Daniel Negreanu has put himself back in bracelet contention at the 2026 World Series of Poker, bagging one of the biggest stacks in the field after Day 1 of Event #17, the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. The Canadian turned his 60,000 starting stack into 311,000 chips by the close of play on Tuesday, ending the night tied for second on the leaderboard and within a few chips of the lead — a welcome turn for a player whose opening week and a half of this summer’s series has been long on heartbreak and short on reward.
Negreanu’s 311,000 (104 big blinds) left him level with American Chad Eveslage and just behind overnight chip leader Carlo van Ravenswoud of the Netherlands, who bagged 319,000. From 136 Day 1 entries, 58 players survived to return for Day 2, which resumes at 1 p.m. local time on Wednesday. The prize pool already stands at $1,264,800 (roughly £940,000) and will grow further when late registration stays open for one more level, with each player permitted up to two re-entries.
For Negreanu, the strong bag is overdue. The GGPoker ambassador and Poker Hall of Famer endured a miserable opening week, most memorably surrendering a ten-to-one chip lead in the 25,000 Heads-Up Championship, where opponent Biao Ding rivered his way back from the brink to eliminate him. That defeat at least delivered Negreanu’s first cash of the 2026 series, small consolation after his pocket aces were cracked on the money bubble of the $5,000 8-Handed event. He registered for the 2-7 Championship within minutes of busting the $10,000 GGMillion High Roller, then promptly doubled his starting stack early before settling into a steady night of accumulation.
The Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Championship is one of the most prestigious fixtures on the WSOP calendar, a single-draw game in which the worst poker hand wins and the unbeatable holding is seven-five-four-three-two. Its $10,000 buy-in (about £7,430) and its reputation as a specialist’s event draw an unusually deep concentration of elite players. Reigning champion Nick Schulman, who claimed his seventh bracelet here in 2025 after seeing off 232 opponents, bagged a more modest 86,500. Among those above him are Alex Foxen, who sits fourth with 299,000, fellow Hall of Famer John Hennigan, reigning Player of the Year Shaun Deeb, and 2024 champion Scott Seiver.
The rest of the field reads like a who’s who of the game’s past and present. Farzad Bonyadi, the 2021 winner of this event, returns chasing a fifth bracelet, while 2003 Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker (149,500) and cash-game legend Jennifer Harman (140,000) both advanced with healthy stacks. Benny Glaser, hunting a ninth career bracelet, bagged 131,500, and 2018 Main Event champion John Cynn made a rare tournament appearance, scraping into Day 2 with 41,500.
The significance for Negreanu is hard to overstate. Few players in the game’s history can match his résumé, yet a WSOP bracelet has eluded him since 2013, a drought that has become one of the sport’s most persistent talking points. He came agonisingly close in 2025, finishing runner-up to Ryan Bambrick in the $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Championship as part of a series of deep runs that never quite converted. A title in a championship event as respected as the 2-7 would do more than end the drought; it would reaffirm his standing among the elite mixed-game players at a time when no-limit hold’em specialists dominate the headlines.
What happens next will test that bag. Day 2 is scheduled to play down to the final five, meaning Negreanu and the rest of the survivors face a long, attrition-heavy session before the tournament reaches its business end. Late registration will keep both the field and the prize pool growing through the early levels, and with re-entries permitted, the eventual winner will have to navigate a stacked room of professionals who specialise in precisely this format. Negreanu’s overnight position is about as good as he could have hoped for, but in a draw game where a single card can flip a hand, chip leads are notoriously fragile — as he learned painfully only days ago.
If the early heartbreak of this summer has taught Negreanu anything, it is that 104 big blinds and a seat near the top guarantee nothing until the last card is dealt.