Daniel Negreanu
Daniel Negreanu is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour championship titles. The independent poker ranking service Global Poker Index recognized Negreanu as the best poker player of the decade in 2014.
As of 2019, he is the third biggest live tournament poker winner of all time, having accumulated over $42,000,000 in prize money. He was named the WSOP Player of the Year in 2004, and in 2013, making him the first and only player to receive the accolade more than once. He was also the 2004–2005 WPT Player of the Year. He is the first player to make a final table at each of the three WSOP bracelet-awarding locations and the first to win a bracelet at each. In 2014, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Poker career
Negreanu is an accomplished tournament and cash game player. He has amassed six World Series of Poker bracelets, two World Poker Tour championships, and reached numerous WSOP and WPT final tables, and won various other tournament titles. Negreanu was named the 2004 Card Player Player of the Year and the WSOP Player of the Year. He was also named the 2004-05 WPT Player of the Year. In 2006, Negreanu was named "Favorite Poker Player" at Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year Awards Gala. In 2013, he captured two WSOP bracelets as well as another WSOP Player of the Year award, becoming the only player to win the award twice. In November 2014, Negreanu was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.In the past, Negreanu has regularly played the "Big Game" in Bobby's Room, in the Bellagio casino, Las Vegas, where the limits are $400–$800 or greater and the games are mixed. He is a self-admitted action junkie who always seeks new challenges and sets high goals for himself, not only at the poker table but also on the golf course. Unlike many other players, he is very outspoken about his poker results and regularly posts updates in the forums at the Full Contact Poker website. Some of Negreanu's success is attributed to his ability to read opponents. When asked about this, Negreanu explained that the most important skill he employs is observing what hands his opponents play and how capable they are of playing them.
Tournament Poker
World Series of Poker
Negreanu's first cash at the WSOP was also his first WSOP bracelet. Negreanu won $169,460 in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event in the 1998 World Series of Poker, becoming the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history — a record he held until 2004. Negreanu has since captured another five bracelets. He has 36 career WSOP final table appearances, including two apiece at the WSOP Europe and at the WSOP Asia-Pacific, and 103 money finishes.| Year | Tournament | Prize |
| 1998 | $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em | $169,460 |
| 2003 | $2,000 S.H.O.E. | $100,440 |
| 2004 | $2,000 Limit Hold'em | $169,100 |
| 2008 | $2,000 Limit Hold'em | $204,874 |
| 2013A | A$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event | A$1,038,825 |
| 2013E | €25,600 High Roller No Limit Hold'em | €725,000 |
An "A" following a year denotes bracelet won at the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific
An "E" following a year denotes bracelet won at the World Series of Poker Europe
In addition to his 6 bracelets, he also won a WSOP Circuit ring in 2006.
World Poker Tour
| Year | Tournament | Prize |
| 2004 | $10,000 Borgata Poker Open | $1,009,100 |
| 2004 | $15,000 Five Diamond World Poker Classic | $1,795,218 |
Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP)
| Year | Tournament | Prize |
| 2013 | $5,200 PL Omaha | $216,000 |
World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP)
| Year | Tournament | Prize |
| 2016 | $2,100 HORSE Championship $200K GTD | $61,865.47 |
Other notable tournaments
Negreanu's first major successes on the tournament poker scene came in 1997 with three tournament wins, including two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino, earning $55,064 and being named the tournament's best all-around player.In November 2008, Negreanu won the fourth-annual British Columbia Poker Championships main event, topping a field of 690 players, and earning $371,910 CAD.
Negreanu won $1 million as the winner of the 2016 Shark Cage tournament organized by PokerStars.net.
As of January 2020, his total live tournament winnings exceed $42,000,000. His 103 cashes at the WSOP account for over $16,000,000 of those winnings.
Cash games
In addition to Negreanu's regular appearances in the big game at Bobby's Room, he played in all seven seasons of the television show High Stakes Poker. He also played in two seasons of PokerStars Big Game.Online poker and sponsorship
In December 2005, Negreanu became the professional spokesperson for an online poker site called Poker Mountain. He played at this cardroom under the screen name "KidPoker". In June 2005 he announced his decision to terminate that relationship due to software issues that were problematic enough to cause a shutdown of the site. In 2006, he used Full Contact Poker to launch a competition to select a protégé, whom Daniel would attempt to mold into a world-class live tournament poker player. He agreed to pay the protégé's entry fee into four $10,000 buy-in events. Daniel's first protégé was Brian Fidler. In 2007, Daniel ran a second protégé promotion, which was won by Anthony Mak.In June 2007, Negreanu signed with PokerStars, joining Chris Moneymaker and many other professional poker players as a member of Team PokerStars. His Full Contact Poker site has since returned to being a forum and informational site. After "Black Friday", Negreanu moved back to Canada in order to continue playing online poker on PokerStars.
On May 23, 2019, after nearly 12 years as a member of Team PokerStars, Negreanu announced he and PokerStars were parting ways.
Other poker activities
Upon opening, the Wynn Las Vegas resort recruited him as their "Poker Ambassador" to play for any stake in their poker room. The arrangement lasted until October 2005, when he opted out because it was restricting his ability to play for high stakes outside the Wynn.Negreanu has played poker on various TV shows such as Late Night Poker, Poker After Dark, and High Stakes Poker, as well as serving as a commentator and stand-in host on Ultimate Poker Challenge. He also appeared in the third season of Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. In January 2007, Negreanu appeared in the Fox Reality original series Rob and Amber: Against the Odds, in which he mentored reality television personality Rob Mariano in his bid to become a professional poker player.
In May 2008, Negreanu's book Power Hold'em Strategy was released. The book resembles the Doyle Brunson book Super/System in that it has contributions from several other poker players, including Evelyn Ng, Erick Lindgren, Paul Wasicka, Todd Brunson, and David Williams. Negreanu's section presents and explains the strategy of small ball poker. Negreanu is also featured in the 2006 poker video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu, providing tips and hints as to how to play effectively. He has written over 100 articles for CardPlayer Magazine and contributed to Doyle Brunson's revised book, Super System II. He has tutored on the web as part of Poker School Online and also personally given lessons to celebrities such as Tobey Maguire and Shannon Elizabeth. In addition to his poker books, Negreanu has created a 38 section Master Class teaching poker theory and play through video.
Other ventures
Negreanu made a cameo appearance as a poker player playing against the mutant Gambit in the film as well as a poker player in The Grand, and as himself in the film Lucky You. On season two of Sports Science, he attempted to fool a lie detector. He also appeared in Katy Perry's music video for "Waking Up in Vegas" as a poker player. In 2013, he appeared on an episode of the CBC Television program Mr. D, playing himself. Besides that, he also appeared in a TV series dedicated to poker called Tilt in 2005. Daniel was a major advocate of the move to bring the National Hockey League to Las Vegas, along with Malaysian billionaire and fellow poker player Richard Yong.Negreanu is also an avid fan of Hearthstone. After picking up the game in 2015, he began streaming it alongside poker on Twitch and was invited to a showmatch during the Hearthstone World Championship at BlizzCon 2015 in Anaheim, California against former StarCraft: Brood War pro and fellow WSOP and WPT champion Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, which he won 3-1.
In September 2015 Negreanu posed for a PETA vegan campaign.
Personal life
Negreanu was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1974, seven years after his parents, Annie and Constantin, emigrated from Romania. The Negreanus had hoped to start a new life in the United States, but ended up settling in Toronto, where Constantin worked as an electrician and sold confectionery. Daniel is five years younger than his brother Mike. Even at an early age, Negreanu was extremely ambitious, stating in a 2009 interview "From the age of four, I thought I'd be rich. I told my mom I'd build a house out of Popsicle sticks, and move to California."He attended Pineway Public School in North York, where the principal complained to his mother about Daniel's "poor manners or behavior" and threatened to expel him for "ignoring the school rules." While nursing dreams of a career as a professional snooker player, the then 15-year-old learned how to play poker. At the age of 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, sports betting, and playing cards.
When he was several credits short of graduation, he dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at local charity casinos, usually at Casino Country and Fundtime Games, and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, he met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building up his bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, "The Strip" got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.
In August 2005, he married Lori Lin Weber. They separated in November 2007 and later divorced. In May 2019 he married Amanda Leatherman.
Negreanu has a blog at Full Contact Poker where he posts his thoughts and feelings about life, politics, and the poker world. He is also a heavy National Hockey League fan, once claiming on Poker After Dark at the dream table he was thinking of declining the offer because the tournament was in the middle of hockey season. Negreanu is good friends with NHL star Phil Kessel, who spent six seasons with Negreanu's favourite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kessel himself is an avid poker player and the two occasionally play games together. Daniel became a vegetarian in 2000 and has been vegan since 2006. After many years living in the United States, he received his green card on July 15, 2009. On November 23, 2009, his mother died in her sleep after being ill for many months.