F5 Poker. Everything Poker. Always Refreshing.

Nicholas Seward won Event #9 of the 2026 Poker Masters, beating Daniel Negreanu heads-up in the $26,000 no-limit hold’em tournament for $412,500. The victory was Seward’s first PokerGO Tour title, while Negreanu collected $262,500 as runner-up and missed out on a 13th PGT win.

The penultimate Poker Masters event drew 50 entries for a $1.25 million prize pool, with the top eight finishers paid. Although the event was labeled a $26,000 NLH tournament, Card Player described the buy-in as $25,000.

Negreanu carried the chip lead into the final day, with Seward second, and had also led on Day 1 while controlling much of Day 2. The heads-up match lasted two hours, beginning with Negreanu ahead 4.2 million chips to Seward’s 3.305 million.

The lead changed hands during the duel. Seward ultimately took a crucial pot with A-spade-6-heart on an A-club-6-spade-3-club, 9-club, 6-club board, making a full house against Negreanu’s flush. Negreanu folded when Seward raised to 2.425 million.

The final hand began when Negreanu three-bet shoved 2.05 million chips, or 21 big blinds, over Seward’s button raise. Seward called with king-jack against Negreanu’s king-ten, and his hand stayed ahead on a 9-spade-3-spade-3-club-5-club-7-club board.

“It feels great,” Seward told PokerNews. He said the $25,000 buy-in made it “a big one” and called the result particularly rewarding as his first victory on the tour. Seward also said facing Negreanu heads-up was special because he grew up watching the Poker Hall of Famer play.

The win was Seward’s second title and 13th final-table finish of 2026. It was the third-largest payday of his career, lifting his lifetime tournament cashes above $5.4 million; his two larger scores were $516,135 for winning the 2024 WSOP $3,000 six-max event and $418,700 for the 2026 World Poker Tour Venetian main event.

Seward’s result also earned 420 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving him into the overall top 50 in the standings presented by CoinPoker. He had four cashes at the Poker Masters festival, including this win and two other top-five finishes.

At the end of Event #9, Seward stood third in the Purple Jacket race with 397 points, behind Adrian Mateos on 451 and Nicholas Palma on 407. Event #10, the $51,000 NLH series finale, was set to decide the jacket and its $25,000 bonus, with Palma, Seward and Jeremy Ausmus still able to overtake Mateos before the event. Mateos was subsequently eliminated from Event #10 with his total fixed at 451 points.

Negreanu, an eight-time WSOP bracelet winner, said he could not win the series leaderboard and chose not to enter the finale. His runner-up finish took his career tournament earnings to $60.36 million, good for 10th on poker’s all-time money list and still first among Canadian players.