Annie Duke vs. Daniel Negreanu start to finish: Part 3 Afterthoughts

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series I detailed the many incidents involving Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu over the years, and now I will throw in my 2-cents regarding the recent verbiage used by Daniel Negreanu in the pokerplayer.co.uk interview, and the way Annie Duke has spun it.

Yes, Negreanu is a representative of PokerStars, an online poker site! Face it, representing online poker isn’t like heading up a kids summer camp, or a Women’s rights group; what type of standard should we hold professional poker players to? Yes Annie, as you alluded to in your ‘Open Letter’, Nike would certainly drop a player who used the C-word in an interview, but Nike is a global, family, brand that sells apparel to mothers and children; they are not a somewhat illegal online poker operation, operating offshore of its major markets to avoid prosecution. Look at the way Bodog or even UB’s sister site Absolute Poker has used sexy women in the past; something Nike would never think of doing! A better analogy would be: How would Playboy magazine react?

Now, if he was playing in a tournament suffered a bad beat, and called the woman a C*** it’s a different story. But in this case he is using the term to explain his feelings towards Annie Duke, not a random woman he doesn’t know. He doesn’t like her, AT ALL! And he has reason not to like her.

Obviously the backlash has not been enough that PokerStars feels any punishment to be necessary -who knows if there has been behind the scenes talk or punishment. It just feels like Duke is trying to exploit the situation to not only get her own slipping brand into the headlines, but also to take-down Negreanu.

And I’m sorry but C*** is not the same as an ethnic or racial slur; no more than calling someone a MotherF***er is. It’s a harsh put-down, and not fit for polite conversation, but equating someone who calls a particular woman a C*** as denigrating all women is quite a leap. 

One final point: Many an athlete has disrespected a woman reporter -or male reporter for that matter-and usually the person just shrugs it off, because really… it’s not that big of a deal that someone called you a name! Or how about guys like Brandon Marshal who BEAT women, *allegedly*, they still play in the NFL. Let’s not forget Shaq’s nightclub rap about Kobe that was full of colorful language. Among the many other instances that could be used to show public figures, representing a company, who have used foul language.