Last week, Negreanu wrote a controversial tweet which said the following:

Worst kind of poker player has the following traits:

Winner
Slow
Quiet (Also Miserable)
Nit (Cheap/Selfish)
Hater (Complainer/Negative)

If you match all of these categories then you are probably a real treat to have at parties. 2 of 5 is still bad
The tweet is now deleted.

This brought on a lot of negative responses, most notably that Daniel was criticizing winners and quiet people.

Isn't the point of poker to win? Hasn't he been a longtime winner himself?

Isn't a quiet player far better than a loud, annoying one?

Two rebuttal blogs were then written:

DK Lappin: http://rocshot.com/lappin/265-yester...jQWJU53ccTtnyc

Dara O'Kearney: http://dokearney.blogspot.com/2019/01/oh-danny-boy.html

Both of these blogs were positively received, and Daniel knew he had a PR problem on his hands.

In response, he wrote this: https://fullcontactpoker.com/the-state-of-poker-2019/

The Cliffs Notes of his response were basically a semi-mea-culpa that he was a bit too harsh, but he stood by his beliefs that:

- Winners are bad for poker because they win, and everyone wants to play with a bad player who they will beat

- Quiet players are bad for poker because they refuse to make conversation with recs, thus driving them away

- Nits are bad for poker, because nits are usually also angle-shooters (which isn't true)

- People who refuse to straddle when everyone else wants to straddle are bad for the game


I take issue with most of this.

Ever since he joined Pokerstars, he's been brainwashed into believing that winning grinders are bad for the game. This has long been Pokerstars owner Amaya's position, and he has since adopted it.

How does he resolve the fact that he is also a winner?

Because Daniel does more than win. He sees himself as an ambassador for the game -- one who has a lot of fans, interacts with them, and constantly draws new players in. Therefore, he isn't just a poker winner. He's an important figure in poker. If you just win, you're only taking from poker and not giving.

And that's the basic line of reasoning for the rest of his arguments.

Quiet players, nits, and non-straddlers all have one thing in common: They aren't making the game "fun" for the rec. And they're doing that stuff AND winning, then they're both taking money from the game AND not making things fun.

Shame, shame!

The fallacy in this argument comes from the fact that poker is an individual game. The pro grinder has no duty to make the game fun for people. In fact, many grinders lack the personality type to make the game fun, and would just come off as awkward and/or annoying if they tried. Others just find it to be a burden to constantly provide entertainment.

When you sit at a poker table, you have only a few duties to others:

1) Be courteous

2) Be honest

3) Don't impede gameplay

4) Take extra care not to anger the fish

That's it.

The rest is optional. Do you feel uncomfortable straddling? You might be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but it's your right. Do you just want to put on headphones and tune out the world? You may not be exciting company, but again, that's your right. Do you only want to get your money in really good, and also avoid playing in tough games? Again, that's your right.

The problem here is that Daniel writes this blog from the point of view of his own strengths.

He has an outgoing personality and enjoys interacting with people at the table, especially his fans.

He has enough money and natural gamble to where straddling and sidebets appeal to him.

So basically he's saying, "Be exactly like me, or you're bad for poker. Oh, unless you're a loser in the game. Then it's okay."

And that's bullshit.

There's one other big problem with his logic.

He says in his blog that a winning player will typically take money out of the game that could have gone to others, so therefore people don't want that player there.

That sounds correct on the surface, but it's not.

In a poker game where the best player leaves, the big beneficiary of his absence is the second-best poker player, not the fish! This is because there will still be a best and worst player at the table, and the worst player is still dead money if he stays long enough. Therefore, it's not a matter of whether he loses, but rather who is getting his money!

(This is also the reason for my favorite saying about game selection: "The absence of good players is far more important for game selection than the presence of bad ones.")

Sit me at a 6-handed table with 5 mediocre players, and I will crush it, barring really bad luck.

Sit me at a 6-handed table with 2 great players and 3 megafish, my results will be all over the place.

When one of those great players leave, I benefit big time, as one of the other pros. The fish are going to lose either way.


I'm not a Negreanu-hater like Doug Polk and so many others out there. He's done a lot of good for poker, and he's generally an honest character who has avoided major scandals for his entire career. However, blogs and tweets like these are cringeworthy, and he really needs to drop this silly war on grinders, before he continues to ruin his formerly great reputation even further.