Daniel just needed to bink a big slot bonus to have had a winning WSOP. ;-)

Daniel's frantic WSOP schedule (besides the fact that fields have gotten progressively harder over the last decade) is the reason he hasn't been able to perform to his fullest potential. He stated this in his 2023 wrap-up vlog. Either way, he deserves credit for his work ethic which is unmatched compared to 90% of poker players. I'm sure if Daniel wanted to he could play all the Triton's he wants but he's since far transcended the "poker-pro" lifestyle he once had. He's a businessman, or a man with business ventures, rather.

Daniel will always be one of the most charismatic people in poker. That's what makes him so likeable. It also gets him handsomely paid by GGPoker.

DN is old school. He knows some GTO, but isn't going to play as closely to what a solver recommends than many high stakes tournament players would. There are other issues, such as tournament strategy, particularly late in tournaments. Some people may be limping or making big open shoves. DN is probably better at picking up reads from how a player acts, as well as betting patterns and sizings, than a typical GTO player. It could also be tricky for some players to play against someone who is not playing GTO. Not sure the author is a better tournament player than DN because the author makes less deviations from GTO.

Of the hands shown in the video, it seems like DN made a mistake calling down 3 streets on a low board with AK. In another hand, he checks back the river with a set of kings and about a psb left with a backdoor flush possibility and straight possibilities. That also seems questionable.

In another hand, he flats a 3! with AK. It is pointed out by the author and by DN in his video that that is DN's style. There are problems with this, partly in having a balanced 4! range with that. Then the board comes K87J. Flop goes x/x, turn and river are x/c. Video author says DN should have led or checkraised the turn and river. Author doesn't mention villain had JJ and DN would have been stacked if he played preflop, turn, or river "correctly". Against 3-bettor, DN has to be worried about AA/KK/JJ, and maybe DN picked up live reads. Also, his style to play passively as here.

There is an original Star Trek where a computer is running the Enterprise and gets it into a terrible mess. Captain Kirk takes over, sends messages in a code he knows is broken, using information on their adversary. Then he exceeds the speed the ship is supposed to go, etc.

There was a real case of a Canadian passenger jet that ran out of fuel at 13,000 meters, due to mistakes with conversion to metric units in fueling and faulty fuel gages. The pilot was a former military glider pilot and landing safely at an airport that had been converted to a racetrack in the middle of the races. In another case, a Greek 747 with 418 aboard lost power on takeoff with an engine blowing up, etc. Pilot with combat experience raised landing gears at 15 meters against manual. Plane flew over city at 60 meters. All simulations later showed it crashing, but it also landed safely.

So there is an advantage to having a pilot who knows how to fly, rather than just use various computer aids and checklists. Maybe that is partly how DN has won two $300K entry fee tournaments recently despite playing "incorrectly".

Thank you for the comment!

Daniel is living legend and Im nowhere near his skills, even if there are spots that I would probably play better than him. It's much easier to judge plays when I can just run some software and compare results. The goal of this video wasn't to show how bad Daniel is - it was to show how good solvers are. Ofcourse there are many very succesful players that play more of a GTO style, but none of them could replicate 1 to 1 what solvers are doing even if they try their harderst.

What I didn't like in Daniels vlogs (and I watched them all) is not that he made some bad plays, cause everyone makes them - its his OopsieMeter - where he admitted to just few mistakes (and few of them were really small or not important) during whole WSOP series - and that's just delusional to think that you play almost perfect poker, when its impossible to even get close.

The AK vs JJ - its just one hand - and yes, he would probably bust playing other line - but this is just being result oriented and thats never good argument in poker discussion. Its like saying folding Kings to single raise is good, because it happens that opponent has AA.
And last argument, that about winning 2 tournaments... this is tournament poker, everyone can win some tournaments. Phil Hellmuth has 16 bracelets and If the solvers were human and saw him play, they would probably have a heart attack.

That's a point. It wouldn't be good for him to discuss one hand for a half hour with charts like some RIO videos, but DN doesn't show a GTO analysis of his hands, and discuss why he deviated or if it was a mistake.

DN has at least studied GTO. Hellmuth's play wasn't good technically before GTO. His short stack play is horrible. He also made basic technical mistakes when he won bracelets in razz and NL 2-7 draw.

There are exceptions, such as Haxton, but most of the old school and poker boom players, including Blom and Dwan, are not much into GTO. Some are not playing high stakes now or are playing PLO or mixed games.

yes, I know Daniel Studies some GTO, his play after his HU challenge vs Doug showed that he still wants to improve, his game is much better than few years ago - But I think he is behind all the GTO wizards and wouldnt be favorite in most HR lineups. They just put much more work in the lab and its hard to overcome with just experience or live reads. The one place he could have some adventage is sth u mentioned: he sometimes might play strange line or sizings that are not GTO approved and it might take these players to a territory that they're not feeling that comfortable. I would compare it to chess, where the best players don't play objectively best/top lines of engines in openings, cause they're well known by all top players - so the best of the best - like Magnus will deliberately make a mistake early to throw off prep of opponent, and then outplay them.

Against weaker players he might even have some tricks that other pros won't use cause theyre not GTO, But in the end, in most Highrollers the field is mostly top regs and if you play against Chidwicks or Linuses of the world, the best you can do is to try to play GTO to your best ability, and limit your losses.

you mentioned Haxton, but there are some more oldschool players that are still on top of the game. First names that come to my mind are Patrik Antonius and Eric Seidel, but Phil Ivey who probably never ran a solver also picked up a lot and is still competitive.

Yea but they're playing plo and mixed bc there's a lot more money to be made in them.
Most recs who want to play for big money don't want to play NL these days.

Mac and cheese story??

I am sure DN thinks he is fine playing $250K and $300Ks because he is highly ev+ in the last few years in them with the 2 wins.

I watched some of Day 2 of the WSOP $250K. I don't play high rollers, but it was obvious everyone wasn't playing perfectly and they weren't all Linus or whatever.

Maybe they were GTO players and didn't know that much about short stack tournament play. There were what I thought were clear errors preflop short stack, where they were too shove happy, maybe not wanting to play postflop short.

For example, there was an open shove for 24xBB from mp with AQo. This is pretty clearly better as a bet/4-bet, as you get chips from 3-bet bluffs. Then you have an easy fold to a cold 4-bet, which often has AQ dominated. You may induce some shoves, but you are ahead of the range that would shove but fold to an open shove. Yes, you have to play postflop if flat called.

Then I was really surprised to see a 3-bet shove for about 22xBB from the SB with QTs over an mp raise. The hand plays well and it seemed like a flat call with pot odds. A 3-bet/fold also seems better than a shove. If the 3-bet gets flat called, the hand plays well postflop with low spr. That wasn't as bad as the AQ hand, but didn't seem optimal.

So I am sure there are issues with tournament play, as well as reads, etc., beyond just playing perfect GTO postflop.

This is a pretty standard jam actually

Yea in fact the hand doesnt play well at all, gets in dominated spots a ton and would rather just jam to fold out KJ/QJ type hands that would stack you postflop if you call. 3b fold is terrible.

I saw two DN hands in the $250K that seemed weak. One he raised 88, cbet the A high flop and check/folded the turn. The other there was a limp, he completed in the SB with 65s and flopped an OESD. He called a flop bet from the limper and folded the turn. In both cases, his opponents had air. Think maybe he was playing as against a random in the ME and didn't see how opponents would exploit opportunities.

I don't play super high rollers, but I watch all the videos of them. When you are playing short stacked, you can't go straight by GTO. There are issues of committing your stack, and the play tends to be more cautious than cash games.

In the video of the 250K, there were several limped pots, maybe partly to avoid solver lines. Hook, who came in 5th, made obviously non-GTO plays preflop. Like he flatted on the button with 22 30xBB deep and twice raised 53o not near the bubble or anything.

I don't see how it's just about playing GTO. Otherwise, Ivey, Negreanu, and Blom wouldn't do well in them. The players who do well in them generally know GTO, but not just GTO. That is partly why high stake NLHE tournaments aren't dead like high stakes NLHE cash games are.

He folded 6 high to worse?

He probably could have gotten better no pair to fold. Various ways to play the OESD, but folding the turn bet seemed weak.

But the opponents had worse than 6 high?

Obviously, not. However with 6-high and a draw, it is a pretty good spot to bet or raise on some street and give the limper a chance to fold a hand that usually would win at showdown.

Nobody said that. His opponent had air doesn't mean he had worse than 6 high.

But the limper bet the turn.

Daniel decided that bluffing this person wasn't worth the tournament equity, that it wasn't likely to succeed enough to be profitable. But you know better despite not being able to repeat exact action/board cards, not knowing stack sizes, opponent tendencies, recent table action, or any physical tells, all of which that guided Daniels decision.

I looked at the hand. Had assumed it was a limp, as DN was plays 65s in the SB. Schindler with 5.4M minraises to 160 UTG+1 with ATo, Hook with 3M calls in HJ with KQo, Negreanu with 2.2M calls from SB with 65s. Flop is 744,r, giving Negreanu an OESD and BDFD. X,x,Hook bets 200K into 640K, Negreanu calls. Turn is a J, putting a 2-flush up. x. Hook bets 325K into 1040K, Negreanu folds. I think the call in the SB was questionable. I thought he had odds to call the turn and draw. Granted theoretically he could be drawing dead. Hook was betting small when checked to in position and could possibly have nothing, as he did. I thought it would be better to lead or checkraise as some point and anyway, he could call the small bets. I don’t agree with some of the bashing ITT, but some of the hands seemed to be played poorly.

What were the antes and blind structure?

What was DNs tournament EV for a call vs a fold, vs Schindler’s likely range?

You understand Tournament decisions aren’t solely based on pot odds, right?

It was 80/160/160. It didn't look good to me. Granted they make small bets in tournaments and people fold to them. Didn't seem good to fold the OESD to the bets from the in position player. Can't see how you can profitably call with 65s in the SB if you are going to fold to small bets when you make a decent draw. DN could maybe represent he hit the low board, although he shouldn't be calling wide like he did from the SB.

Not sure what this is, did you mean 80/160 w/16k antes? Or was it really three blinds?

In either case that increases the number of hands you can call profitably from the SB, by a lot.

He was OOP, he had a read we aren’t privy to. Every chip he puts in the pot costs him more than the last based on tournament equity. We need a lot more info before we can declare his play good or bad.

They use a BB ante. The BB posts the whole ante of one BB. 80/160/160 is standard now. You obviously haven't played live tournaments at all recently and haven't watched WSOP videos etc.

You may be right and he played it perfectly, but seemed weird to call with a low suited connector and play it so weak seeming.

True, but it does not change the math, antes in any form mean you need to call with wider ranges from the SB.

I never said he played it perfectly, or even well. I’m only saying we lack enough information to confidently praise or condemn his play. Tournament EV is incredibly important extra consideration that doesn’t come in to basic cash game analysis, and obviously since this is Daniel Negreaneu live reads are very important too. If your opponent bluff catches at a high rate, raising the turn is suicidal.