The Daniel Negreanu vs. Annie Duke saga writes a new chapter

A while back I wrote a satirical blog entry titled Vince McMahon meet Doyle Brunson, where I detailed a plan to “script” poker: Adding some bad guys ‘Heels’ for poker fans to boo, and hero’s to prop up and cheer. Well, poker got a bit of WWE feel recently when the Daniel Negreanu vs. Annie Duke feud was rekindled by some harsh language in a throwaway line in an interview for pokerplayer.co.uk.

During the interview Daniel Negreanu was asked about the Ladies-Only Tournament controversy at this year’s WSOP. After a quick explanation of his previous views on the subject, Daniel pulled an Emeril and kicked it up a notch! BAM! After switching the subject to Duke’s role in the controversy -and rightfully pointing out her hypocritical position on females in poker-Daniel said: So I’m like ‘how offensive are you, you f***ing c***? You want to say you’re speaking for women, yet you claim superiority over all of them.’”

Well the first censored word is an easy one to figure out, and for those of you unfamiliar with the second censored word, Daniel called Annie a “See you next Tuesday”!

Here’s a quick rundown of what has taken place between the two before this latest transgression.

It’s kind of hard to call Daniel a villain in this conflict since Annie Duke does not really have a glowing reputation in poker circles: Mention Duke’s shenanigans amongst her peers and you’re likely to get a lot of eye-rolls, and off the record comments that stop a step shy of Daniel’s words. Not to mention she did seem to rub Joan Rivers and others the wrong way on Celebrity Apprentice.

However, did Annie deserve to be called what Daniel called her? And what, if anything, does this say about Daniel?

To the first point, really nobody deserves to be called THAT in a public way. To the second point, if the interview was loose, I can see how he would use this word -and likely instantly regret using it-since it’s obvious he doesn’t think very highly of Annie Duke: It’s actually the second instance of him calling her this -he did so in an e-mail to her after Duke got his chat banned on PokerStars. Not to mention that Daniel was being interviewed for a UK poker site, and from my experience with Brits the word seems to be a bit more in use in the UK.

So in the end, it seems like a bad choice of insults for Daniel to have chosen -although F***ing B**ch would have likely gotten the same response-and although he is a poker player, not a youth minister or school teacher, you do need to realize when you are being recorded! Should he be punished in any way by his sponsors? No. you take him in the office, show him his contract and say, “C’mon man, you can’t say that about her or anyone again… UNDERSTAND?”