– General Introduction –
Born July 26, 1974 in Toronto, (Ontario, Canada) seven years after his parents, Annie and Constantin emigrated from Romania, Daniel Negreanu, aka Kid Poker, is one of the best known figures in the poker world.
He was named Best Player of the Decade by the Global Poker Index and the Poker Hall of Fame. His accolades include 6 WSOP bracelets, 2 WPT titles, and 1 WCOOP title. Also, Negreanu led the famous Hendon all time money list between June 2014 and July 2018. He’s currently #3 on the list with $45.6 million in cashes.
He is a GGPoker ambassador.
– Key Career Dates –
- 1985: He comes to Las Vegas, loses his bankroll, and goes back to Toronto.
- 1998: He becomes the youngest player ever to win a WSOP cash, then a bracelet; hence his nickname “Kid Poker”.
- 2004: He wins his first and second WPT victories and is named “Card Player of the Year”.
- 2008: He publishes his book, Power Hold’em Strategy.
- 2013: He’s ranked #1 on the Global Poker Index, wins WSOP Player of the Year, 2013 Bluff Player of the Year, and 2013 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year.
- 2014: He gets inducted into Poker Hall of Fame.
- 2016: He wins his first WCOOP title.
- 2020: He plays a much-anticipated heads-up challenge against his “arch-nemesis”, Doug Polk.
- 2021: He wins the $50,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $700,000 at the PokerGO Cup. That was the first tournament he won since October 2013.
– Daniel Negreanu’s Career –
→ Beginnings ←
After leaving high school to play poker full time against adults who were often twice his age or older, Negreanu grew his bankroll by winning consistently in a variety of gambling halls, casinos, and charity games.
At the age of 21, he packed up his stuff, along with his bankroll, and headed to Las Vegas to make it big. This first trip to The City of Lights ended quickly, as Negreanu lost his bankroll and headed home to Toronto to rebuild it.
With the determination of a true champion, Negreanu refused to get discouraged by this early set back. He kept playing, seemingly stuck in a cycle of winning in Toronto but then losing in Las Vegas.
Eventually, his determination paid off. Foxwoods’ World Poker Final named Negreanu Best All Around Player in 1997, and in 1998, at the young age of 23, Daniel won the $2k Pot Limit Hold’em at the first WSOP event he ever entered. This success earned him the nickname “Kid Poker” because, at that time, he became the youngest player to ever win a WSOP bracelet.
Read More : Being Broke but Never Quitting: The Years That Built Daniel Negreanu’s Career
→ Live Tournaments ←
| Daniel Negreanu’s World Series of Poker Bracelets | ||
| 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$1,038,825 |
| 2013E | €25,600 High Roller No Limit Hold’em | €725,000 |
| World Poker Tour Titles for Daniel Negreanu | ||
| Year | Tournament | Prize (US$) |
| 2004 | $10,000 Borgata Poker Open | $1,117,400 |
| 2004 | $15,000 Five Diamond World Poker Classic | $1,795,218 |
→ Other Tournaments ←
Negreanu earned $55,064 during two events at the Foxwoods’ World Poker Finals in 1997, which led to him being named the tournament’s best all-around player. He claimed the S.H.O.E. bracelet in 2003 for the game that rotates through the following game types, in order: Seven Card Stud, Hold’ Em, Omaha Eight or Better, and Stud Eight or Better.
Negreanu topped a field of 690 players in November 2008 to win the 4th Annual British Columbia Poker Championships’ main event. This win earned him C$371,910 ($299,951).
In January 2011, he finished 2nd in the $100K Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $1 million. In February 2014, he came in 4th in the A$250,000 NLHE – $250K Challenge event for A$1,250,000 ( $1.2 million) at the Aussie Millions.
He also has a runner-up finish from the $300,000 Aria Super High Roller Bowl for $3 million in May 2018.
Negreanu led Hendon’s famous all-time money list between June 2014 and July 2018. He was overtaken by Justin Bonomo in June 2018. Negreanu currently has $45.637 million in live tournament cashes, and sits on the #3 spot on the all time money list.
His biggest live tournament score to date is $8.288 million. He got that for finishing second in the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop high roller at the 2014 WSOP, eventually losing the heads-up battle for the title to Daniel Colman.
In July 2021, Negreanu ended an almost 8-year-long “dry spell” without winning a poker tournament. At last, he won the $50,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament at the PokerGO Cup at the Aria for $700,000. His last live tournament victory prior to that was in October 2013. During that 93-month long period, he lost a whopping 10 heads-up matches for tournament titles, a cash game heads-up challenge against Doug Polk, and 3 heads-up Sit&Go’s against Phil Hellmuth. He finally broke his heads-up curse agianst David Coleman in the $50K PokerGO cup event.
Since then, he won a $10K Poker Masters NLHE event for $178,200 in September 2021; and a $25K PokerGO Cup NLHE event for $350,000 in February 2022.
→ Live Cash Games ←
Besides regular appearances in the big game at Bobby’s Room, Negreanu played on the television shows High Stakes Poker (all seven seasons), Poker After Dark, and the PokerStars Big Game (two seasons) where he played high stakes NLHE cash sessions in front of cameras.
→ Online Poker ←
For a brief time in December 2005, Negreanu was the spokesperson for the online poker site Poker Mountain.
Following “Black Friday”, he returned to Canada to play online via PokerStars. He became an official member of the PokerStars team in June 2007, but it wasn’t until 2010/2011 that he became serious about online poker.
It didn’t go so well at first. Playing most of his hands in $5/$10 – $100/$200 NLHE cash games on PokerStars, Negreanu lost over $430k in the first several months of 2010.
However, things gradually improved, again thanks to Negreanu’s determination. He won $216,000 playing PL Omaha [6-Max] at the SCOOP in 2013, and he earned an additional $61,865.47 when he won the WCOOP $2,100 HORSE Championship in 2016.
→ Sponsorship deals ←
After Negreanu joined the PokerStars team in 2007, he quickly became “the face” of the business. Making between $2 and $4 million per year from his PokerStars deal, Negreanu was a visible figure in almost every PokerStars commercial.
In May 2019, however, it was revealed that Negreanu would not be renewing his over a decade long partnership with Stars.
The real twist came later that year: in November 2019, he announced that he’s singing with GGPoker. Since then, he’s been the most prominent promotional figure for GG – you can even use his face as emojis in the GGPoker clients.
→ Scandals ←
Is more rake actually better?
In October 2016, Danel Negreanu appeared on an obscure YouTube channel which still has less than 500 subscribers. He was interviewed by a man named Rikard Åberg. They touched on a vast array of issues, one of them towards the end was PokerStars’ recent rake increases.
Negreanu, a Stars sponsored pro then, decided to defend the increase in his now infamous statements. He said:
“If the rake is ‘too high’ for the good players, what you’re left with is the bad players who are going to lose, right? But they’re losing less per 100 hands than they would be if the pros were playing with them.
So, there’s a lot of games where that’s true, where the rake is really high, and it keeps the pros away, cause they’re like ‘we can’t beat this’, but overall for the game it’s actually better.”
These comments sparked quite a bit of outrage in the online poker community who had been already unhappy with PokerStars’ latest actions, such as cutting rakeback benefits. Negreanu’s most vocal detractor was famous poker pro Doug Polk.
Since then, the two had been feuding online on and off for years, about various issues. This ultimately resulted in a much-anticipated 25,000-hand $200/$400 No Limit Holde’em heads-up challenge beginning in November 2020.
After the first 200 hands played live in PokerGO’s studio, Negreanu took a massive, $116K lead over his “arch-nemesis” Polk.
However, after the first online session, all of Negreanu’s lead melted away – ‘WCGRider” Polk won $218,000. Polk ended up wining the clallange with an over $1 million profit. The two poker pros also reconciled their differences over the course of the challenge.
– Daniel Negreanu’s Private Life –
→ Love Life ←
Daniel Negreanu’s first relationship started when he met Canadian poker pro Evelyn Ng at a pool hall. When she was 16, they started dating. Although their romantic relationship did not last long, they’ve remained friends, and he even mentored her. In 2005, he married a girl from Michigan named Lori Lin Weber.
The couple separated in November 2007, citing his busy, incredibly demanding schedule as too much of a stress on their relationship.
Since his divorce, Negreanu has dated or been seen with a variety of poker celebrities and other famous women. There were rumors that he was involved with American actress Shannon Elizabeth Fadal, known for her role in the classic 1999 comedy American Pie.
For a brief time in 2010, Negreanu dated the American actress and host for PokerStars television show, Big Game, Amanda Leatherman (born in 1984). Although she became engaged to Bobby Robinson in April of 2013, she and Negreanu remained friends. After Leatherman, Negreanu dated Krisztina Polgar, a Hungarian model.
Negreanu’s love life got especially public in 2013 when he appeared on the season 6 premier of the Bravo TV reality dating show Millionaire Matchmaker, where he was matched with an attractive blonde woman named Lindsay Blalock. However, after the show aired, Negreanu publicly stated that he is still single and he and the actress are just friends.
Negreanu was seen dating Marissa Rachelle Rodney, a Las Vegas hairstylist he met at a charity event. In an interview, he confirmed that they’d been together since January 2014, and he was quoted as saying, “She’s very sweet. We have an incredible chemistry.” However, the website whosdatedwho.com, has reported that he may be single. Throwing another wrench in the possibilities, he was quoted in an interview with calvinayre.com in 2015, saying “I don’t get lonely despite being alone a lot. I am quite an introvert. I like spending time on my own.” In the same interview, Negreanu also confessed, “I have only ever been in love once, to Amanda Leatherman.” Previously, he had written on his blog that “she is the most naturally beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” and explained that the separation was hard on him.
In June 2018, in the middle of the WSOP in Vegas, Negreanu confessed in his Vlog #25 that after four years, he was no longer in a relationship with Marissa.
After an almost 10-year romance break and a neverending relation of friendship and complicity with Leatherman, Daniel Negreanu, who secretly kept a wedding ring all this time for her, finally asked Amanda to become his wife on the 31st of December, 2018.
This engagement on NYE follows the events of Negreanu’s wife-to-be moving back to Las Vegas in September of 2018 after taking a job with Poker Central as part of the Friday Night Poker broadcast team.
Amanda Leatherman officially became Daniel Negreanu’s wife in May of 2019.
See Daniel Negreanu’s proposal to Amanda Leatherman :
She didn’t see it coming! Amanda Leatherman
Posted by Daniel Negreanu on Tuesday, 1 January 2019
Coming up with a wedding guest list is incredibly challenging.
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) January 6, 2019
→ Business ←
Expanding his horizons in 2005, Negreanu explored new business ventures through writing.
He contributed a chaper to Doyle Brunson’s Super System 2 and began working on two of his own books: Hold’em Wisdom, published in 2007, and Power Hold’em Strategy, published in 2008.
→ Net Worth ←
How much is Daniel Negreanu worth?
Therichest.come reports that Daniel Negreanu’s net worth is $15M, while celebritynetworth.com reports $50M.
→ Hobbies & life ←
When he’s not working, Negreanu enjoys playing golf and pool. He’s also a big NHL fan, cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Las Vegas Golden Nights.
A vegetarian since 2000, Negreanu has been vegan since 2006.
In addition to his time on reality TV and playing live poker, he can be seen in three movies (of course, playing poker): Lucky You (2007), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and The Grand (2007). He also appeared in Tilt, a poker-focused TV series in 2005, and he was the subject of the 2015 Netflix documentary Kid Poker.
He also enjoys playing the Blizzard Card Game “Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” and he won against Elky (Bertrand Grospellier) at the World Championship at Blizzcon Anaheim in 2015.
Negreanu works with the charity “Ante Up for Africa,“ which raises money for the crisis-torn region of Darfur, and he is the founder of the annual “Big Swing” charity golf event for the Lili Claire Foundation, which serves children born with special needs and their families. Although he had already lived in the US for many years, he received his green card on July 15, 2009.
Daniel Negreanu on Social Media
Negreanu really enjoys social media, where he regularly contributes new content, particularly to podcasts with Full Contact Poker. He even launched a Youtube Channel in 2016.
He is very active on social media, including the following stats:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialKidPoker/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realkidpoker
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dnegspoker/
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/DNegreanu
He also has an official website, where he maintains a blog and sells his books.
Visit Daniel Negreanu’s Blog.
Latest poker news about Negreanu
