Daniel Negreanu, also known as Kid Poker, is one of the best known and best liked poker players in the world. He’s famous for an uncanny ability to read opponents, and for a trophy cabinet that includes seven World Series of Poker bracelets and a place in the Poker Hall of Fame.
But how did a colorful, loudmouthed Canadian become one of the greatest poker players of all time? This is the story of Daniel Negreanu. We’ve also made it into a video, if you’d rather watch than read.
Who Is Daniel Negreanu?
Daniel Negreanu is a talkative Canadian professional Texas Hold’em player. His aggressive style and his flair for reading opponents have earned him two World Poker Tour titles and seven World Series of Poker bracelets, and he’s been named WSOP Player of the Year twice, in 2004 and 2013. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014.
When this story was first written in 2020, his live tournament earnings sat just above $42 million, which put him third on the all-time money list. He has since passed $50 million and remains among the highest-earning live tournament players in the game’s history, though the names above him shift as high-roller fields keep growing.
Negreanu is close to synonymous with poker itself. His wit, his persona and his unrivaled skill at reading players have shaped the modern game like few others. He has appeared at countless televised events, talks openly about every corner of poker, and has turned up in films as well as producing his own series and books on how to play and win. If you want to know what he’s actually looking for across the table, start with our guide to poker tells.
Early Life of Daniel Negreanu
Daniel Negreanu’s parents emigrated from Romania to Toronto, Canada seven years before Daniel’s birth on July 26, 1974, hoping for a better future for their children.
By the age of four, Negreanu was already hooked on the American Dream. He wanted to be rich. He was described as bad-mannered at school, and by the time he reached college he was several credits short of graduating and clearly failing. Then, at 15, he learned to play poker.
From Rounder to Youngest Bracelet Winner
By 16 he was a regular at the local pool halls, and for a while he considered turning professional at snooker instead. Poker won. Negreanu dropped out of high school and started chasing a career at the tables, working as a rounder – an expert player who travels to seek out high-stakes games – around rooms like Casino Country and Fundtime. He’s even rumored to have sniffed out the occasional illegal game.
Through his early twenties he built both a reputation and a bankroll, then headed to Las Vegas at 21. It didn’t go to plan and he lost more than he could afford, so he moved back to Toronto and started rebuilding.
In 1998, a 24-year-old Negreanu won the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event at the World Series of Poker. It added $169,460 to his bankroll and, far more importantly, his first bracelet. He was the youngest player ever to win one at the time, which is where Kid Poker comes from. From that point there was no turning back.
Daniel Negreanu’s Biggest Win
Negreanu’s biggest payday came in 2014, when he finished second in the Big One for One Drop, a $1 million buy-in event. Kid Poker took on 41 other players for a prize pool of $37,333,338.
He came second, beaten only by Dan Colman, and the runner-up prize of $8,288,001 is still his largest single score. Negreanu later admitted that all he could think about afterwards was how much he’d left on the table by not beating Colman.
Bracelets and Titles
Negreanu started his bracelet collection in 1998 with the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em ($169,460). He added the $2,000 S.H.O.E. in 2003 ($100,440), the $2,000 Limit Hold’em in 2004 ($169,100), and another $2,000 Limit Hold’em four years later in 2008 ($204,874).
2013 was his standout year, with two bracelets: the WSOP Asia-Pacific Main Event ($1,038,825) and the €25,600 High Roller at WSOP Europe (€725,000). Then came an eleven-year drought, broken in 2024 when he won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship for his seventh bracelet – widely considered the toughest event on the schedule, and the one he had said he wanted most.
Both World Poker Tour titles came in 2004, at the $10,000 Borgata Poker Open ($1,117,400) and the $15,000 Five Diamond World Poker Classic ($1,795,218). He has plenty more to his name besides, including the Foxwoods World Poker Finals in 1997 and the British Columbia Poker Championships main event, which made him $299,951 richer.
Private Life
Negreanu has been married twice. In 2005 he married Lori Lin Weber, an accomplished professional poker player in her own right. They separated in 2007 and later divorced.
He remarried in 2019, to long-time girlfriend Amanda Leatherman. He had actually bought the rings ten years earlier when they first got engaged, but felt she wasn’t ready to settle down. They separated, and eventually found their way back to each other when she returned to Las Vegas.
Controversies
In July 2020, Kid Poker was banned from Twitch after a bad-mannered outburst aimed at a viewer in his chat. The reason was that the viewer had made rude remarks about his wife, Amanda Leatherman.
Leatherman defended him, saying she was glad her husband had stood up for her, and a month later @realkidpoker was back on Twitch.
A year earlier, in 2019, Negreanu drew criticism for a blog post about the worst kinds of poker players. He ended up apologizing, after plenty of people argued he’d lost touch with the grind he was describing.
Daniel Negreanu vs. Doug Polk
For years Negreanu carried on a running feud with Californian pro Doug Polk. Like Negreanu, Polk is a loud and colorful figure on the poker scene, and we’ve written his story up in full in our post on Doug Polk.
The bad blood between them built for years and reached its peak in 2020, when Negreanu surprised everyone by accepting Polk’s challenge to a heads-up match.
The two agreed to play 25,000 hands of heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em at $200/$400, with an option to stop at the halfway mark. The first 200 hands were played live and face to face, and the rest online across two simultaneous tables.
The match ran from November 2020 to February 2021, and it did not go Negreanu’s way. Polk finished roughly $1.2 million ahead when the two agreed to call it off short of the full 25,000 hands. Negreanu took the loss publicly and kept playing. If you want the full back-and-forth, we’ve gathered it in this one post. Truly a clash of poker titans.
Are You the Next Negreanu?
Want to test your own reads in a game of free poker with friends? The EasyPoker app provides the chips and the cards for a private table, whether everyone is sitting in the same room or spread across the country. And it’s free.
The app handles the dealing and the chip counting, so all you and your friends have to do is play your cards. Poker with friends has never been easier – and EasyPoker deals Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Short Deck (6+) and Reverse Hold’em, so you can play the same game Negreanu built a career on.
More Poker Player Stories
If you enjoyed this one, try the rise and fall of the Great Dane, Gus Hansen, who went from one of the best players in the world to losing more than $20,000,000, quitting poker and taking a job as an accountant.
Or read about Dan Bilzerian, the poker playboy who claims to have won more than $50M against international billionaires – and whether he’s really a legitimate player at all. There’s also Doyle Brunson, the man who wrote the book Negreanu grew up on, and Chris Moneymaker, the amateur whose 2003 win created the boom Negreanu rode to fame.
Daniel Negreanu FAQ
Who is Daniel Negreanu?
Daniel Negreanu, nicknamed Kid Poker, is a Canadian professional poker player born in Toronto on July 26, 1974. He is best known for his ability to read opponents, for seven World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour titles, and for being one of the most recognizable personalities in the game. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014.
How many WSOP bracelets does Daniel Negreanu have?
Seven. He won his first in 1998 at 24 years old, added five more between 2003 and 2013, then went eleven years without one before taking the $50,000 Poker Players Championship in 2024 – the event many players consider the hardest to win.
What is Daniel Negreanu’s biggest win?
His biggest single score is $8,288,001, for finishing second to Dan Colman in the 2014 Big One for One Drop. It was a $1 million buy-in event with a prize pool of $37,333,338, and it remains his largest payday despite not being a win.
Who won the Daniel Negreanu vs Doug Polk match?
Doug Polk won. The heads-up no-limit match ran from November 2020 to February 2021 at $200/$400, and the two called it off before completing the agreed 25,000 hands, with Polk roughly $1.2 million ahead.
Which poker games can you play on EasyPoker?
EasyPoker deals Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Short Deck (6+) and Reverse Hold’em. Reverse Hold’em is our own variant, where the river is dealt first and the flop comes last. For games with 4 or more players, the host needs EasyPoker Plus, which supports up to 12, so you can run a full home game with the app handling the cards and chips.