Daniel Negreanu recently summed up his net tournament results going back to 2013. The list was framed as a response to a "request from the haters." The entries for 2020 and 2021 are "COVID" and "TBD" accordingly. However, for the years from 2013 to 2019, Negreanu has shown a total profit of $10,927,695.
That comes to an average profit of $1,561,099 per year for seven years. That does not account for any income stemming from cash games, online poker, or his various sponsorship deals in that time.
Negreanu managed to pull off this profit during a period during which he won just two events, both in 2013. Since then, he had failed to take first place in a tournament setting. Things were looking especially rough this year when he lost both of his heads-up challenges, first against Doug Polk and then against Phil Hellmuth.
Negreanu finally shed whatever albatross was dragging him down this month. He broke his heads-up losing streak by taking down a $50,000 buy-in PokerGO Cup event for $700,000.
Mo' money, mo' problems
Negreanu's list is an interesting look behind the curtain.
The Hendon Mob lacks information on player buy-ins and staking arrangements. As a result, it's hard to find data on the site. Gross cashes are all that's publicly available, so that's the metric we tend to get on players.
Negreanu has tried to counter that skewed measure by telling us his profits. It would be fascinating to see other player's lists for comparison. In a game where money is the only way to keep score, fiscal taciturnity frustrates any real hope of counting points.
Missing from Negreanu's tweet is information on his total buy-in bill. We only get his net profit. It would be fascinating to see how his return on investment shifted over time, especially at key turning points.
Negreanu hints at some of these shifts in his replies. For example, he writes that he "went into the lab in late 2017." After two years in the red, he managed to earn it all back in 2018.
Daniel Negreanu gets a lot of flack. Some of it he brings upon his own head. But a lot of the criticism is just the background babble that's par for the course when you're at the top of the game.
Everyone's a critic. Negreanu's win won't shut them all up, but it certainly goes some way to reminding us why Negreanu is a public enough figure for us to take aim at.
Daniel Negreanu's tournament profits
| Year | Yearly Profit/Loss |
| 2013 | $1,963,500 |
| 2014 | $7,100,164 |
| 2015 | $952,920 |
| 2016 | ($1,246,693) |
| 2017 | ($86,140) |
| 2018 | $1,412,053 |
| 2019 | $831,891 |
| 2020 | COVID |
| 2021 | TBD |
| TOTAL | +$10,927,695 |
Featured image source: Flickr by WPT
