Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Negreanu’

Daniel Negreanu back in Online Poker

Friday, August 26th, 2011

Like many people who live in the United States, Daniel Negreanu has not been able to play online poker at PokerStars. After all, the world’s largest online poker site pulled out of the American market following the US Department of Justice’s crackdown. Fortunately though, Negreanu was only kept out of the online games at PokerStars for a few months since he moved from Las Vegas to Canada.

Negreanu talked about the big move in his blog at FullContactPoker, and he began the post with the following:

It took a couple days, but I successfully set up shop in Toronto so that I can play on PokerStars again. I already had the Canadian passport, but just like everyone else, I needed to attain the necessary documents then wait for the call from PokerStars security to verify the phone number, and voila! I’m back in action! I jumped right into some $25-$50 PLO 6 max deep with ante games, and within 5 hands I lost my first buy in HAHA.

The last well-noted instance of Negreanu playing online poker was when he took on Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom in the PokerStars SuperStar Challenge; Kid Poker lost the first matchup after quickly blowing his $150k buy-in, but he came back to win a rematch after finishing with $25k more than Blom.

Getting back to the blog post, Negreanu got a little controversial as he discussed how little freedom the US is giving people by taking away online poker. The Toronto-born player wrote this excerpt about the subject:

During the Cold War, the “Big, Bad, Communist, U.S.S.R.” was seen as an oppressive regime, while the U.S.A. represented freedom. Who woulda thunk, that to enjoy the freedom of playing poker online you’d have to move away from Los Angeles and and head to Moscow. That’s just bizarre.

Poker has changed dramatically over the last 40 years, and in order to survive, you have to adapt to the newer forms of poker, as well as adapt to new locations. These days, that just means, stay away from the U.S. because poker is on life support, but there are tons, and tons, of games across the globe to choose from.

Seeing as how the US is still in the middle of working out possible poker legislation, it seems like Negreanu is making the right move by going to Toronto now.

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WSOP Fantasy Draft

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

The world of fantasy sports is no doubt intoxicating as millions of people worldwide spend hours trying to think of every possible angle to improve their team. This being said, where does fantasy poker fit into this equation?

While I love poker, it’s hard to see how one could get excited about fantasy poker since the game isn’t exactly something that you invite your buddies over to watch while downing a few beers. Instead, it is an activity that gains popularity from one thing – the fact that you can win major money doing it!

Sure it’s fun to check out the latest poker news and crazy happenings that are currently going on, but aside from this, extracurricular things like WSOP fantasy leagues will never have a following outside of the diehard players who have deep ties to the game. This being said, I can see how people like Daniel Negreanu can get into it as he and some other pros actually had a WSOP fantasy draft party at the Aria Casino, while they selected their dream lineups.

Kid Poker recently blogged about the draft on FullContactPoker, and the rules are as follows:

- League buy-in is $25,000
- Everybody gets 200 points to spend on players
- When players are announced, people bid on them with the points
- Every team must have 8 players

Now that we’ve covered the rules, here is a look at who got who in the draft as according to Negreanu:

Team #1 Joe Cassidy/Huck Seed
1: Tom Dwan 62
2: Vladimir Schemelev 33
3: Alexander Kostritsyn 58
4: Jennifer Harman 19
5: Sam Trickett 7
6: David Pham 1
7: Vitaly Lunkin 10
8: David Bach 1

Team #2 Barry Greenstein
1: Barry Greenstein 64
2: Phil Ivey 108
3: Chau Giang 19
4: John Pham 2
5: Ralph Perry 3
6: Ted Forrest 1
7: Joseph Serock 1
8: Jimmy Fricke 1

Team #3 Robert Mizrachi, Greg Meuller, Jared Bleznick, “Crazy” Mike
1. Daniel Alaei 80
2: Robert Mizrachi 51
3: Josh Arieh 26
4: Hoyt Corkins 5
5: Chad Brown 24
6: Marco Traniëllo 1
7: David Baker 5
8: Lee Goldman 1

Team #4 Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, Ashton Griffin
1. Justin “BoostedJ” Smith 64
2: Huck Seed 50
3: Ali Eslami 35
4: David Chiu 32
5: Farzad Bonyadi 3
6: Amnon Filippi 1
7: Eli Elezra 4
8: Mike “SirWatts” Watson 10

Team #5 Eugene Katchalov, Danny Alaei
1: Eugene Katchalov 72
2: Steve Sung 6
3: Matt Hawrlenko 32
4: Nikolai Evdakov 12
5: Pat Pezzin 14
6: Mikael Thuritz 28
7: Ville Wallbeck 15
8: Abe Mosseri 21

Team #6 Casey Katz
1: Erik Seidel 43
2: John Juanda 53
3: Michael Mizrachi 50
4: Carlos Mortensen 19
5: Annette Obrestad 1
6: Jason Somerville 1
7: David Singer 20
8: Eric Baldwin 13

Team #7 Scott Seiver, Justin Bonomo, Eric Froelich
1: Matt Glantz 58
2: Sorrel Mizzi 40
3: Justin Bonomo 43
4: Christian “charder30″ Harder 5
5: Jon “PearlJammed” Turner 13
6: Andrew Brown 9
7: John Monnette 11
8: Greg Mueller 21

Team #8 Jason Mercier, Jason Somerville
1: Michael Binger 45
2: Dan “djk123″ Kelly 36
3: Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier 18
4: David Oppenheim 6
5: Allen Bari 36
6: David “Bakes” Baker 40
7: Ben Lamb 15
8: Bryn Kenney 4

Team #9 James Bord, Toby Lewis
1: Nick Schulman 64
2: Scott Clements 45
3: Shaun Deeb 38
4: Luke Schwartz 1
5: Richard Ashby 28
6: Andy Bloch 6
7: Anthony Lellouche 1
8: James Bord 1

Team #10 Daniel Negreanu
1: Scott Seiver 73
2: Jason Mercier 74
3: Yuval Bronstein 18
4: Yueqi Zhu 5
5: Mike Matusow 12
6: Roland De Wolfe 1
7: Gavin Smith 1
8: Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis 16

Team #11 Frank Kassela, Shaun Deeb
1. Daniel Negreanu 89
2: Frank Kassela 41
3: Dwyte Pilgrim 10
4: Alan Cunningham 25
5: Victor Ramdin 1
6: Rob Hollink 17
7: Thomas Koral 1
8: Dario Minieri 16

Team #12 Erick Lingdren, David Oppenhiem
1: Erick Lindgren 61
2: David Benyamine 58
3: Shawn Buchanan 63
4: Eric Froehlich 6
5: Shannon Shorr 1
6: Kirill Gerasimov 1
7: George “Jorj95″ Lind III 9
8: Brian Hastings 1

Team #13 Todd Brunson
1. Todd Brunson 40
2: Scotty Nguyen 35
3: Phil Hellmuth 38
4: Freddy Deeb 23
5: Allan Kessler 41
6: Chris Feguson 4
7: Minh Ly 1
8: Shun Uchida 1

Team #14 Mori Eskandani
1: Jeffrey Lisandro 50
2: Chris Bjorin 38
3: Men “The Master” Nguyen 27
4: Dan Heimiller 21
5: Tom Marchese 10
6: David Williams 14
7: Vanessa Selbst 5
8: Phil Galfond 35

Team #15 Vladimir Schmelev
1. Sebastien Sabic 40
2: Joe Cassidy 43
3: Brett Richey 37
4: Patrik Antonius 5
5: Jared Bleznick 8
6: “Crazy” Marco Johnson 43
7: Alex Kravchenko 21
8: Sergey “gipsy74″ Rybachenko 1

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Negreanu and Isildur1 Split SuperStar Showdown Matches

Monday, March 28th, 2011

In one of the most anticipated events in online poker history, Daniel Negreanu recently agreed to take Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom on in two PokerStars SuperStar Showdown matches. If you’re unfamiliar with this event, it involves Blom challenging a different player every so often to 2,500 hands of $50/$100 No-Limit Hold’em, and the players multi-table four tables. The one other rule in this challenge is that both players have a $150k bankroll, and the game ends once one player loses their $150k, or the 2,500 hands end.

Going into the first matchup with Negreanu on March 20th, Blom was 4-1 against challengers, and he was a big favorite over Negreanu. After all, Kid Poker made a name for himself in live tournaments, while Isildur1 is considered one of the top online cash players in the game. In any case, Blom won big in the first matchup after he took Negreanu’s entire $150k bankroll in a matter of 1,439 hands.

As Negreanu so hastily pointed out, Blom ran a lot better than him in all-in hands, but for the most part, Blom’s overly-aggressive style and Negreanu’s lack of multi-tabling experience did him in. So did Negreanu come back for a March 27th rematch after being beaten badly the first time around? Of course he did!

However, it’s likely that Negreanu was wishing he hadn’t come back since he was down by $130,000 at one point in the second game. Incredibly though, Negreanu fought his way back after being only $20k away from losing. Kid Poker evened the score at around 2,000 hands, and he battled back and forth with Blom from there on out. In the last 50 hands, Negreanu took control of the match for good and beat Isildur1 by $26,500.

As you might have guessed, Negreanu was ecstatic about his victory over one of the best young cash players in the game today.

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Negreanu Takes Ivey’s Spot As All Time Tournament Poker Winner

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Phil Ivey has sat at the top of the all time biggest tournament poker earners for a while now, but thanks to a million dollar runner-up finish in a recent $100k American Poker Tour No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller event in the Caribbean, Daniel Negreanu has stolen Ivey’s crown.

Negreanu has made only two larger cash wins in his poker career than this $1 million dollar cash out. He took home over $1.7 million in the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic II and $1.1 million in the Borgata Poker Open WPT. He’s come a long way, with a total of over $14.1 million in poker winnings during the course of his career. Pretty impressive, especially considering that the 36-year old Canadian has only been on the poker tournament scene since 1997. Many of his older counterparts have been around for much longer and haven’t made as much money as he has.

Although Negreanu has surpassed Ivey in tournament winnings, Ivey still beats Negreanu when you look at how much money he has made across all aspects of poker play and not just tournaments. That being said, Negreanu’s feat is still quite an accomplishment.

In addition to now being the all time biggest poker tournament winner, Negreanu also has earned three Player of the Year accolades from the World Series Of Poker, Card Player Magazine and the WPT and is a household name amongst poker fans around the globe.

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Phil Ivey Takes Lead as All Time Winnings Leader for Tournament Poker

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Phil Ivey is known as one of the best all around poker players in today’s poker world and he has now proven himself as poker’s all time tournament winnings leader as well. Last month he finished in second place in the Aussie Millions $100,000 Australian Dollar buy-in, winning $600,000 Australian Dollars and surpassing Daniel Negreanu as the top all time money winner in tournament poker!

Over the years, Ivey has won over $12.6 million in poker tournaments, including one World Poker Tour title and seven WSOP bracelets. Some of his biggest wins over the years include the following:

- $635,600 for Pot Limit Omaha in 2005

- $1 million in the Monte Carlo Millions of 2005

- $132,000 for 7 Card Stud in 2002

- $107,540 for S.H.O.E. in 2002

- 8 WPT final tables and more

Ivey is also a charitable philanthropist and has given a great deal of his winnings to worthy causes. He has also created a charity of his own, the Bud Ivey Foundation. He is also involved in numerous projects for child literacy as well as programs helping the homeless.

Anyone who has followed any part of Phil Ivey’s career knows that he is one of the most popular players on the tournament circuit. You can find him in virtually every major tournament scheduled. It is his sheer determination and experience that has made him the winning player he is today. As they say, you can’t win if you don’t play the game!

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Barry Shulman Takes Home Title at WSOPE Main Event

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

On Friday, in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe, Barry Shulman broke through in a surprise victory against Daniel Negreanu to take home a WSOPE bracelet and £801,603. Coming into the final heads up round of the event, Negreanu seemed to be the sure bet to win the tournament. However, Shulman was not intimidated and won out in the end with some fantastic hands.

Barry Shulman, father of Jeff Shulman of the WSOP November Nine, has been in the game for a while now. This was his second bracelet win. He took home his last bracelet at the 2001 WSOP, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split $1,500 event, and has been long due for another tournament win.

There were 334 players in the WSOPE Main Event, many considered to be some of the best poker players in the world. The top nine, and their winnings, are as follows:

1. Barry Shulman with £801,60

2. Daniel Negreanu with £495,589

3. Praz Bansi with £360,887

4. Jason Mercier with £267,267

5. Markus Ristola with £200,367

6. Chris Bjorin with £150,267

7. Antoine Saout with £114,228

8. Matt Hawrilenko with £87,074

9. James Akenhead with £66,533

I was amazed to see Shulman, who had not taken home a bracelet in eight years, beat Negreanu who holds four WSOP bracelets and two WPT Championship titles. This was certainly one of the most exciting matches of heads up poker I’ve seen in awhile.

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