Britney, Madonna, Cher: you know you've made it when your last name becomes superfluous. And to the poker world, he's simply "Daniel." With his own video game and syndicated newspaper column, not to mention the Internet's most popular poker blog, read by legions of loyal fans every day; it's amazing he has the time to keep winning so consistently (bar a few catastrophic hands on "High Stakes Poker," of course). It's time to grill the most popular man in poker on the pressures of life at the top, and just how he got there in the first place.
Bluff: Right, Daniel, straight onto the psychiatrist's couch. Tell us about growing up. What kind of child were you?
Negreanu: Oh, I was a bad boy. My parents would try and get me to do stuff, but I think I was smarter than they were. [Laughs] I would always find a way to get out of things. I just didn't like being told what to do at all. I didn't like going to school. I preferred to be my own boss.
Bluff: So you weren't academic; you were more streetwise?
Negreanu: Yeah, definitely. I developed a lot at a very young age and I knew what I could get away with. I think I got more life experience, because instead of going to school, I was hanging out with people of an older age, in the real world.
Bluff: Before poker, you were a big pool player.
Negreanu: That's how I got into gambling, really. I started going to the pool hall, playing on a regular basis. When you're 14 or 15, going to a pool hall, you're going to meet a lot of different people. Through that, I got into other forms of gambling, like backgammon, blackjack, betting on sports … and finally some of the guys invited me over to their place to play some poker. I went there with $10 and lost it. After that, we started playing maybe four or five times a week.
Bluff: Was poker something you were naturally very good at or did you have to work hard at it?
Negreanu: I would say, the first six weeks that I played poker, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I liked it, but I really didn't know how to actually play. But I learned. I remember the first book on it that I read. It was a hold 'em book -- very simple -- and it said that you shouldn't play every hand, and I was shocked. I was like, wow! Basically, the way I learned was that I watched the other players in the game and I noticed one player who won, like, every day. And I just watched what he was doing. This guy was playing selectively. It seemed like he only played a few hands, but he still won. So I learned from that.
Bluff: Who was that player?
Negreanu: His name was John Seto. I actually wrote a column about him and another guy that I learned from later. There was John, who was very tight, and then one day we had a guy named Benny come to our game. And he just raised the stakes and was bluffing like a madman; he was playing super-aggressive and just pounding it. None of us had seen this before; we didn't know what was going on. So basically, the pattern of my game became a combination of the two. I learned what I could from John about conservative play and then I also learned what I could about being aggressive from Benny, and incorporated both strategies. Basically, I've done that for my whole poker career. When I see things that work for a player, I try to incorporate them into my game so I can have more weapons.
Bluff: So how old were you when you first started playing?
Negreanu: I started playing poker at around the age of 17.
Bluff: And you moved to Vegas when you turned 21?
Negreanu: Right. I was 21 in '96, so that's when I went out and tried to get into the scene. I didn't have a lot of money, but I played in the super satellite for the main event. Nine people qualified and I finished in 11th place. I was devastated. That was the year Huck Seed won and I remember watching it from the rail. But I didn't get into a World Series event until 1998. I would go to Vegas every few months, but I didn't actually move there until '98 or '99.
Bluff: You've said in the past that you were living a wild lifestyle.
Negreanu: Well, I don't know. When I was living in Toronto, I was playing poker from noon to 8 p.m., Monday to Friday. Just like a real job. My mother would wake me up and say, "Get up and go to work." After 8 p.m., we'd all go out. We'd go and party, have some drinks, go to the bar and do whatever. When I went to Vegas, the schedule thing sort of fell apart; I was playing late nights and chasing money. It was a little more chaotic, because it was new to me. I wasn't as structured as I had been.
Bluff: At one point you went broke and had to go back to Toronto?
Negreanu: [Laughs] I went broke lots of times. When I first started coming out to Vegas, I would go and play at The Mirage and I would play $20/$40 hold 'em. I'd basically arrive on Thursday, hoping that by Sunday I'd have enough money to stay on. Then I'd play all night on Saturday and, if I won, I'd stay the rest of the week. Thursdays and Sundays would be the days to see if I could stay. Oftentimes, I would go broke, and I would have to fly back to Toronto to rebuild my bankroll and do it all over again, until finally I made it work. At the time, I would literally wake up, shower, and go straight to the poker room. No food. I would take one round off, go and grab something from the snack bar to eat, and I would play all day. That was all I did. That was what my Vegas was like in the early days.
Bluff: When you finally "made it work," what was it that clicked into place?
Negreanu: There were several things. First, I just learned to play better. Back in Toronto -- I was pounding those guys. I tried the same thing in Vegas, and it didn't work -- they would pound me back. Once I learned that I needed to have more texture to my game, I started to do better at $20/$40. So then I moved up to $40/$80. From there it was actually easier to get to the next level because I'd already paid my dues. When I got some more success, and was playing $300/$600 and stuff like that, I had enough money so that I didn't have to work and didn't have to take it seriously, and then I got sloppy. I had a bankroll that I basically blew. Poker didn't matter that much -- we'd go in there, get drunk, play poker, go out … I wasn't even playing that much because I was fooling around for most of the year of 2000. And at the end of the year, you know, the money ran out.
Bluff: And that made you get serious.
Negreanu: It was one of the things that helped me. I knew I was a better player than that, and I knew I could do better than that. I kind of looked at myself and said, "This is embarrassing. I've played so much poker and I have nothing to show for it." So that started my climb back to where I wanted to be. I think maybe by around 2003, I really started playing much better and became much more focused. No drinking and playing; nothing silly like that. And then in tournaments late in 2003, I really made a conscious effort to play only when I really felt like I wanted to. And then in 2004, the results were good.
Bluff: This is around the same time you became a Christian, isn't it?
Negreanu: Yeah, 2003 was when I met my wife. There's a silly saying in "As Good as it Gets"; Jack Nicholson says about [Helen Hunt], "You make me want to be a better man." And I looked at my life, and also where I was financially in 2003, and I thought "This is silly, what am I waiting for?" With her, instead of always worrying about myself -- or rather, not worrying about myself, which is probably more accurate -- I had somebody else to think about. Somebody not to make bad decisions for. Basically it gave me some clarity and some extra motivation -- not only was I playing for myself, I was playing for someone else as well.
Bluff: A lot of Christians look down on gamblers. Have you encountered that from members of the congregation?
Negreanu: I think only the ignorant ones. My wife's family are devoted conservatives to the point where she wasn't even allowed to watch TV as a child, but they're fine with me. They're totally fine with what I do for a living. They understand that, you know, there is nothing in the Bible anywhere that says gambling is a sin. Nothing. I think a lot of people misunderstand gambling -- OK, it's essentially taking money from other people. Well, there isn't a business in the world in which that doesn't happen. When you win on the stock market, others lose. Any business deal you make, you're going to take someone's money. It's what you do with that money that separates whether you're healthy or unhealthy. If you hoard all that money for yourself, just to own a bigger home, well, I guess that might be wrong. But there's nothing wrong with poker according to the Bible. But having said that, a lot of people misinterpret what it says and think that what I do is wrong. To those people, I just try to talk to them and explain to them. But some of them just won't get it. But that's OK. I'm not really a fan of conservatism anyway.
Bluff: So fast-forward to today: You're poker's media darling. How do other players react to that? Players that aren't particularly interested in the publicity aspect -- guys like Phil Ivey, for example. Do players ever react negatively?
Negreanu: Well, Phil is one of my best friends. We golf all the time. Phil's just a different person; more of a private person, while I'm obviously more public. In no way does Phil Ivey have a negative view of what I do. A couple of years ago, there was some animosity, for sure -- when poker started to get hot. I used to play in cash games and some of the players in the game would always tell me that I was a "TV player," in a mocking way. They resented the fact that these tournament players were getting so much attention, whereas the cash game players, the "real" players, weren't. And I'd turn around and say, "Look, if you want this attention so bad you could play tournaments, too, you know?" But overall, I would say I don't get many negative vibes. But sometimes there's jealousy. There are people who feel as though the attention I get is unwarranted, or I get too much of it.
Bluff: People who criticize you for focusing more on poker business, as opposed to pure poker, perhaps?
Negreanu: Well, I don't think any players do that, because players know that I actually play -- compared to some other people. If you look at Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson … they don't put one penny into the poker economy because they don't play in cash games at all -- zero. But I play. I play in the Big Game and on a regular basis.
But I would say that some of the fans might resent it. I read newsgroups on poker and people say, "Oh, why's he just worried about the business stuff and not poker?" Sometime they don't realize that, in some cases, it makes more sense for me, financially, to do some other things. I make sure that poker's always No. 1, but I don't necessarily want to play poker for the rest of my life.
Bluff: What do you want to do for the rest of your life, Daniel?
Negreanu: Golf! [Laughs] I'm addicted. I dreamed of a peaceful life when I was in my early twenties. Peaceful! Being married, having a family, living in a nice house, spending my afternoons with the kids, or golfing, having nice dinner, a bottle of wine -- just enjoying life without having to grind away at the poker table.
Bluff: We hear you've been playing a lot of high-stakes golf. How high do you play?
Negreanu: Well, the biggest I've played is a $50,000 match hole. Often what we'll do is play $20,000 or $30,000 a hole. I'm a bad golfer. If I improve, I'll be able to make some money. When you start off a bad golfer, you basically have to pay your dues.
Bluff: You inspire a lot of devotion in your fans, perhaps more than any other poker player. Does that feel weird sometimes, or do you enjoy being famous?
Negreanu: For me, it was bizarre. I'm a poker fan, too. I started out on rec.gambling.poker and I didn't see any reason why I should stop, I just became part of the scene. I never felt I was above anybody else, so it's not like I shouldn't have conversations with other people on the Internet.
I guess I don't ever buy into the b------- of celebrity. Should I change the way I behave with these people? Should I not talk to these people? I don't want to be an elitist. You do well in poker; you have to deal with that. It can open up other things. And it's not like I don't consider myself in any way, shape or form a media whore. Those kind of people annoy me a little bit. But I am who I am, and I'll do interviews when I'm asked. But I'm not going to go out and search them out. I'll do them if I have to. I do the things that I have to.
Bluff: Not "media whore," Daniel; more "media savvy," surely. And perhaps more than any other poker player. Is that something that comes naturally?
Negreanu: I'm not an idiot. I mean, if there are things that I want to promote, then I realize that having a blog, for example, is a great way to do it. Everyone's reading it. I don't want to do it to the point where it's saturated. Phil Hellmuth once did an interview where he was like: "When I wake up in the morning, I turn on my Ultimatebet alarm clock, use my Ultimatebet toothbrush, and then stretch to my Ultimatebet Dance Video." [Laughs]
So I try to make it subtle and not over the top, and I guess that's where the savvy-ness comes in. But poker players don't get media training. You're thrown out there, you're interviewed, and all of a sudden, it's "What do I say?" and sometimes you don't say the right thing. Sometimes it's uncomfortable.
Bluff: Has your mouth got you in trouble in the past? There have been rumors of a feud a few years back with Annie Duke for perhaps saying things you shouldn't have.
Negreanu: It depends on the definition of "trouble" really. I look back at my past and I'm happy where I am right now. I regret nothing. If I had to do stuff again, I might do it differently, but I don't regret anything. But I've learned over the years that it's better to just not say anything. I have to keep certain opinions to myself because it won't do any good. But that's part of who I am. If you're an outspoken person, then not everyone can agree with you and what you say.
Bluff: You're often jabbing with guys like Hellmuth and Matusow. Is that just a friendly thing?
Negreanu: I love those guys; those guys are great. But they're idiots as far as I'm concerned. [Laughs] And they'd say the same about me. They're great television, and away from the table, we have fun. I make fun of them because it's so easy to do. I mean, are you kidding me? Just look at those guys. I like hanging out with people who can take it as well as they can dish it, you know. If you dish it out like Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow dish it, you've got to be willing to take a few jabs your way.
Bluff: There seems to be a disagreement with you and Greg Raymer about suing the WPT. Can you fill us in on that?
Negreanu: It's not just me against Raymer; it's me and a lot of the poker community. A lot of people are very upset that players are making what I think is a horrible mistake in filing a lawsuit against the WPT. They're suing for money, which is silly. I mean, these guys have more invested in their online sites; there's no need to mess with something like this. An antitrust lawsuit is silly. The name and likeness issue and the release -- it's a pretty standard release for when you do a TV show. The way I look at it is that there's no smoking gun. The WPT has never used the players' names and likenesses inappropriately -- ever. Why are we suing them for something they possibly might do? It's just silly. Raymer had some words for me, calling me a fool or whatever -- and I didn't think that was appropriate. These are seven people who I believe are thinking about themselves, and what bothers me is that they say they're speaking on behalf of the players. So why don't they talk to the players? Why don't they come to the players and ask if it's something we want? It's almost like, could you imagine some guy going to a country, causing a war, and then claiming he's liberating the people? That could never happen, right? No idiot would do that!
If they really had a problem with the WPT, why didn't they come to the players as a group, instead of appointing themselves as the leaders of the poker players? People who are against the lawsuit are people who I know have poker's best interests at heart: Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Todd Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey, myself. The list goes on and on. The seven? Aside from a couple of them, I don't think they have poker's best interests at heart.
Bluff: You feel very passionate about things. What makes you really angry?
Negreanu: I've always hated bullies. I hate it when people get bullied, and I try to stand up against bullies. I'm a very tell-it-like-it-is person. I pride myself on that. I may be media savvy, but I'm not going to water myself down so I'm just a yes man. If I see a problem, I'm going to speak out about it. What makes me angry is -- well, a wide variety of things. Religion and politics get my juices flowing. I would say incompetence gets me angry, too.
Bluff: Tell us a bit about the whole Wynn deal and the heads-up battles. How did that go?
Negreanu: Good. I really enjoyed that. It was my idea. There was a rumor that the Wynn was putting up the money. That's not true. I put up every penny of it.
It started out ugly. I lost four of my first five matches. And I was down about a million. But I ended up coming out ahead. Going into it, I knew I was facing people who are playing their best game. So for a lot of the matches, I'd be an underdog. But as time went on and I played more heads-up poker, I felt like I had an advantage. I started out with a limit hold 'em specialist who came after me, and I beat Mimi Tran for $500,000, which helped a little bit; but then I got the Barry Greenstein matches going, and we planned on playing all the different games. He beat me at stud; I beat him at pot-limit Omaha and stud hi-lo, and we didn't get to the rest of the games. We just stopped doing it. But I really think I was going to crush him. [Laughs] One thing I found that I didn't really know was that I'm a much better pot-limit Omaha player than I thought. I beat Tony Bloom, I beat Barry Greenstein. It was all just a lot of fun.
Bluff: Why did the Wynn thing fall through?
Negreanu: One of stipulations was that, while I was working there, I couldn't play any cash games in Nevada, outside of the Wynn. And as you know, the Big Game is at the Bellagio. After six months, the contract was up. And I talked to them about extending the contract and possibly playing at the Bellagio. They weren't comfortable with that idea; they would rather me stay at the Wynn. So as I told them before I started, if there's no big action, I'm going to go back to the Bellagio. So playing the heads-up matches, which kind of dried up a little bit, wasn't enough. It was amicable. There was no angry separation.
Bluff: You've been taking some harsh beats on "High Stakes Poker" recently. How did that feel?
Negreanu: That show has been really bizarre for me. Generally, I do very well in no-limit cash games, but in this one I've taken some really sick beats and I'm just destined to lose a big number. It's happened repeatedly, and I'm playing the best I can, but after a while I was asking, "What's going on here?"
Bluff: You got pretty deep in this year's main event, though. How did you rate your performance?
Negreanu: It was an interesting main event. Without question, it was the weakest field I've ever played in. Of all the tournaments I've played over the past eight years, it was the most novice-full. Because of that, I developed a strategy early on: I realized I didn't need to fold virtually any hands. I was raising about 90 percent of the hands after about Level 5. I was totally running over the table because the players were so weak. And I got my chips up really good. I was in the top five with a thousand left. Next day, on Day 3, I just went into a freefall. I had a couple of tough young Swedes at my table, so that made things different. I lost some pots. But I was really proud that, despite going from one of the top guys to below the threshold, I hung in there really long. Then I lost one big pot and ended up finishing 329th. But overall, I think it was great. I thought I played fantastic; I made a couple of bluffs that didn't work, but you're not going to get away with every one. It's an easy tournament. It's not hard to outplay these people; most of them are really bad.
Bluff: Tell us about your protégé now.
Negreanu: We had a contest in which the winner would basically win the opportunity to play four major tournaments, get 24/7 tutoring from me, and travel with me on the road. The winner would get to keep the money, of course. Brian Fidler won the contest and in his second tournament in the WSOP circuit, he made the final table as the chip leader and got down to heads-up. He ended up making a couple of poor mistakes and coming in second place. But you know, to go from basically playing a freeroll to winning over $250,000 is pretty cool.
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