Best Daniel Negreanu Wins of All Time

Who is the best real money poker player of all time? That is a question that can get debated for days by hardcore fans of card gambling. While many will argue that it is a toss-up between Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey, no top five list is complete without Kid Poker, the Canadian sensation, Daniel Negreanu.

The Hendon Mob currently lists Negreanu’s live total winnings at $46.1 million, almost $11 million more than Phil Ivey and $19 million more than Phil Hellmuth, undoubtedly, the greatest tournament poker player ever. Only Justin Bonomo and Bryn Kenney are ahead of Negreanu, with $11 million more apiece, even though there is little information regarding Kid Poker’s total online poker accumulated prizes.

That said, Negreanu has two WPT championship titles to his name and six WSOP bracelets, and he is the only person to win WSOP player of the year twice. His accolades aside, let us explore what many consider the three most memorable high-stakes poker wins of Negreanu’s career.

Tom Dwan recently lost a super memorable hand on High Stakes Poker against Negreanu

1) Winning $272,600 in a High Stake Legends Game

In March of this year, Negreanu won $272,600 in a cash game in a PokerGo High Stakes poker hand at a table that featured high-end players such as Phil Ivey, James Bord, Doyle Brunson, Jean-Robert Bellande, Jonathan Gibbs, Kim Hultman, Koray Aldemir, and Town Dawn. The game’s primary hand featured Dawn going up against Daniel after the rest of the players got priced out.

For those out of the card loop, Tom Dwan is a live tournament player that has appeared on the seventh season of Poker After Dark and NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship. But, he made his bones playing Texas Holdem online and has had terrific success in casino tournaments. In the PokerGO High Stakes game in question, Negreanu tangled in a hand worth $272,600 against Dawn and walked away from it as the victor. Given the high-profile character of this win, it found its way onto our list, at the top spot.

2) Pocketing $1,7 Million at the 2004 WPT Five-Diamond World Poker Classic

The World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic is an annual tournament, part of the WPT series, held in Las Vegas at the Bellagio Resort and Casino. It got up and running in 2002 when Gus Hansen took first place. In 2004, its third season, the five-day event transpired from December 14th to the 18th of that month. In it, Negreanu came out on top of a field of 376 competitors to get crowned its champion. He attained this title by coming out ahead of multiple renowned luminaires like Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, Jeff Lisandro, and Ted Forrest. The final table participants were Johnny Chan, Nam Le, Jennifer Harman, Vinny Landrum, Steve Rassi, and Humberto Berens, whom Daniel beat in a heads-up face-off to win $1.7 million while Brenes walked away with $923,475.

Many will say that 2004 was the best year of Negreanu’s career, and he showed superior instincts and skill in all the poker variants he dabbled in during that 365-day calendar period. For the card gambling prowess displayed during this time, he earned the honors WSOP 2004 Player of the Year and the 2004-2005 WPT Player of the Year.

3) Winning $1.1 Million at the 2004 WPT Borgata Poker Open

Williams’ peak career finish came when he lost to Negreanu in 2004 at the Borgata Open.

2004, at the height of his card handling powers and at the peak of the legal online poker craze, Negreanu participated in the Borgata Poker Open, three months before his Five Diamon World Poker Classic win. The tournament featured three hundred and two participants, a $10,000 buy-in, and a prize pool of $3 million. Famous competitors that took part in this event included Phil Ivey, Josh Arieh, Lee Markholt, and David Williams. The latter faced a then-blonde-haired Daniel, and after several dramatic hands, he eventually lost out to Kid Poker.

David Williams took second place in stride and wound up pocketing over $570,000 for this terrific showing. Interested parties can watch the Negreanu versus Williams showdown on the World Poker Tour Best of Season Three DVD Collection. That video library is a gem for poker historians as it features hands that did not air on the TV broadcast. In the mid-2000s, no poker app existed that provided a detailed breakdown of every high-profile game. Many events did not air in real-time, and when they did, they got edited due to time restraints during their time-delayed showing.