy ahead of time, so was Negreanu in how he was going to counter it. Last night we saw a change in strategy from Negreanu where he took the maximum amount of time to make every decision.
Doing some homework on countering a limping strategy.
Inside tip for @pokershares session bettors:
Bet the under.
It’s going to be slow and painful the rest of the way 😂
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) January 26, 2021
I guess Negreanu can make doug play as many sessions as possible, will quit after 2 hours each time, max his study time out and force doug to be more invested (doug obviously hates poker) this is genius in the most evil way
— Patrick Leonard (@padspoker) January 27, 2021
Last night they played 560 hands which is close to half of what an average session would look like. This would indeed buy Negreanu more time to study how to deal with limpers but if the main reason was to simply tilt his opponent, it might have just worked.
Polk seemed very unhappy with the stalling strategy from Negreanu, even though most of his audience didn’t think it was particularly unethical in a Twitter poll:
Completely pathetic showing from @RealKidPoker today
Tanking 20 seconds to open, tanking 20 seconds to check flop, tanking every single decision in an effort to slow the game down to nothing.
Total piece of shit move.
— Doug “Lock It Up” Polk (@DougPolkVids) January 27, 2021
What did you think of @RealKidPoker decision to tank every spot as a response to limping?
— Doug “Lock It Up” Polk (@DougPolkVids) January 28, 2021
The next session gets underway on Friday.
Is it unethical for Negreanu to stall every hand? Let us know in the comments:
