Daniel Negreanu Headlines Poker Players Championship Final Table

The World Series of Poker returned 15 players to Day 4 of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, all of them in the money, and played down to the final table of six. The most prestigious bracelet of the summer comes with $1.3 million and leading the field is none other than Poker Central Ambassador Daniel Negreanu with 5.9 million going for his seventh bracelet.

“I helped create this event when it was originally created years ago,” Negreanu said after the day finished. “I always was so disappointed I hadn’t done better. I had a couple of cashes and last year came in 12th. I always felt, especially this year more than ever, that it’s something I wanted to win.”

“I’ve won Player of the Year twice, but this is the best year I’ve ever had, especially if I can top it off with a bracelet – I’d have six top 20 finishes,” he added. “This whole tournament’s unique. You have some of the players that clearly don’t know how to play some of the games very well, so they make up for it in other games where they play overly aggressive and stuff like that. So, I’ve been trying to avoid the landmines.”

“Paul Volpe plays all of the games at the high stakes,” said Negreanu. “There’s a couple of guys like Ike and Johnny who are very, very good at a couple of the games and they’re going to play high variance. But, there’s some weaknesses in terms of experience in some of the others. On my left is Crazy Elior, who is good at everything too. He would be the guy I think is the most well-rounded outside of myself.”

Isaac Haxton brings a ton of experience to the final table. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Trailing Negreanu is Isaac Haxton in second place – who is still looking for his first WSOP bracelet. Haxton brings 5.2 million to the final table, ahead of Elior Sion – who isn’t a household name, but did finish in ninth place in the 2016 PPC.

Johannes Becker is a German player with only one previous WSOP Las Vegas cash, 178th in a 2015 $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event, however, he did finish in ninth place in the 2015 WSOP Europe Main Event.

Ivo Donev is a professional poker and chess player. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Ivo Donev is an Austrian player with 16 WSOP cashes stretching back to 2000 and $1.6 million in live tournament earnings. He’s also an International Chess Master and wrote the book “The Most Important Ideas in the End Game.”

Volpe has two bracelets to his credit and 38 total WSOP cashes for $1.9 million. Outside the WSOP Volpe has won over $6 million in tournaments and finished in 11th place in the 2016 PPC for $92,702. Sixteen of Volpe’s WSOP cashes have come in events where the buy-in was $10,000 or higher.

Paul Volpe is short-stacked but poses a tough challenge for Negreanu. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Play resumes at 2 pm PT (5 pm ET) where they’ll play down to a winner. Here’s a look at the breakdown of payouts:

1st – $1,395,767
2nd – $862,649
3rd – $595,812
4th – $419,337
5th – $300,852
6th – $220,11

The last former PPC champion standing was Matthew Ashton in eighth place, Shaun Deeb bubbled the final table in seventh place, Scott Seiver finished in ninth place and Mike Matusow turned in a 12th place finish.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Daniel Negreanu – 5,930,000
2. Isaac Haxton – 5,205,000
3. Elior Sion – 4,750,000
4. Johannes Becker – 4,560,000
5. Ivo Donev – 2,990,000
6. Paul Volpe – 1,570,000