The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a faked death, a secret gov't program and a new life as an elite assassin honed by years of afternoon poker news training.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Daniel Negreanu surging for his 7th bracelet, India's Nikita Luther smashing the WPT500 and Marc Convey sees his sickest hand ever.
1) Is This the One for 7?
If you've been following along with Daniel Negreanu's 2017 World Series of Poker - and it's likely you have since his daily Vlog gets about 50k+ views - you know he's just missed some very big scores.
Locked in and "hyper-focused"
6th in the $10k HORSE championship, for example. 2nd in the $10k Omaha Hi-Lo. 3rd in the $10k Tag Team. 13th in the $10k Limit Championship.
With 9 cashes, 3 FTs, $360,000 in payouts and 13th on the WSOP POY leaderboard, he could stop right now and still have what most would consider a successful summer.
Not DNegs though. While he's still short of his goal of 3 bracelets, POY and $1.5m in cashes he's obviously been playing some very, very good poker - he just hasn't got the right break to get to the finish line.
Maybe he's just been saving his run-good for the event he wants to win most of all - the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
The true test of the best mixed-game players in the world, Negreanu has long coveted a PPC bracelet and this year could be the year he gets it done. After being down to just 40,000 in chips on Day 2 (barely over 2 big bets) Negreanu has surged into the Top 5 entering Day 4 with just 15 players left.
They're 15 pretty amazing poker players, obv., with Ike Haxton, Matt Ashton, Paul Volpe and Scott Seiver among them, but it feels like - at least to him and his fans - it's Negreanu's time to win.
Follow along with the live updates on WSOP.com, watch the live stream on PokerGO and check out Negreanu's inside look at the first couple of days from his VLogs below:
2) India's Nikita Luther Crushing WPT500 at Aria
We've been high on the growth of poker in India for some time and, after some massive successes at the WSOP over the past couple of years, it just might on the edge of actualizing that much-hyped "boom" potential.
"It is insane, it has not sunk in yet." (Photo: WPT)
If if could bring a whole new generation of Indian women into the game at the same time? That just might be the holy grail.
If Nikita Luther wins the WPT500 at Aria today it could happen sooner or later.
The New Delhi native was signed by poker site Adda52 in October last year but so far slipped under the radar with just a small cash at this year's WSOP to her credit.
That could take a huge turn upward today, though, as Luther is the chip leader heading into the final table (from 3,500 entries!) of the WPT500 with $230,000 up top for the winner.
With 13.6m in chips she has over twice that of her nearest competitors which include former Nov. 9er Scott Montgomery and fellow New Delhian/WSOP bracelet winner Nipun Java.
As the namesake of both the deadliest female assassin ever and the most bad-ass, rule-breaking London detective, she can't lose, right?
After Ema Zajmovic's huge win in Montreal it would be phenomenal to see Luther bring in another open-field WPT title and add another name to Esther Taylor-Brady's growing list of "strong, confident, independent" women crushing poker these days. Follow along with her quest in the WPT Live Updates.
3) Marc Convey's Sickest Hand Ever
As an esteemed poker reporter/commentator for much of the past decade, the UK's Marc Convey has seen more than his fair share of sick hands.
How great is it, then, that the sickest he's now seen was one he was actually involved in - and in a $1,000 WSOP event no less!
Guess which hand was mine?! Triple elimination and I have 65k. Sickest hand I've ever had! #wsop63 pic.twitter.com/K2K1p0RQMW— Marc Convey (@The_Conv) July 4, 2017
We'd run the odds on that exact sequence of hands/runout but we already know the answer. It's, umm... a longshot.
What's the sickest hand you've ever seen/played? Tell us about it in the comments!
