Background and career
Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won eight World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker Index recognized Negreanu as the best poker player of the previous decade. As of August 2025, he has the seventh-highest live tournament poker money winnings of all time, with US$56.9 million. He was named the WSOP Player of the Year in 2004 and 2013, making him the only player to receive the accolade more than once. He was also the 2004–2005 WPT Player of the Year. He is one of four players, along with Billy Baxter, Jay Heimowitz, and Phil Hellmuth to have won a WSOP Bracelet in 4 different decades. He is the first player to make a final table at each of the three WSOP bracelet-awarding locations (Las Vegas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific), and the first to win a bracelet at each. In 2014, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Negreanu was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1974, seven years after his parents, Annie and Constantin, emigrated from Romania. He can speak Romanian fluently. The Negreanus had hoped to start a new life in the United States but ended up settling in Toronto where Constantin worked as an electrician and sold confectionery. Daniel is five years younger than his brother Mike. At an early age, Negreanu was ambitious, stating in a 2009 interview "From the age of four, I thought I'd be rich. I told my mom I'd build a house out of Popsicle sticks and move to California." He attended Pineway Public School in North York, where the principal complained to his mother about Daniel's "poor manners or behavior" and threatened to expel him for "ignoring the school rules." While nursing dreams of a career as a professional snooker player, the then 15-year-old learned to play poker. At the age of 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, betting on sports, and playing cards. When he was several credits short of graduation, he dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at local charity casinos, usually at Casino Country and Fundtime Games and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, he met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building a bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, "The Strip" got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.
Negreanu is an accomplished tournament and cash game player. He has eight World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championships. He has also reached multiple WSOP and WPT final tables and won various other tournament titles. Negreanu was named the 2004 Card Player Player of the Year and the WSOP Player of the Year. He was also named the 2004–05 WPT Player of the Year. In 2006, Negreanu was named "Favorite Poker Player" at Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year Awards Gala. In 2013, he captured two WSOP bracelets and another WSOP Player of the Year award, becoming the only player to win the award twice. In November 2014, Negreanu was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Negreanu has regularly played the "Big Game" in Bobby's Room, in the Bellagio casino, Las Vegas, where the limits are $400–800 or greater and the games are mixed. He is a self-professed action junkie who claims to always seek new challenges and set high goals for himself. Unlike many players, he is outspoken about his results and regularly posts updates in the Full Contact Poker forums. Some of Negreanu's success is attributed to his ability to read opponents. When asked about this, Negreanu explained that the most important skill he employs is observing what hands his opponents play and how capable they are of playing them.
Negreanu's first cash at the WSOP was also his first WSOP bracelet. Negreanu won $169,460 in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event in the 1998 World Series of Poker, becoming the youngest WSOP bracelet winner—a record he held until 2004 (Scott Fischman). Negreanu has since captured another seven bracelets, including the $50,000 Poker Players Championship in 2024 and the $100,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha in 2026. He has 36 career WSOP final table appearances, including two apiece at the WSOP Europe and at the WSOP Asia-Pacific, and 103 money finishes.
An "A" following a year denotes bracelet(s) won at the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific An "E" following a year denotes bracelet(s) won at the World Series of Poker Europe In addition to his 8 bracelets, he also won a WSOP Circuit ring in 2006. After winning the tournament, he explained his strategy and provided some insights into his play: "I had a strategy designed for each individual player and pretty much followed it at the final table. The key to winning for me is that I stayed out of marginal situations. I don't want to get into a race with 6-6 against A-K and hope to stay alive. I think what I am best at is playing after the flop, and I wanted to get as many situations as I could where I was up against (an opponent) and could take them on after the flop. My goal is to see the most flops I can. I like to set traps. I let (opponents) get involved, and then trap them. If I get them drawing dead (which happened twice at the final table in big pots)—that's always the plan."
Negreanu's first major successes on the tournament poker scene came in 1997 with three tournament wins, including two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino, earning $55,064. In November 2008, Negreanu won the fourth-annual British Columbia Poker Championships main event, topping a field of 690 players (a personal high for Daniel), and earning $371,910 CAD (US$299,951). In 2014, he was the runner-up in The Big One for One Drop which paid him $8,288,001. The runner-up finish marked the highest live cash for Negreanu. The event was held at the WSOP but was not eligible for a WSOP bracelet. Negreanu won $1 million as the winner of the 2016 Shark Cage tournament organized by PokerStars.net. As of January 2026, his total live tournament winnings exceed $57,600,000. His 292 cashes at the WSOP account for over $25,800,000 of those winnings. In October 2022, he won $3,312,000 in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl VII.
