Just under the surface of the HORSE event lays the fact that a few players are beginning to feel the heat of the blinds. One of whom is Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu.

Daniel started the day in typical high spirits and nearly eight hours later remains in the same state of mind. The one thing that has changed though is the size of his stack which has descended steadily from its original 100k to now, hovering tentatively around the 20k mark.

This could all be nonsense, a case of call off the dogs, stop floating around the table like the angel of death – 20k is enough, in a game like this, to mount a comeback, particularly if your name is Daniel Negreanu.

But right now he’ll have to deal with the added attention with a table that features the multiple threats of Phil Ivey on his left, Robert Williamson III and Phil Galfond on his right.

Whilst the merits of Ivey are well known, those in any doubt as to how big a threat Galfond poses should ask Daniel himself. He finished 7th in the Omaha event that Galfond went on to win just over a week ago for a payday of over $800,000.

Daniel was full of praise for the American then and he now sits to his immediate left. They go into the break with one more 90 minute level left to play tonight.

"It was a whole load of hands" Daniel said of his stack. "I couldn't scoop anything. And you can't bluff...not as effectively."

Time for a massage as we enter level 5.