by Mario Alfonsi | Published on May 6, 2012 | Updated on May 6, 2012Heading into the first ever Limit Hold’em Challenge on PokerStars Saturday, many observers had pegged the encounter as too close to call. On the one hand, you had Daniel Negreanu – one of the most famous and successful poker players of all time – who was certainly strong enough to compete with anyone in any game. On the other, there was the mysterious rUaBot, an online limit hold’em specialist that Negreanu described as “a young German genius.” With one player on his home turf and the other an all-time great, anything seemed possible.But in the end, the online sensation proved too much for Negreanu, as rUaBot took the Canadian’s entire stake. In just 937 hands, rUaBot had won all $75,000 that Negreanu had put into play, ending the match before the scheduled 1,250 hands had been completed.To be sure, rUaBot certainly ran good during the match. Negreanu was shocked to find his opponent making big hands on the river time after time, and even more a few comments in the chat box wondering just how one could get so lucky. At the end of the match, rUaBot went so far as to apologize to his opponent for running so well.But that shouldn’t take away from the impressiveness of rUaBot’s accomplishment. Throughout the match, he steadily whittled away at Negreanu’s stack, extending his lead time and time again. While Negreanu had a small lead of about $1,100 after 103 hands, that was the last time he would hold a lead of any size. After 407 hands, rUaBot was already up over $44,000, and the match was never close after that.The Limit Hold’em Challenge was played at $200/$400 stakes, and featured two tables of simultaneous action. It’s unclear what the future holds for the Challenge; though it could just be a one-off event, PokerStars has seemed to have hinted in their blog posts on the match that more Challenges could be coming in the future.
