Annie Duke vs. Daniel Negreanu start to finish: Part 1 the Early Years

There has been a lot of talk recently about a specific interview with Daniel Negreanu that appeared on pokerplayer.co.uk recently where he calls Annie Duke a “F***ing C***”, causing a firestorm of opinions in the poker world. Unfortunately, the interview is just the latest transgression in what has been on an ongoing feud between the two poker stars that began some 15 years ago! Hopefully I can shed some light on what has transpired over the years between Negreanu and Duke to help put Daniel’s recent comments in context.

People who have been a part of the poker community prior to the 2003 explosion are much more familiar with the ‘beef’ between the two poker superstars -having been around the poker scene since around the year 2000, and as a former RGP forum member I’m fairly well acquainted with the bad blood between the two, which seems to have begun at their first encounter at the poker tables.

***I’m going from memory, and what research I can do, so if anyone familiar with the situation sees something that doesn’t jibe, or seems to be incomplete or wrong, please feel free to contact me about it***

The first real public airing came in early 2002 when Daniel posted on now defunct rec.gambling.poker forum (commonly referred to as RGP) about a run-in with an unnamed woman at the Bellagio. Which then drew an “Open Letter” response from Howard Lederer -you’ll see the Open Letter response again in part 2 of this series, it must be a Lederer thing. While Daniel left the ‘woman’ unnamed, Howard had no qualms about identifying Annie as the villain in Daniel’s story, so at this point the cat was out of the bag, and the poker world did the 2002 equivalent of “GET YOUR POPCORN READY!”

A few months later in 2003 Daniel Negreanu again posted on RGP his reasons for, “what makes me think that this woman is such a low life.” In the post Daniel cites 8 specific examples of Duke’s angle-shooting, breaking of poker-room etiquette, and hygienic deficiencies. A few of the tales can be read in James McManus book Positively 5^th Street, where McManus goes out of his way to paint Duke in the best possible light -but still fails-as well as being corroborated by the other players mentioned.

Let me interject a little personal opinion and history at this point:

I’ve talked with Daniel in the past, actually he answered a random e-mail of mine years ago when I first took up poker, completely out of the blue mind you, and we had maybe 20 or so other e-mail conversations, mostly about poker. He is exactly how he appears to be, and was a great help to my early poker game –especially when I switched from Limit Holdem to Omaha 8 or Better.

Now, I’ve never met Annie Duke, and have never communicated with her in anyway, so I don’t know the “real” Annie Duke at all. However, I do know many poker players, and very few have overly nice things to say about her –although few are as put-off by her as Daniel is, most of the time you get eye-rolls and sarcasm, and the occasional story like the eight Daniel tells in his RGP post. And it’s obvious from her Celebrity Apprentice appearance that she rubs people the wrong way.

The next flare-up between the two occurred when Annie Duke had Daniel’s chat revoked on PokerStars, and subsequently found an e-mail in her inbox from Daniel, which somehow found its way onto the Internet thanks again to Howard Lederer:

“Subject: Stop your whining

You got a lot of nerve you dizzy c**t.  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.”

So here we have Daniel’s first use of the C-word in regards to Annie Duke -and since I haven’t seen another instance of its usage by him I have to assume it’s a term he uses specifically for Annie Duke, not women in general-as well as the origination of the Annie Puke moniker.

For her part, Duke seems to only have ‘gone after’ Daniel publicly in her book, privately is another matter, where she refers to him as an “Online Tormentor”.

After this, the feud was relatively quiet, and it seemed Howard and Daniel pretty much buried the hatchet, with Negreanu and Duke just taking the silent approach toward each other. That was until the 2010 World Series of Poker, and the Ladies-Only Tournament found the two on opposing sides of the controversy surrounding the tournament… But, I’ll save that for part 2!

Howard’s “Open Letter” to Daniel

Daniel’s E-Mail following his chat ban

Negreanu airs Duke’s Dirty Poker Laundry