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“Oh my God, Barry Shulman is such a fucking luckbox!” That seemed to be the cry by many railbirds at the end of the World Series of Poker Europe when Shulman beat Negreanu to take the bracelet. Here is how it went down.

Hey Daniel! How's that Q-J looking now? Photo Courtesy of Betfair.com

Daniel was leading with around 6 Million chips and Shulman had around 4 Million. On a jack high flop, Shulman bet out and Daniel made a raise to 900,000. Shulman then went all-in. After doing some posturing for the crowd, Daniel made the call with Q-J. Shulman’s hand was pocket aces. Daniel needed a miracle to win the hand and the bracelet. The turn fell….a jack! The crowd goes nuts and Daniel is contemplating what he will say during his acceptance speech and interview. There was still one more card to come. That card? ACE! BOOM! Barry Shulman doubles up and Daniel is left with less than 2 Million.

The final hand, Daniel pushed with pocket fours and Shulman had pocket tens. Naturally he called. A ten on the flop gave Shulman the set and ultimately the bracelet.

After such a hard fought tournament and deserving win, people were stating that Shulman was a luckbox. What the hell is this? Did anyone read the Day 4 and final table coverage when multiple times Daniel went all-in with the WORST hand and pulled a horseshoe out of his ass? Not to mention a couple of races he won when he had the worst of it. It seems to me that Daniel was a luckbox to get there.

Admittedly, Shulman isn’t the most exciting NL Holdem player on the planet. However, he is very solid and on this day, he took the bracelet against a fan favorite. A fellow blogger asked if anyone asked Shulman how it felt to have the whole room root against him. If I were Shulman, I would have answered, “Pretty good when that Ace hit.”