Instead, he was a few blacks away from the Piccadilly Circus party and playing for the World Series of Poker Europe bracelet.

By the time the party was winding down, fellow Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier shuffled in, having finished fourth for £267,267. The crowd gave him the proper respect at his nearly capturing another major title. With Mercier gone, the PokerStars loyalists and Negreanu fans began to get excited.

As it happened, Negreanu had started the WSOPE final table as the shortest stack. Over more than a dozen grueling hours had worked himself back up to the lead, and eventually heads up against CardPlayer magazine chief Barry Shulman.

When most of the EPT partiers were heading to bed, Schulman had taken a nearly 5-1 chip lead and the tournament looked to be at its end for Kid Poker. Instead,he came back, took over the chip lead, and had his hands on the bracelet.

One big hand made all the difference. With the money in on the flop, Negreanu was behind with top-pair of jacks and a queen kicker, up against Schulman's overpair of aces. When Kid Poker spiked a jack on the turn, it looked as if we's see another bracelet on Negreanu's wrist. The ace on the river was about as crushing a blow as Negreanu could expect to handle.

He never recovered. A few minutes later, the told the world via Twitter the hand "will make you hate poker."

By sun-up this morning, Negreanu watched the bracelet handed to Schulman. Gracious in defeat, Negreanu took his second place spot and £495,589 in prize money.

Though there is no discounting the disappointment Negreanu is experiencing this morning, he can take some heart that he is now poker's all-time tournament money winner. It's not a bracelet, but it's something.

Congratulations to both Negreanu and Mercier for outstanding performances in the WSOPE.

by Daniel Negreanu

So it's that time again.

Time for the WCOOP where you'll see all the best online and live players grinding it out online at PokerStars.com in an awesome series of tournaments. My favorite thing about the WCOOP is that there is a little something in there for everybody in terms of buy-in and game type. It's not just no-limit hold'em everyday. I mean, they have a Badugi tournament! How cool is that?

I've looked over the schedule and there are a few events in particular that really catch my eye:

So that's a glimpse at a few of the events that I'm really looking forward to, but I also plan on playing several of the smaller events throughout the WCOOP, depending on my schedule.

September is also a good golf month in Vegas, so I just might have to bring my laptop out to the course and multi-task! Can Elky break 90 and win a WCOOP at the same time? Ha, there's a challenge where I think I might have a chance.

Daniel Negreanu is a member of Team PokerStars Pro

by Daniel Negreanu

I won!

It might have been a relatively inexperienced final table, but they were all good players. It amazes me how much better players are getting and I love it. Sure it makes it harder to win, but I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of playing high level poker in the late stages of a tournament.

This final table went very well for me. Here is a brief synopsis of how it all went down:

Hand #1: Literally the first hand dealt at the final table I pick up KK in the cut off. Since there was no small blind I decided to min-raise to 120k instead of my standard 136k at the 30k-60k level with a 6k ante. The player on the button had a bit over a million and shipped it with 10-10. He had no choice I don't think, and he did the right thing as I'd usually fold there unless I had a big hand.

Hand #2: The kid Warren had me confused and outplayed me on back to back hands where I paid him off. The first went like this: He raised from the button and I called with Q-10. Flop K-8-4...check-check. Turn a 4... check-check. river a 10 and I check-called a bet of 310k. He showed KJ.

Hand #3: I raised the kid Warren's blind with KJ and he called. The flop came Q-5-3 with two clubs. check-check. Turn the Qc... check-check. River came a 2 and he bet 350k this time. I called him with the King high and he showed Q-9... oops!

Hand #4: We were three handed at this point and I was behind in chips until I made it 178k from the button with 88, blinds at 40k-80k with an 8k ante. Warren called. The flop came A 8 6 with two clubs. He checked and I fired out a pretty quick bet of 210k. He called. The turn was an Ace and he fired 350k. I called pretty quickly trying to represent a hand like 10-10 and hope he might try to push me off of it on the river. That, plus if he's drawing, I'd like him to hit! Most importantly, though, if a 6 hit the river I might be able to get away from the hand if he has an Ace and figure I'll get paid on the river anyway. The river was a Jack and he moved me in for my last 1.3 million. I called, and he showed 4-5 off.

The heads up match started dead even with 5 million a piece and blinds of 50k-100k. I planned on using my standard approach heads up and would make any adjustments necessary. Based on the way he was playing me heads up, I quickly felt like I had the right strategy and should be able to grind him down with better fundamentals.He later told me he'd never actually played heads up before, which gives me an even bigger advantage.

I think I played perfectly against him. I laid down a pair twice to him on the river and he later told me I was right both times. I never let him win a big pot until he got really short. I raised to 20k with A-10 on the button and he went all in for a million more with Kd Qd. The flop came 9-6-5 and it looked good. The turn was a 7d putting a backdoor flush draw out there, and the Jd hit the river! He doubled up, and bizarre as this is going to sound I think I was genuinely happy for him and cheered for him. He's a really nice kid and I was happy to see him get a bit psyched up, but I still felt strongly that I'd beat him.

The FINAL HAND: I min-raised to 200k with 10h 7h and he called. The flop came 8s 7s 3h. He checked and I bet 200k- he called. The turn was a Qd and he checked again. I felt like he was drawing so I bet 400k. He went all i for 1.6 million more. I didn't think he would play Q-3 based on the heads up action thus far so I ruled that out. If he had a Queen high flush draw, I think he would have gambled with his hand on the flop. If he had the 8, a check-raise had to be his move. I finally felt like it was a move with a hand like J-9 or something like that. I called and he showed: 9-7! I had him out kicked and it held up for the win.

It's the first tournament I've ever actually won with my favorite hand. That was pretty cool so I decided to keep the two cards and will put them somewhere.

690 players showed up for the tournament, the biggest field I'd ever beaten. To do it in Canada was legitimately special and I think it's going to make for great TV when it airs. I'm really hoping that this might help spark an even bigger buy in event at the River Rock next year. I genuinely believe they could hold a 10k buy in and get 300 players easy, especially if they have online qualifiers. I'm looking forward to returning next year. They treated me very well and I had a great time.

After it was over a bunch of all went to dinner. I noticed that Adam, the second place finisher was having dinner with five of his friends. I invited them all to join us and picked up the tab. After dinner we changed and a large group of us, including Adam and his friends went to a club called Republic. Brad Booth hooked us up with a huge area to chill and we hung out there till pretty late. With dinner, and paying the bar tab, the night ended up being pretty expensive for me but it was all worth it.

Now I plan on... sleeping. I just finished doing some TV stuff and really need to catch up on some R and R and am already looking forward to the $15,000 Bellagio event. That event has been very good to me in the past and I'm coming in on a roll feeling very confident. With the Bellagio structure being so deep on the first three days I always feel great about my chances to do well there.

by Daniel Negreanu

So I think I might have made a strategy error for player of the year. I hope it doesn't cost me. I didn't play in the $1,500 pot limit Omaha event with rebuys. That is essentially like an automatic cash, because there's only 300 some people in it. If you're one of the re-buyers, it very easy to make the money, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to make money.

Other tournament updates: Stud eight or better, I tried my butt off, I really did. I started at about 16K and got anteed down to 8k, and I just never caught a hand. I finally had to go in with two kings, it was heads up, and the guy made his flush. So this morning I actually got some rest, which was nice. I really needed it, I've been playing poker every day and I was just exhausted.

In the Omaha 8 or better tournament, I was playing with the most insane poker player ever, Abe Mosseri. He is an absolute insane person. Every time I bet I always call it an Abe, cause he just bets...always bets. He is like bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet, bet.

I've been hanging out in the Poker Royalty lounge again, I've been in there for the last couple of days instead of the VIP room which I'm also a member of. It's a little more private, just a different vibe in the Poker Royalty lounge you know. My boys are always in here, E-dog and Gavin, and there's always like 100 people in the VIP room, so this is even better.

Over the weekend I played in two tournaments. I played the triple draw, and I tried real hard in that, and I played like sick good and got beat. Then I foolishly decided to play the $1,500 no limit/limit tournament. No energy, so no results in that one.

I am just exhausted. I've got nothing, no energy. So we got a couple days until the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event, so I've decided that until then, I'm done with poker.

I'm getting bored playing poker now which is not good. I am really looking forward to this little two day hiatus from the game and then I'll come back recharged and ready.

by Daniel Negreanu

First of all, congratulations to both Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate. I didn't get home till 6 AM that day, so I didn't wake up till they were on the 18th green and they were putting. I only got to watch that and one playoff hole, but from what I heard it was insane golf. I've actually golfed with Rocco Mediate, over at Summerlin TPC last October. He was showing me a few things, and I mean at that point he was only a journeymen just coming back from an injury like he wasn't going to do anything, and to almost have a chance to beat Tiger. That's pretty impressive, GO ROCCO.

Congratulations to Barry Greenstien, I had a list of ten players I thought were going to do really well this year, and a lot of them have bracelets; myself, Mike Matusow, Barry, Ted Forrest came in 2nd. My team would be doing pretty good. I think that this year really put to bed the talk that online players are better than live or that online players are taking over the live games. I think this year's tournaments are playing a lot slower the whole way through so there's less mathematics and more poker. It really favors the live player's skill sets.

FYI, I busted out in 7th of the PLO tournament. I had virtually nothing left, a lack of sleep has caused some sickness here. I've got me some allergies or some kind of whatever, but I have a box of Kleenex with me at the table, not good.

Anyways back to the final table, I did my best. I lost my final key hand to Galfond. He raised the button and I had to move in with kings, he had aces, end of story. I really had no choice there so, seventh place not too bad.

I want to make a reminder for those out there, and I myself even forgot how dirty and filthy the WSOP can get. With all these different random people and germs everywhere I've been shaking everyone's hand and there have been some wet hands. I mean why if you knew you had wet hands would you ever shake anyone's hand, instead of just going pound? I mean it's the worst feeling in the world when you go to shake someone's hand, and than your like 'OHHH come on what did u just pee on your hands?'

Don't be offended if I don't shake your hand. It's nothing personal, just trying not to get sick like I just done did!