On Monday night, Team PokerStars Pro member Daniel Negreanu appeared on CBC’s The Hour, hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos. In his 10 minute segment, Negreanu previewed the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and discussed his knack for reading people.
The 2009 WSOP starts today at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Over the next seven weeks, a total of 57 bracelet events will play out, with the final table of the Main Event once again being pushed back from July until November. Negreanu told Stroumboulopoulos and his live audience that he is anxiously awaiting his moment in the sun: “When you get knocked out of the World Series of Poker, which for me was 2008 (in July), all you think about is next year, so I’ve been preparing since January.”
Negreanu noted that one of his main forms of training for the WSOP has been exercise. Most WSOP events kick off around Noon local time, but can stretch until the pre-dawn hours. Players will pack the Rio for seven weeks, making for a potentially long grind for unprepared novice: “Sometimes what you see is a one hour edited show, but we sit there for 15 or 16 hours per day and sometimes for six straight weeks. If at 1:00am you’re a little bit sharper than the other guy, you’re going to do a little bit better. I feel like being physically fit will help me in the long-run.”
When poker first became popularized after Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event, Negreanu was part of the new breed of players. The Canadian won his first WSOP bracelet at age 23 in a $2,000 buy-in Pot Limit Hold’em event. Since then, he’s won bracelets in Limit SHOE and Limit Hold’em for a total of four overall. Negreanu told Stroumboulopoulos that he considers himself to be in a unique place in the industry: “I’m 34 now and there’s a whole new breed of young guys between 21 and 24 years-old. These guys are all in shape. They study on the internet. They play online. They know all of the numbers. In order to stay afloat, I have to improve my game. If I don’t learn anything, they’ll pass me by.”
Negreanu’s appearance was preceded by a short biography that showed the popular poker pro traveling between Toronto and Las Vegas in order to break through. With the advent of the internet and online poker, being in Las Vegas is no longer a requirement for becoming a successful player. Negreanu explained, “Before, if you weren’t in Las Vegas, you couldn’t become a good poker player. Now, you can live in Norway, play online, and become a great player in a few months.” One of the world’s top names hails from Norway: Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, a Betfair pro, took down the inaugural WSOP Europe Main Event in 2007 for $2 million. The 2008 installment was won by Full Tilt Poker’s John Juanda.
On his top-tier ability to read opponents, Negreanu recalled, “I’ve always been sort of a people watcher. The subtle things that you see all mean something. When someone makes a facial expression, the way they’re leaning – after you see that over and over, all of this stuff gets cemented in your brain.” Playing poker in a live setting like the WSOP at the Rio can give regulars of the brick and mortar version of the game an edge, as some online poker players are not accustomed to picking up on physical tells.
In the United States, recent court cases have focused on whether poker is a game of skill. A study by Negreanu’s home site, PokerStars, and Cigital found that out of 103 million cash game hands that took place in December, three-quarters did not go to showdown. In essence, the process of betting and bluffing won each hand. Stroumboulopoulos questioned whether addicted gamblers are drawn to poker. Negreanu responded, “If someone is an addicted gambler, they’re going to play slot machines and blackjack; instant gratification is what they want. Poker teaches you that gambling is really bad.”
Finally, Negreanu offered a suggestion for the future of the game. The poker player who appeared in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” in a scene with Gambit commented, “I think one of poker’s next steps would be to have a tour where there’s a barrier to entry like the PGA and you just have to qualify. The WSOP Main Event is a great event, but we’ll have 9,000 people in it and it’s hard to win. If Tiger Woods had to play golf against 10,000 people every week, he wouldn’t win nearly as many events.” Many in the industry predict that the number of entrants for the 2009 WSOP Main Event will fall somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000. Last year, 6,844 players turned out.
Other recent guests on The Hour have included baseball player Johnny Damon, TD Bank executive Frank McKenna, country music superstar Keith Urban, and auto racer Michael Andretti.
