Shulman defeats Negreanu in epic encounter

The WSOPE has just reached its conclusion and the £10,000 main event was won by American Barry Shulman who picked up over £800,000 ($1.28 million). The event which was held in London from the 26th September to the 1st October had 334 entrants with a total prize pool of £3.34 million ($5.3 million).

The heads up battle lasted a total of five hours with Shulman going up against Daniel Negreanu for the cash and the title. Negreanu picked up £495,000 for his trouble. The USA also had two more runners in the final nine with Jason Mercier and Matt Hawrilenko coming 4th and 8th respectively.

The British players also had a showing with perhaps two of the top no-limit poker tournament players in the country right now coming 3rd and 9th respectively. Praz Bansi came third winning around £360,000 and WSOP “November Nine” finalist James Akenhead coming ninth and picking up £66,533 in the process.

Amazingly this wasn’t the only connection with the final table of the main WSOP event next month as Barry Shulman is the father of Jeff Shulman who will be taking his place at that final table and also seventh place finisher Antoine Saout from France will be there as well. The final table itself lasted a gruelling seventeen hours but it didn’t take long for Akenhead to fall as his A-Q was outgunned by the pocket kings of Negreanu. Daniel Negreanu then started rolling along like a freight train and rapidly took the lead.

But almost the entire night, Barry Shulman went unnoticed and when the action went three way between Negreanu, Bansi and Shulman, not many people were predicting a win for the quiet American. Bansi actually doubled Shulman up when his KK was outdrawn by the Americans A-9 when an ace appeared on the turn. The home support had strongly been behind the two British players but that crushing blow left Bansi as the short stack and he was eliminated shortly after.

The heads up confrontation looked to be ending early as Negreanu had pocket aces against the flush draw of Shulman. The flush came in and suddenly Shulman had doubled through again. But Negreanu was sticking to the strategy in his no-limit hold ‘em book and was taking lots of tiny uncontested pots. But then Negreanu ran into an unfortunate situation where he was then on the receiving end of pocket aces.

The flop was Jc-8d-5d and Negreanu had the Qc-Jd. There had been some heavy flop betting and raising and Shulman moved all-in….Negreanu eventually called. Then amazingly Negreanu catapulted into the lead when a jack came on the turn but just like the title of another great book by Barry Greenstein……Ace on the River and Negreanu was crushed.

Negreanu soon shoved all-in with pocket fours and ran into pocket tens for Shulman, no such luck for Negreanu and he exited in second place after having looked the likely winner for long periods of time. This was one of the most remarkable final tables of the year and is certainly one that will live long in the memory for anyone who was there to witness it.

By Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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Tags: negreanu, poker, poker tournament, schulman, WSOPE