Some familar faces and mouths were back on High Stakes Poker.  It felt a bit like a class reunion with Mike Matasow being hazed by Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, and others for talking too much. Daniel Negreanu of late has been playing Texas Hold’em online in an effort to bolster his game and for the most part his play on High Stakes Poker supports the notion that needs to refine his high stakes cash game.

Negreanu has been a bit of an internet whipping boy with many, this author included, criticizing aspects of his high stakes play and to his credit he’s refused to go out like many of the older pros when he came up. He saw them as too inelastic and unwilling to tweak or revamp their games and players like him, Juanda, Cunningham, and Ivey past them by, now he’s the guy in danger of getting past up. Negreanu learned the lesson the old guys didn’t when he was a “whippersnapper” and has valiantly sought to upgrade his game.

Though it sometimes comes off a big like him thrashing around in the deep end of the pool with his floaties removed you can tell he’s thinking about the game differently. On many of the televised broadcasts of late he’s shown a willingness to defer to the young guns more so than the old elite to whom he wanted to belong to. You can argue that’s both an assett and a negative. He can’t forget the core of what made him a great poker player.

This episode started off a bit better for Daniel. He stood up to the unrelenting Dwan who’s wide open style actually enabled him to draw first blood. “Elky” or Bertrand Grospellier opened with 6d5d like he had just sat down to online poker games
on a Sunday morning. Negreanu popped it from the buttton with J10 o/s. Tom Dwan or “Durrrr” pushed it up again to 38.2k from the big blind. Doyle Brunson got away from his hand and so too did Elky. After a flop of 4s7h8s Dwan slowed down and checked and Negreanu bet 55k. Dwan folded.

Elky and Doyle but nailed their hands, with Doyle suggesting he would have hit a set and Elky revealing he made his straight. Here was a case of Negreanu opening up his style in position and three betting with a hand four years ago he wouldn’t be caught dead punching with. It got dicey as Dwan sensed weakness and attacked the older player with yet another preflop raise. Negreanu had the courage to call but who knows what he would have done had Durrrr led out. It’s an interesting question and would have tested just how far he’s come.

Mike Matasow is another of the tweener breed who used to attack the old guard and now is in the crosshairs of the new kids. His strategy for most of this show was to nit it up but to guarantee himself TV time by running his mouth. David Benyamine feels like a new comer but he fits into the age range of Negeanu and Matasow. That also made him a bit of a target in this game.

Granted Elezra and Brunson were and are the old guard, and perhaps the bulleyes are a little bigger across their chest. Elezra doesn’t play like a tight old man, but Doyle’s recent TV appearences indicate he’s drifted into that direction of his own. Course when Doyle enters a pot he still goes full bore after the pot. He’s just a bit more selective about which pots he enters.