Daniel Negreanu has always loved a challenge. He knew that all the way back when he was a 16-year old in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
It was at that early stage when he started gambling, hustling fellow pool players, and playing poker. Negreanu has won more than $42 million in his career, but he didn’t get to where he is without failing first.
Negreanu liked poker so much when he was in high school that he didn’t even graduate before committing to playing full-time. He left despite being one art credit short and began spending time in charity casinos playing with adults.
Negreanu starting winning on a regular basis, proving he made the right decision. He won so much that when he turned 21 years old, he made a bigger move to Las Vegas.
That’s when he really hit his first road bump. Negreanu lost his entire bankroll his first time out in Vegas and was forced to return to Toronto to regroup. He worked harder on his game to fix the consistent mistakes he had been making, and two years later he made it back to Las Vegas in 1998 to play in the World Series of Poker for the first time.
And what a debut it was.
Negreanu entered the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold ‘Em event and won it. He received a $169,460 first-place prize and his first WSOP bracelet. At the time, he was the youngest ever to win a bracelet, which is how he got his nickname “Kid Poker.” He won his second bracelet in 2003 before really taking the lid off his poker career in 2004. That year, he won three major titles and made eight more final tables.
His two biggest wins were on the World Poker Tour. His victory in the $10,000 buy-in Borgata Poker Open netted him $1,009,100, and his victory in the $15,000 buy-in Five Diamond World Poker Classic netted him $1,795,218. He also won his third WSOP bracelet that year in the $2,000 Limit Hold’Em event.
He racked up $4,465,907 in tournament winnings that year and was named WSOP Player of the Year, Card Player Magazine Player of the Year, and WPT Season 3 Player of the Year.
After eight strong years, he had almost as much success again in 2013. He won the WSOP Asia-Pacific Main Event in Australia and the WSOP Europe High Roller Event. He also made the final table of the WPT and European Poker Tour championship events and placed second in a triple draw lowball event at the WSOP in Las Vegas.
Those performances led to him being named WSOP Player of the Year, the Bluff Player of the Year, and the 2013 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year. As great as Negreanu has been on the felt, he has made waves for reasons other than his accomplishments, too.
His easy-going attitude and out-going personality make him an easy person to like. In 2005 he wrote a chapter in Doyle Brunson’s book Super System 2 and started work on two of his own books – Hold’em Wisdom for All Players and Power Hold’em Strategy.
Negreanu has not been shy about putting himself on screen either. He has appeared on TV shows Late Night Poker, Poker After Dark, and High Stakes Poker. In 2007, he even appeared on a Fox Reality series “Rob and Amber: Against the Odds”, in which he mentored someone in their bid to become a professional poker player.
Today, he keeps his fans and poker players updated via his blog and podcast on www.fullcontactpoker.com.
Daniel Negreanu Stats
Total live tournament winnings: $42,053,305
World Series of Poker
6 bracelets
45 final tables
168 cashes
Highest main event finish: 11th
Total WSOP winnings: $19,536,065
World Poker Tour
2 titles
9 final tables
24 cashes
Total WPT winnings: $6,473,054