Daniel Negreanu has WSOP accolades that very few can match, making him an easy fit at #6 in the WSOP Top 50. (WSOP photo)

2019 marks the 50th annual World Series of Poker. The most prestigious poker festival in history has played a pivotal role in creating many of the legends and superstars of the game. To commemorate the occasion, PocketFives editorial staff each ranked the top 50 players in WSOP history in an effort to define and rank the most important, influential, and greatest WSOP players of all time. 

Daniel Negreanu

BRACELETS CASHES WINNINGS TOP 10s
6 108 $16,364,794 44

Some poker players are so highly regarded that you need only mention their first name to conjure up images of their greatness. Doyle. Chip. Stu.

Daniel.

Walk into just about any card room and strike up a conversation about top tier pros and eventually that conversation will zero in on Daniel Negreanu one of the most popular, and sometimes polarizing, poker pros on the planet. While Daniel has found plenty of success on other poker tours as well as being a long time ambassador in the online poker world much of ‘Kid Poker’s career was forged in the fires of the World Series of Poker.

Negreanu has often times told the story of how as a young poker player he would make frequent trips to Las Vegas in the nineties, playing cash games, running up a bankroll, busting it and heading back to Canada. He would take shots in World Series of Poker satellites until eventually, he played in one with Todd Brunson who was so impressed with his game at the time, he helped put him into his first event, the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event in 1998. Negreanu won that first event for $169,460 and the first of his six bracelets.

Unlike some people who find and fall in love with the WSOP, Negreanu’s early WSOP career was not replete with results. He cashed in one event in 1999 and nothing in 2000. In 2001, prior to the poker boom, Negreanu made a deep run in the Main Event essentially bubbling the final table, falling in 11th place for over $63,000.

After a near miss in 2002, finishing as the runner-up in a $5,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament for $85,400, Negreanu returned in 2003 to claim his second bracelet in a $2,000 S.H.O.E. (Seven Card Stud, Limit Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud Eight or Better) tournament for just north of $100,000.

By 2004, in the midst of the post-Moneymaker poker boom, Negreanu found himself in the right place and the right time, racking up results and as a result, TV time. During the summer of 2004, Negreanu made five final tables and earned his third gold bracelet taking down a $2,000 Limit Hold’em tournament for $169,100. His success that summer resulted in his first WSOP Player of the Year title.

When 2006 came about Negreanu’s popularity was skyrocketing thanks in part to his two World Poker Tour titles, appearances on High Stakes Poker and his continuous results at the WSOP.

After a series of close calls, he picked up his fourth bracelet in 2008, once again in Limit Hold’em. Negreanu’s fifth bracelet came in 2013 during WSOP APAC, when he took down the $10,000 Main Event for over $1,000,000. Finally, he won his sixth bracelet in 2013 in the €25,600 High Roller at the World Series of Poker Europe.

His 2013 campaign resulted in 10 cashes for $1.286M over the three different WSOP series that year (APAC, Las Vegas, Europe) which brought him his second World Series of Poker Player of the Year award, making him the only player in WSOP history to accomplish that.

Although it’s been six years since Negreanu has been in the winner’s circle, he continued to be a part of some of the biggest moments in WSOP history. Negreanu booked a career-high score of $8.2M on the televised final table of the 2014 Big One For One Drop where he finished as the runner-up to Dan Colman. Then just one year later Negreanu duplicated his 2001 Main Event run, going deep into 6,420 player field of the Main Event, finishing in 11th place for over $526K.

With 108 total World Series of Poker cashes, Negreanu sits in third place all-time and his over $16M in earning made up a large part of what kept ‘Kid Poker’ as the All-Time Money List leader for as many years as he was including a four-year stretch from 2014-2018.

With all of his success already at the World Series of Poker, there’s no reason to believe that Negreanu will slow down any time soon. In fact, it’s the opposite. At age 44, Negreanu seems more committed than ever to pick up his seventh bracelet, headed into the 2019 World Series with a battle plan to play every event, no matter how big or small the buy-in, with an eye on capturing his third WSOP Player of the Year title.

Poker has changed dramatically since Negreanu’s first arrival on the Las Vegas scene in the 90’s. Live or online, Negreanu has continually accepted the challenge of changing with the times, adapting to new strategies and finding success at the tables no matter the era. As one of the industry’s most dominant and popular personalities, Negreanu looks to be a force at the World Series of Poker for the foreseeable future, chasing bracelets and making his presence felt wherever he goes.