Daily Brief

The Muck Daily

Daily Brief

09/23/26  ·  Day 018 - The Twenty Years Edition

A Hall of Famer flew to Vancouver to chase a ninth bracelet, built the chip lead at the final table, and lost a 200-big-blind pot to a set of eights, finishing seventh for a fifteenth of what first place will pay. In Cyprus a man who ran out of things to win at his own casino twenty years ago finally found the room that paid for it. A livestreaming vlogger demanded a clock on an opponent whose own tank time was exactly average, then closed the night with the worst result at the table. And a 20-year-old with two WSOP Circuit rings still can't legally play poker in the state where he lives.

Today's Big Question

Negreanu Flew to Canada for Bracelet Nine. He Finished Seventh.

What happened

Daniel Negreanu, who holds eight World Series of Poker bracelets, flew from Las Vegas to Vancouver last week because GGPoker, the site running the 2026 WSOP Online series, does not accept players inside the United States. By the final seven of the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event, he had turned that trip into the outright chip lead. He started the day second in chips with 92.1 big blinds, behind a player known online as Elite and later identified on the stream as Andreas Freund, who held 123.8. Samuli Sipila sat third with 48.3, and three of the other four players started with fewer than 20.

A few orbits later, with Negreanu now the outright leader, Freund raised under the gun holding queen-ten-eight-eight, and Negreanu defended the big blind with queen-jack-four-four. The flop of ace-three-two checked through. The turn brought a third eight, giving Freund a set of eights and a flush draw, and Negreanu, holding two flush draws of his own, bet, got raised, and repotted before calling off. The pot ran close to 200 big blinds, four times the size of the next-largest stack at the table.

The river paired the board in clubs, giving both men a flush. Freund's was higher. Negreanu was left with under seven big blinds and busted soon after in seventh place for $71,111. At the time of publication, Freund was heads-up for the bracelet, a $30,000 WSOP Paradise package and $428,888.

Why it matters

A trip built around GGPoker's ban on players inside the United States ended the way most bracelet hunts do, on the wrong side of a set. Negreanu had two flush draws and pushed the pot to nearly 200 big blinds; Freund had the eight he needed, and the river gave both men the same flush with the higher kicker attached to the winner.

Eight bracelets bought him nothing extra once the cards were dealt. He flew to another country for a shot at a ninth and left with a min-cash worth roughly a sixth of the first prize now sitting on the table for somebody else.

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In the Spotlight

Boris Smuskevicius Won Everything His Home Casino Had. Cyprus Paid $217,000.

What happened

Boris Smuskevicius of Lithuania won the $3,500 Merit Poker Cup at Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino in Cyprus, beating a 418-entry field for the biggest live score of his career. The buy-in built a $1,270,720 prize pool. A three-way ICM deal at the final table left him $217,000, three thousand short of the tournament's advertised first prize, and he closed it out by making quad queens against runner-up Ekrem Sanioglu of France, who took $118,000.

Joseph Mouawad of Lebanon finished third for $124,000, six thousand more than Sanioglu was paid for lasting longer, a result of how the three-way deal split the money before either man busted. Vyacheslav Kardash of Russia took fourth for $74,000 and Darko Svesko of Serbia fifth for $58,000. The turning point came earlier, when Smuskevicius got his stack in with pocket jacks against Mehmet Dalkilic's pocket queens for a quarter of the chips in the tournament. A jack on the turn made him a set and put him in control of the final table.

His previous best score was $39,800, won at the Aria in Las Vegas in 2023. "I learned the game at the Olympic Casino in Lithuania twenty years ago, playing tournaments, home games and cash games," Smuskevicius said afterward. "I don't play much in Lithuania now. I won everything that Olympic Casino offered and looked to bigger challenges." He has been coming to Merit for ten years and said he may take a shot at the Triton One events at Merit's sister property in November.

Why it matters

Twenty years is a long time to keep working one building before outgrowing it. Smuskevicius spent every one of those years building toward exactly the kind of pot he closed the tournament with, quad queens against the only player left between him and the title. The three-way deal is its own small lesson in how a chop actually works. Mouawad busted before Sanioglu did and still walked away six thousand dollars richer, because the split was struck by chip count at the table, not by who lasted longer.

The number that actually matters is the one from Lithuania. A player who ran out of things to win at his local casino two decades ago just found out what the room upstairs was worth.

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The Explainer

Rampage Demanded a Clock on Harut. The Numbers Said He Was Average.

What happened

Ethan "Rampage" Yau called for a clock on an opponent during a Hustler Casino Live stream after the player, going by Harut, took about a minute to decide on a fold with top pair, a flush draw and two overcards. Harut had limped in with ace-king of hearts, called Rampage's raise to $2,000 from the small blind with queen-queen, and called again on a flop of jack-three-two that gave him the nut flush draw. When Rampage check-raised to $18,000 on the turn, Harut, with $92,000 behind and better than 2-1 on the call, went into the tank.

"Clock, he's taking so long. We have 30 minutes left. It's just the flop," Rampage said, though the hand was already on the turn. "Are you joking or are you serious?" Harut asked. "No, I really want clock," Rampage answered. Harut folded. Hustler's own on-screen stats showed his average tank time for the session was nine seconds, the same as everyone else at the table.

By the time the session ended, Harut was the biggest winner in the game, up $72,600. Rampage was the biggest loser, down $103,250, having spent part of the night pushing a clock on the one player who wasn't actually slowing it down.

Why it matters

A livestream gives a viewer the numbers to check a player's math in real time, and in this case the math said Rampage was wrong before he finished the sentence. Harut's tank on the hand that set him off ran about a minute against a check-raise for most of his stack, a legitimate decision by any table's standard, and his overall pace for the night measured out to exactly average.

Rampage has had a real year, a bracelet in June and a hot summer in the WSOP high-stakes cash games. None of that showed up on this particular night, when the man he badgered for tanking finished the session up more than $72,000 and the man doing the badgering finished down more than $103,000.

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Follow the Money

A 20-Year-Old Won His Second WSOP Ring. He Still Can't Play at Home.

What happened

Joseph Olivieri, 20, of North Carolina, won his second WSOP Circuit ring on Event #3, a $600 pot-limit Big O at TCH Social in Austin, for $31,990, beating heads-up opponent Yuval Bronshtein, a WSOP bracelet winner with more than $4 million in career cashes. It's one of a small number of U.S. rooms where Olivieri is old enough to play. He can't legally play poker in his home state of North Carolina until he turns 21 in March.

Olivieri has also won seven Seminole Hard Rock Poker titles in Hollywood, Florida, in the last 18 months, where the gambling age is 18, putting his career earnings at $300,000. Raminder Singh, a longtime South Florida regular, holds the record with 21 Seminole Hard Rock Poker titles. Olivieri started around home games with his father in North Carolina at 16, during the pandemic, and said school stopped competing for his attention once poker started winning. "Once I started playing poker, I just really didn't care much about school," he said.

The ring qualifies him for a travel and ticket package to WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas this December, where he can legally play. He plans a full Las Vegas WSOP schedule next summer, mostly mixed games, and an Asian Poker Tour Championship trip to Taiwan in November, where he already has three cashes and one win.

Why it matters

Two WSOP Circuit rings before legal drinking age is a real resume, and Olivieri has built almost all of it in the handful of rooms where his birth certificate doesn't disqualify him. North Carolina, where he actually lives, isn't one of them.

Lucas Jumalon won this year's WSOP Main Event at 22, the second-youngest champion ever. Joe Cada set the record at 21, in 2009. Olivieri turns 21 in March, with two rings and a plan already in place. The only thing he hasn't done yet is play in the state where he lives.

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Hardware Won

Two titles closed since yesterday's brief, one that took twenty years and one won by a player too young to legally drink.

Out

One bracelet hunt and two Merit Poker Cup finishers, listed in the order the money actually landed rather than the order they busted.

On the Watchlist

  • Borgata Big Big Championship$5,300 buy-in, $3,000,000 prize pool, 178 of 518 entries left for Day 2. The series closes today.
  • WSOP Circuit Council BluffsRunning through Sept. 28 with 18 ring events. No winners published since the stop opened Sept. 17.
  • Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event$5,400 buy-in kicks off today at 1 p.m. local time at Merit Crystal Cove.
Hardware Watch · Big Stack Energy · Bustout Board · Race Watch See The Full Board →
In The Air Right Now

Stops with cards in the air on this date.

Borgata2026 Borgata Big, Big SeriesBorgata Hotel Casino & SpaRGPS2026 RGPS Golden Expedition ArubaHilton Aruba Caribbean Resort & CasinoWSOPWSOP Circuit - Council BluffsIA, United StatesRGPS2026 RGPS Golden Expedition MarylandMGM National Harbor Hotel & Casino
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