Six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu(pictured) navigated through a massive field of 6,420 World Series of Poker Main Event entrants only to be knocked out just two spaces shy of locking up a spot as a November Nine finalist. When his pair of aces fell victim to poker pro Joe dude904 McKeehan’s rivered straight, the Canadian grinder fell to his knees in anguish before collecting himself and his $526,776 11th place payout.

But like all of the game’s best players, Negreanu was quick to study his performance at the tournament, looking for spots where he could have played hands more optimally. In his blog, he focused on two hands during which he made seemingly small mistakes, but that nevertheless stuck out in his mind.

In the first hand, poker pro Justin stealthmunk Schwartz limped with a 500k chip in the cutoff with blinds at 80k-160k. Negreanu found the fact that Schwartz had used a large denomination chip to make the call telling.

“I know limping is part of his game plan, but he had smaller denomination chips that he could have called with,” Negreanu wrote. “My thinking was that he did this on purpose to make it look like he meant to raise so that the rest of us left in the hand would be less likely to attack his limp.”

On the button, Negreanu looked down to see 8d-7d and limped as well. “This is exactly the type of hand that plays well post-flop and I didn’t think it was necessary to isolate Justin (pictured),” he said. The small blind checked and a Kd-7s-6c flop was dealt.

The action was checked to Negreanu, who took a stab with a 250k bet. The big blind folded and Schwartz check-raised to 600k. Negreanu made the call with his pair along with a variety of backdoor possibilities. The turn was a blank; Schwartz went all-in for 3 million and Negreanu quickly folded.

Negreanu’s mistake, you ask? “My bet-sizing on the flop allowed Justin enough room to check-raise me as a bluff,” he explained. “If I bet 450k, he would have had to risk a million or so to bluff me and that wouldn’t have left him enough wiggle room. By betting just 250k in a spot where I could easily be bluffing myself, I opened the door to get outplayed.”

In the end, Negreanu’s fears of being outplayed were confirmed when his opponent showed Qc-Tc for nothing more than a backdoor flush draw picked up on the turn. “That could have been avoided had I made a more substantial bet on the flop,” he concluded.

In the second hand, German Alex Turyansky (pictured) opened for 600k from middle position at a five-handed table. Negreanu defended with Ac-6c in the small blind and the pair saw a flop of T-T-3. “Some would argue calling pre-flop is a mistake,” he said. “I disagree with that, and that’s not the mistake.”

Negreanu checked and his opponent bet 350k. Feeling that he had the best hand, Negreanu planned to check-raise to 1 million “and put the pressure on Alex to guess.” A 10 could very well have been a part of Negreanu’s range and he hoped that Turyansky might even fold a hand like 8-8.

But reflecting after the fact, Negreanu realized that he “rarely has a hand like that and bets only 350k.” For his opponent to call his check-raise, he would have had to call more than 25% of his stack “and then be in no man’s land on the turn whether I bet or check.”

Negreanu decided not to make the play and his ace-high was bested by Turyansky’s Q-9 after a 9 fell on the turn. “Did I played him the best way that I could? No,” he said. “There is value in analyzing your plays, not your variance.”

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