Daniel Negreanu vs Doug Polk Challenge Deemed Fake by Conspiracy Theorist

A YouTube content producer who claims to be a professional gambler has called out the Doug Polk versus Daniel Negreanu grudge match as a fake. In his video Praios talks about Negreanu appearing unconcerned about taking on Polk in his best format without any attempt to negotiate.

Could it Be True?

Praios is of the opinion that there is no way Negreanu would willingly allow Polk to choose Heads-up NL cash unless there was something in it for him. The last time Negreanu played heads-up cash was before Black Friday when Isildur1 took $150,000 off him in less than four hours. But here we are.

Negreanu is filthy rich and has nothing to gain here, realistically. Okay, he could shut Polk up for a while but 25,000 hands is still a small sample unless it’s a bloodbath.

One commenter said:

“Daniel is mega rich and set up for life. Losing a million won’t change his life at all. But winning that amount off Doug will be great for him (since Doug has bad mouthed him so much). And the amount he will improve as a player, implementing new ideas into his tournaments is worth a lot in the future.”

This doesn’t answer the fact that there seems to have been no real negotiation to improve Negreanu’s chances here.

Praios suggests that refusing to answer Polks challenge could even lead to a loss of sponsorship money, but that is unlikely.

Shady Bets

Our conspiracy theorist leaves his real points until the end of his video. He thinks there might be some shady betting going on where one of the players is incentivised to throw the match, possibly even in cahoots with the other.

Betting against themselves is an obvious way to profit, but we, of course, don’t suggest either player would stoop to this.

Praios also talks about the issue of proving real-time assistance via an earpiece. This doesn’t have anything to do with the match being a fake but does raise a valid point given the recent scandal with Fedor Kruse.

How effective would somebody proficient with a GTO solver be to a world class player in a heads-up environment? Extremely effective.