Negreanu vs. Duke – From the Beginning

The storm that was caused by Daniel Negrenau’s recent statement about Annie Duke doesn’t seem to calm. The Canadian poker pro expressed his views in a less elegant fashion in an interview. However, the scandal has not came out of thin air, they have been hating each other for nearly a decade now.

Daniel Negreanu insulted Annie Duke in his interview given to PokerPlayer magazine, while he was evaluating the results of the WSOP Ladies event. His rant is still the object of debates and discussions, even though their dislike of each other is well known in the poker scene.

Their disagreement can be traced back to the early 90’s, but it has become apparent 7 years ago, when Negreanu posted a list of the reasons why he dislikes Duke. It contains 7 short stories, here’s one as an example:

“Annie habitually leans over to look at the cards of the person sitting beside her in a game, whether they like it or not. Well one day one of the players was fed up with her sweating her neighbor's hole cards and he spoke up about it. She obliged saying, "Ok, I won't look anymore." Not an hour later, a triple draw hand comes up, and she is caught red handed looking at her neighbor's hole cards again.  This time the player objected furiously, "I told you to stop looking at your neighbor's cards!" To which she replies, "I SWEAR ON MY CHILDREN I WASN'T". This was an absolute lie. She saw EXACTLY what card her neighbor got and ANNOUNCED the hand before it was turned over, also saying something to the effect of, "Oh you would have made it anyway."

A little later, in a PokerStars email exchange Howard Lederer (Annie Duke’s brother) demanded an apology of Duke from PokerStars.

“I was wondering who made the brilliant decision to inform Daniel Negreanu that my sister, Annie Duke,had sent you a query about him. For the record, she sent you this e-mail:

I am writing to inquire about what your policy on player chat is.
Doublesuited and onlinechamp are curently saying nasty and slanderous things
about me on table Acrab. Daniel Negreanu has an axe to grind with me and
Onlinechamp was fired as a host at UB.

This is not the first time Daniel has said rude and out of line things about
me in the chat box at your site.  It gets reported to me all the time and
now has been posted on RGP.  I know that his chat would be banned on UB. I
am just curious about what your policy is on Pokerstars.

Annie Duke

The purpose of her e-mail to you was clear. She has been slammed and ridiculed by this adolescent for months now, and she was hoping you might censor his chat for a while. If, however, your decision was to do nothing about his abusive behavior, there seemed to be no need to fan the already raging flames of this conflict. Instead, Daniel was informed of Annie's e-mail within minutes. I find this action, on your part, to be extremely unprofessional. Sadly, your action did have consequences. Soon after Annie's e-mail to you, she received this personal e-mail from Daniel:

You got a lot of nerve you dizzy cunt. If someone asks me if you are Puke, that's exactly what I'll tell them. You talk all kinds of shit about me and I could care less. You are entitled to say what you want about me, I don't care in the least. You trying to censor me? Ah naw, that ain't gonna happen. I'll say what the fuck I want to say about you. You think "I" start those discussions? Bitch please, I'm not the only one who has witnessed you be your pukey self. Wait till you read McManus' new book... what- are you going to try to have it cleared from the shelves too! lol. People SEEK me out to tell me how much they hate you. As for me sayin' shit about you? Deal with it. I ain't goin' anywhere."

As a brother and a human being I am deeply disturbed by this e-mail. No one deserves to be subjected to this kind foul attack. I think you owe Annie a sincere apology.

Howard Lederer”

The relationship between Negreanu and Duke still doesn’t seem to change for the better, though, it was calmer before the PokerPlayer interview, which had reignited the hate. In the past few days nearly everybody have commented on the scandal; the most appropriate seems to be Doyle Brunson, enthusiastic twitter user’s:

"That's brutal".

Of course it might be the case that the marketing machine started, and without anyone seeing it coming, we’ll witness a 50.000 hand heads-up match between Negreanu and Duke...