There will be a new champion crowned in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl as Daniel Negreanu, last year’s winner, suffered a Day 2 bad beat against Isaac Haxton short of the money bubble.
Only 20 players registered for the no-limit hold’em tournament at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, down from the 24 entries in the 2022 SHRB. At the end of Friday’s session, Haxton held a massive chip lead heading into Saturday’s final table. The winner will take home $2,760,000, and four spots will be paid with the min-cash going for $600,000.
Tough Exit for Negreanu
When the second day of the six-figure buy-in tournament began, 12 players remained and Nick Petrangelo held the chip lead. As the session progressed, the leaderboard drastically shifted numerous times.
Paul Jager, Kristen Foxen, Justin Bonomo, and Cary Katz were the first four gone on Day 2, each out their $300,000 investment.
With eight players left, Negreanu dealt with being the short stack, but he’d find a great spot to double back into a more workable stack. The defending champ limped the 12,000-chip small blind with A♥Q♣ before Haxton, who had a bigger stack and A♠4♣, put him all in for 336,000. It took “DNegs” no time to make the call.
Negreanu fell a bit behind when the flop came out 4♥5♥7♥, but he still had an over card and flush draw to win the game. The A♦ on the turn gave the Poker Hall of Famer some additional outs, adding a 5x or 7x to his possible suck-out cards. But the 2♠ on the river officially ended his title defense.
Haxton Dominating Play
Haxton moved into a fairly sizable chip lead following the Negreanu elimination. The former PokerStars ambassador, like Negreanu, is a past Super High Roller Bowl champion having taken it down in 2018 for $3.7 million, the largest cash of his legendary career.
The tournament was stuck on seven players for quite some time before Petrangelo went all in with KxKx against the bigger stacked AxKx of Stephen Chidwick. An Ax would appear on the board to send Petrangelo home without a cash.
Haxton began to take over the table, winning pot after pot. Nearly two hours after Petrangelo busted, the session concluded with six remaining players, and Haxton bagging approximately 50% of the chips in play.
Super High Roller Bowl Final Table Chip Counts
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count* |
| 1 | Isaac Haxton | United States | 3,005,000 |
| 2 | Chris Brewer | United States | 845,000 |
| 3 | Jason Koon | United States | 700,000 |
| 4 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 635,000 |
| 5 | Bryn Kenney | United States | 445,000 |
| 6 | Andrew Lichtenberger | United States | 370,000 |
Heading into Day 3, which airs at 1 p.m. PT on PokerGO, Haxton will be in a position to push everyone around. With only four players paid in a $300k, the pressure will be on the short stacks as the bubble approaches, and all five players not named Isaac Haxton will start play with under 40 big blinds (15,000/25,000 blinds).
That said, a massive chip lead can quickly be reversed in no-limit hold’em. But there’s no doubt Haxton is the favorite heading into the final day of the 2023 Super High Roller Bowl.