Kidpoker

When I started getting really interested in poker and the idea of becoming a professional first entered my mind, my favorite player was Daniel Negreanu. I found everything about him appealing. His playing style was perfectly suited for me, I thought. Not wildly aggressive but pretty loose - more interested in tricking people than hammering them. Finesse rather than brute force. Cute rather than powerful. He wrote for CardPlayer magazine back when it had indie cred and his columns were the best in the magazine. The strategic ones offered such clear insight into the way he played, I still think they were some of the best food I digested while learning to play the game. I also identified with the stuff he wrote about the lifestyle - particularly his stories of coming up through the ranks, beating beaten down, and then his big breakthrough at the WSOP.

When poker exploded shortly after Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP main event, Daniel Negreanu was probably the best non-famous tournament player in the world. It's hard to remember now that he is one of the five or ten most famous players in the world, but he went through a dry patch of tournament results around the WPT's first season and never made it on television. It was during this period that I became particularly fond of Negreanu. Reading about frustrating struggles is more soul-stirring than reading about success and excess, I suppose. Before anyone knew who Daniel Negreanu was, I did, and that's one reason why he was my favorite player.

In 2004, the year I started making legitimate money playing poker, Negreanu had one of the finest years of tournament poker anyone has ever had. He made 11 final tables, winning two WPT events and finishing second in a third, won a WSOP bracelet and made 5 final tables there, and won CardPlayer of the Year by a wide margin. This also happened right at the moment televised poker went to supernova stage, and Negreanu became its brightest star. In addition to his incredible results, he displayed youthful enthusiasm and mainstream accessibility perfect for television.

It was also clear that Negreanu liked being in the spotlight. As Jerry Maguire would say, he would not rest until he was holding a Coke, wearing his own hockey jersey, playing a Sega game featuring him while singing his own song in a new commercial, starring him, broadcast during a poker tournament that he wins, and would not sleep until that happened.

Soon Negreanu wasn't my favorite player anymore. He really blew it for me when he wrote an article in CardPlayer hyping his video game. That was a clear sell out, and it disgusted me. Negreanu had "jumped the shark", poker had "jumped the shark", it was no longer about the game, and I mentally divorced the man I had once referred to as my "soulmate." I still read most of his articles and blogs, but more casually and condescendingly than passionately.

Last week during the shorthanded event I finally sat down at a poker table with Daniel Negreanu. I had gotten moved during the second level, I ambled over to the table, saw a few dudes I didn't recognize, and then I saw Daniel. He was wearing a turquoise shirt just like I have but his had a cheesy logo for his website. He was wearing a hat just like I was but his was for his website, mine for the Tar Heels. He was getting up from the table a lot just like I do but he would sign autographs whereas I just stare blankly around the sea of tables.

Daniel was in his element. He was hitting hands nonstop and there were plenty of fools to pay him off. There was no one at the table who could challenge him. No one had the game, and certainly no one had the cards. Every ten minutes a chip count reporter would ask him his count, and it was always more than the last time. Every twenty minutes a poker site would take his photograph. He was constantly making jokes, little barbs at the other players or the WSOP. And the rail was thicker around that table than any other, even though the rest of the players were as anonymous as the rail itself.

Not long after I sat down, a kid with a broken face came up to the rail wearing a hockey jersey for Negreanu's website. The poor kid's face was so disfigured people were glancing in his direction, then averting their eyes in shock. But Negreanu wasn't turning away. His demeanor didn't change at all, he was still smiling and cracking jokes and having fun with the rail. He was engaging the kid, talking to him, getting him involved in the conversation.

It turns out Negreanu has known the kid, Little Matt, for over a year, and hangs out with him from time to time. Negreanu was still the star of the show, still hungry for attention, but now he was doing something positive with that attention. He was deflecting it in the right direction, making the kid feel accepted and part of the action. And I looked at the kid, and even though his face was completely deformed and discontinuous, you could tell he was smiling broadly, and I smiled, and I thought, if Daniel Negreanu wants to sell out and promote himself and do everything he can to be the most famous poker player on the planet, then it's okay with me.