It was perhaps the most dramatic hand of the tournament so far. Just before the last break, Matt Guan raised to 400,000 and got three-bet by Joe McKeehen. Negreanu, sitting with ace-king, made it 2.6 million. Guan got out of the way, but McKeehen moved all-in for 9.8 million.

Negreanu tanked hard, but after several minutes he let the hand go. It left him with a slightly-lower than average stack, but it might have saved his place in this tournament.

Afterward, he summed it up about as well as he could.

While Negreanu is noting his own maturity and growth, he's still clinging to what he's been calling "old school" play and crediting it for his progress so far.

"Old school is about letting your opponents make mistakes," he told us during the last break. "New school, they try to create things. Sometimes they're there. Sometimes they're not there."

For Negreanu, calling with that ace-king was going to be a mistake, probably no matter what McKeehen held. He decided to wait for a better spot.

Now with fifteen players remaining, he has around 44 big blinds, still room to move, still time to teach some kids a class from the old school.

"The way I approach it, I feel like, I've been there before," he said. "I'm going to wait until they make mistakes."

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Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging. Photography by PokerPhotoArchive.com

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