Daniel Negreanu

Arguably one of the best poker players of his generation, Kid Poker – as online players know him, is indeed quite a personality on the green felt.

I myself watched him making absolutely out-of-this world reads on his opponents several times, and thus intimidating even players like Scotty Nguyen (which is quite an achievement in itself). How could you not be intimidated when this guys tells everyone what cards you’re holding in your pocket? How could you not feel at least a bit overwhelmed when he does all that with a child-like serenity, as if he were only joking?

I remember that time when he read Scotty Nguyen like an open book, and told him his hole-cards, the latter just looked up with an expression on his face that said: "but…how? Is this a prank? Did he really?” as if he were expecting someone to pop up any minute and tell him "smile, you’re on candid camera”, while Negreanu just set there apparently having a ball.

No wonder that his ability to read opponents is what experts point to as the no.1 reason for his success.

Kid Poker’s parents moved to Canada, from Romania in 1967, trying to shake off the shackles of poverty and indignity placed upon them by an increasingly aggressive communist regime.

Daniel himself was born in 1974, in Toronto, Canada.
Even as a child he proved extremely skillful with card games, so much so that it made perfect sense to him to drop out of high-school to pursue a career in poker.

He began playing in charity games in local casinos, and soon amassed a large enough bankroll to try to hit Vegas.

As it had happened to other great pros before him, his first attempt to break into the Las Vegas high-stakes scene was met with failure, and he was forced to go back to Toronto and quite literally get back to the drawing board.

Soon, he rebuilt his bankroll, chiseled his play into shape and was ready for another shot at the Vegas poker scene.

His day dawned in 1997, when he won 2 World Poker Finals events and pocketed $133,600 for them. That being a big-enough bankroll for him to have some serious fun on, there was no stopping the Poker Kid from there on.

In the 1998 WSOP he scored his first bracelet, and set a new record being the youngest ever player to achieve that feat.

Following that, he won 2 further WSOP bracelets (no main events though), two WPT titles and finished no less than 26 times ITM in the WSOP and 14 times in the WPT. (he made 7 WPT final tables).

He was named the WSOP poker player of the year in 2005, and the WPT player of the year in 2005. His total career earnings amount to $9,900,000 making him the richest player who never won a WSOP main event.

On aggregate, he’s third behind only Jamie Gold and Joseph Hachem in lifetime poker financial achievements.

He acted as a poker representative for the Wynn Resort for a while but having realized that the setup was hurting his opportunities to play high stakes poker elsewhere, he opted out. In 2005 he launched his own online poker room (a skin really), called Full Contact Poker. Nowadays, the site is still alive and serves as a blog were Daniel expresses his thoughts about some of the most diverse issues out there.

Besides writing for his own site (which – at one point – he had used to promote talented young protégés of his), he also wrote for Cardplayer magazine.

In June 2007 he signed with PokerStars, thus becoming one of their in-house pros, together with Joseph Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, and the Fossilman, Greg Raymer.

Most people probably know Negreanu from one of the televised shows he took part in. He was a regular in Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker and Late Night Poker. He also plays regularly in the world’s biggest cash game, in Bobby’s Room, in the Bellagio.