Daniel Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu may well be the most well known poker player in the world. He is of course best known because of the enormous success that he has had playing in tournaments. The fact that he is also one of the most marketable and heavily marketed players in the world is also a major factor. This is really what has made him so famous and turned him into the one of the best known players in the game.

Daniel Negreanu is from Toronto which is where he got started playing poker. It will probably come as no surprise that he started playing at a very young age, most of the pros do. It didn't take him long to realize that he was a lot better than most of his friends so he decided that he was going to turn poker into his career so he dropped out of high school to start playing. Initially he found success playing in games around Toronto. However once he reached the age of twenty one and could start playing in American casinos he moved to Las Vegas in the hopes of making it big. Things did not work out well at all and he ended up moving back to Toronto after losing all of his money.

Once he got back to Toronto Negreanu started winning regularly again and it did not take him long to rebuild his bankroll. It was also around this time that he started entering tournaments. These were fairly small local tournaments but they were enough to allow him to enter the World Series of Poker. His first time at the WSOP was in 1997 and he would make it all the way to the main event final. He even did well enough that he was voted the top player at the tournament. The next year he would return to pick up his first bracelet.

While he has been a very successful tournament player the area where Daniel Negreanu really shines is when it comes to marketing himself. He was one of the first to realize that poker was developing main stream appeal and he made a great effort to market himself to that audience. While he may not be as colorful as some of the other top pros and some of the serious fans may find him to be a bit on the dull side the fact remains that he is one of the most recognized names in the game. The main reason is the appeal that he has with the casual fans.

Despite the fact that he has built his reputation in tournament play Negreanu has actually greatly reduced the number of tournaments that he plays in. A big part of the reason for this is that he focuses more on the made for television events which really help with the marketing side of the business. The other reason is that like most pros he has realized that the money is in cash games.