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The dictionary defines an expert as a person who has a special skill or knowledge in some particular field. In the world of sports there are many individuals who can claim rightly to have knowledge of a particular sport, but to have the skill to run alongside this knowledge is a rarity. Daniel Negreanu though is one of these rare breeds that uses is experience and skill of poker to be both a successful player and an expert commentator.

In experience terms Daniel Negreanu may be classed as young, as he is only 33 years of age. This though means he has 18 years of experience of poker, starting as he did in his native Toronto as the age of 15. Since dropping out of college prior to graduation, Negreanu has lived and breathed poker, moving from the small time games in Toronto to the big cash games of Las Vegas at the age of 21. Not that everything has gone smoothly as he lost his bankroll several times. This experience though prepared him well for the following decade of poker playing, he learnt to be a better player, plugging gaps in his play, and practicing and studying for hours. This allowed Negreanu to sit in the big cash games in all of the major casinos, and learn how to read his opponents. This ability to read puts him at the pinnacle of his sport, as he is now able to read his opponents body language but more importantly read what cards they are likely to be playing any given hand with. This has manifested itself in his spooky ability to read hand after hand and let his opponents know what they are playing.

Success is slightly more difficult to measure as any top poker player will play a mixture of cash games and tournaments. Success therefore has to be quantified in terms of tournament wins and associated money won. In simplest terms Negreanu is third on the all time tournament money winners behind Jamie Gold and Joseph Hachem, with $9.8 million. Even this though does not tell the whole story as both of the other players won the majority of their cash in winning the main events at the WSOP. Since his first success in 1997, Negreanu has won two WPT events, and 3 WSOP bracelets, in addition to a further 30 tournament wins world wide, cashing in over 100 more.

Success and Experience though must be added to with the willingness to share knowledge for an individual to be called an expert. Negreanu has written extensively about poker, with over a hundred articles written for Card Player Magazine, numerous blog articles and collaboration

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