On Monday, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu took down the WSOP APAC Main Event for AUD$1,038,825 and received his fifth WSOP gold bracelet! He outlasted a field of 405 players and had to defeat a tough final table that included big names such as Benny Spindler, Thomas Russel and Winfred Yu.
It was five years ago (2008 WSOP $2,000 Limit Hold'em) since Negreanu won his fourth bracelet, so one can only imagine how happy he was to finally lay hands on his fifth. This is was he told WSOP.com after his win.
"I've had a lot of deep runs in the past couple of years and put up a lot of seconds and thirds, and I've had a lot of heartbreak when I got close. In the World Series of Poker Europe, I was in a very similar situation and, yeah, I had a lot of flashback moments and my emotions were running high and I was like, 'Please not again! Can't it be easy? I want this over! No outs at all. Just flop me quads!'"
he continues...
"One of the things I realized about poker is that I've always been the most successful when I am enjoying what I'm doing, not taking myself too seriously, not over-thinking things. Just play, man! And that's what I did from the get go in this tournament. I didn't worry about what the fundamentals are or what people would say. I just did what I do. I played my way. And in the end it paid off."
WSOP APAC Main Event final table results:
1 Daniel Negreanu - $1,038,825
2 Daniel Marton - $637,911
3 Winfred Yu - $423,225
4 George Tsatsis - $284,715
5 Kahle Burns - $201,994
6 Benny Spindler - $146,205
7 Mikel Habb - $107,730
8 Russell Thomas - $82,721
source: wsop.com