Home / Poker News August 2010 / Daniel Negreanu vs Annie Duke – the war of words
Daniel Negreanu vs Annie Duke – the war of words
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2010-08-29 15:14
By now, you’ve probably already had your fill of the Negreanu vs Annie Duke drama, but if not, here’s a small introduction to this Hollywood-like battle of words (and apparently not so much one of wits): in an interview, Daniel Negreanu has severely lambasted Annie Duke for a bunch of various reasons, using a bunch of colorful expressions, the bottom line of which was that Duke was just an altogether terrible person (and I’m being gentle here) and certainly not a personality suited to represent the game of poker at the level at which she currently does.
In the interview, Negreanu, in his usually eloquent and “tell-it-like-it-is” style took a whack at Duke when asked about the ladies’ event at the
WSOP.
Daniel Negreanu is a class act. There’s no second guessing that, but the way he argued his point in the interview was less than appropriate for a player representing the world’s
biggest online poker site. The ripples generated by the interview have obviously already caused Daniel’s soaring popularity to dip, but there may yet be more fallout from it all. Messages of indignation have started pouring in to
PokerStars, requesting the site to distance itself from Negreanu’s remarks. Annie Duke herself has written an open letter to the site requesting the same. While PokerStars did issue a statement addressing the matter (following an initial blunder of a response email in which a PokerStars support-employee made it appear like the site fully supported Negreanu’s statements), Negreanu himself has remained adamant in refusing to apologize for having voiced his opinion.
In poker circles it’s been long known that the two players nurtured no particular respect for one another, such a public war of words was still entirely unexpected though. Where the drama will end up remains to be seen.