“To Get There, You’ve Got to Play Well” – Daniel Negreanu Claims 8th WSOP Title in Las Vegas

Images courtesy of the World Series of Poker

The Canadian legend and Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu won his eighth WSOP bracelet on a night of drama in Las Vegas last night. Afterwards, he took time out to describe how he did it and, in doing so, conquered the voice of doubt that he battles to overcome his opponents and become so successful.

Winning the $100,000-entry Pot Limit Omaha High Roller Event #76 on the 2026 schedule, Daniel Negreanu cemented his place as not only one of the biggest winners in World Series of Poker history but one of the best mixed games players, too.

Breaking down his victory in the Pot Limit Omaha event, that less than 100 of the best players of the world entered, Negreanu credited his perseverance in the format as key to his latest victory in Las Vegas.

Running from Behind

He won’t say it, but Daniel Negreanu must have been feeling some pressure in all-time terms. On the list of multiple WSOP winners, Negreanu’s drought from 2013 to 2024 definitely cost him momentum in his own personal and collective pursuit of Phil Hellmuth’s 17 titles.

Winning the $50,000 Poker Players Championship two years ago for over $1.1 million, Negreanu says that win “got the monkey off my back,” but without a bracelet in 2025 and into the final fortnight of this year’s series, Kid Poker was staring another blank series in the eye.

Until he wasn’t.

Having watched those he was chasing – Shaun Deeb, Benny Glaser, and Michael Mizrachi – upgrade from eight-time winners to nine-time champions can’t have been easy. Still, Negreanu fired everything. A $600-entry deepstack? Count Kid Poker in. A $250,000 Super High Roller. Sign up the most successful Canadian player in poker history.

The $100,000-entry PLO High Roller event gave ‘DNegs’ the chance to not only win an eighth crown but the biggest WSOP prize of his career, with a top prize of $2.25 million up for grabs. To get there, he needed to go into the final day with a decent stack, and thanks to some impressive play on the penultimate day, that target was achieved.

With nine players left, he had the chip lead. With five remaining and both Sean Winter and Jeremy Ausmus exiting in sixth and eighth place, respectively, Negreanu was second. A good night’s sleep, and he came back to the action with just four opponents between him and history, with his stack comfortably second and only a short distance behind the German chip leader Christopher Frank.

Then it all started to go wrong. Losing the opening pots, Negreanu was on a slide. Wife Amanda was crossing her fingers on the rail, as fans that stood three-deep to cheer on their hero hoped for a miracle.

Going for Gold

Never one to accept his fate meekly, Negreanu will burst through the window if he feels Lady Luck has slammed the door on him. Bouncing back through Frank, Negreanu got on a run, and when Martirosian took out the Japanese player Yosuke Miki for $516,160, he and Negreanu were on a collision course for the heads-up battle.

Sure enough, when the British player Philip Sternheimer (4th for $705,448) and Chris Frank (3rd for $1,002,107) busted, only the Russian stood between Negreanu and poker history.

Battling back from a deficit of around 3:2 in chips, Negreanu took the lead and then extended it after a hero-call that showed his class. Post-flop play is what PLO is all about.

PLO is literally designed like the Lord said: ‘What’s a game that Daniel could be really good at? Oh, I got one. He can limp before the flop and call a raise, cool. He gets fours cards. Awesome. It’s Pot-limit – even better. And it’s all about post-flops.’

With the end in sight, Negreanu called Martirosian’s next shove and thought he needed hearts or spades to send the Russian home as runner-up. Instead, the three and four in his hand flopped a wheel straight, and after a queen that didn’t help Martiroisian landed on the turn, it was all over.

Negreanu had the victory and his eighth bracelet and celebrated with his wife, Amanda, on the rail.

When you’re in that zone of winning, you just want to pile up the victories, Negreanu says. Getting the $50k PPC took the monkey off my back and [I was] a little less stressed out.

Reflections on Victory

Negreanu said he felt great until he doubled Martirosian up, which was when the traumatic memories of losing heads-ups in Las Vegas for most of a decade came back to haunt him.

I just think the game was perfectly built for my skillset, he says about PLO in general. I was telling people that even though I was down $600,000, I was like, ‘Guys, I think I’m doing OK. It’s hard to know, though.’

Winning the biggest top prize of all his bracelets, a massive $2,257,718, Negreanu’s win not only cements his place in poker history on eight bracelets but bumps him right up the list of winners in this year’s World Series.

Here’s how the final table lined up after Kid Poker’s ‘Baby Rungood’ came to fruition at the perfect time.

A Historic Win in Las Vegas

Daniel Negreanu’s latest win doesn’t just benefit him. Every summer, Kid Poker puts a package on sale on PokerStake where he sells his action at no markup. Thousands of fans grab a piece of the pie before it’s all gone, and this result puts everyone who did so in profit already.

Those that buy a piece of me throughout the summer and watch the vlog, they’re all gonna get a paycheck this summer, and I’m happy to do that.

As Zvonimir Potocki wrote this week, Phil Hellmuth’s record of 17 WSOP bracelets is no longer unassailable, as consistent poker greats are putting in big volume and have won multiple bracelets across a 100-event summer series.

Some of those players included Shaun Deeb and Benny Glaser, two of Negreanu’s rivals in the WSOP Player of the Year race.

Player of the Year and WSOP Paradise

Could Negreanu make a move up the Player of the Year leaderboard? He reckons so if he can get a couple more strong results here and then head to The Bahamas this winter.

There are so many really good contenders in the running for it. I’ll try to put my work together, and then the results will come. I’m going to start thinking about it a little more, of course. [My son] is coming… but we’re going to work in the winter.

With so much success already and over $60 million in live tournament earnings, Daniel knows that he doesn’t have to put himself under pressure anymore.

At this stage of my career, I don’t have anything I have to prove to people, but I enjoy doing it. Without those painful moments, you don’t feel the sweetness of the reward.

It was 28 years ago that Daniel Negreanu won his first WSOP bracelet in Pot Limit Hold’em. Six of his eight wins have involved limit games in one form or another, including his latest.

Kid Poker might just be getting started.

Here are all of Daniel Negreanu’s eight WSOP wins and the order in which they came.