Daniel Negreanu is at the center of another Twitter spat. The former PokerStars ambassador attracted criticism for his recent heads-up polls on who the best poker commentators are.
Over the next week or so I’m going to run some polls on the different voices of poker and who you most enjoy listening to. They will be split into three categories:
Play by play
Poker Expert Analyst
Color Commentary/Humor
Polls will be head to head
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) August 13, 2019
It didn’t take before his critics appeared. Even though, Danielle dmoongirl Andersen chief among them as the results started pouring in…
Fun for who? Tons of people have pointed out this is dumb, unfair & could be hurtful to those unwillingly involved.
— Danielle Andersen (@dmoongirl) August 16, 2019
One of Negreanu’s highstakesrivals, Erik Seidel, had started by pointing out a flaw in the process. He stated: ‘Not sure anything is being achieved here. Isn’t there a familiarity bias? I don’t expect the average viewer knows some of these commentators, & some have had a much wider platform’.
With thousands of votes per matchup, the polls certainly gave a good flavour of what Negreanu’s own Twitter followers like, Maria Ho ‘winning her match’, but Kara Scott falling to Ali Nejad…
…but it didn’t take long before Daniel’s nemesis appeared to aim a well-placed jab or two. Doug Polk having plenty of previous with Kid Poker, and doubtless plenty of ‘future’ too…
I just want to thank Daniel Negreanu for being brave enough to stand up and do the right thing, which apparently is nonstop tweeting popularity contests about your friends to 471,000 people every few hours.
— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) August 17, 2019
Daniel didn’t seem to think there was any difference between his own ‘fun’ polls involving the poker community’s best and brightest voices and the wider world of famous people…
If I ran a poll asking“Who is your favorite day time talk show host between these two” and gave 2 options, Oprah and Ellen, would you consider this offensive or hurtful?
What about MJ vs Lebron?
Should we avoid it, because MJ may be sad if he lost the poll?
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) August 16, 2019
…and his wife Amanda was involved in the emerging drama too, although again the criticism arrived speedily and rather brutally…
This was the real gem to me. Ah yes, who can forget about the fun completion of winning the vote from the 200 people who subscribed to Bluff in 2010. I'm sure getting 9% there is a bit different then getting 9% from 400k subscriber base today. pic.twitter.com/jHz0a0iVqn
— atarirobby (@atarirobby) August 17, 2019
…and there was more to come aimed at Daniel himself, the anonymous Twitter account of ‘rachelees69’ providing the most exhaustive critique of why Negreanu’s highly public Twitter polls are likely not a great idea.
What Negreanu is doing with the podcast poll is beyond wrong and will long term hurt podcasters, listeners, money/deal flow, and overall industry economics.
I have seen this w/ tech trade press, tech industry analysts, early user generated media, and growth metrics. 1/23
— Rachel Lees (April 2019-Sept 2021) (@rachelees69) August 17, 2019
Negreanu against everybody?
Those who follow poker Twitter closely will recall that Negreanu was the subject of Lees’ epic ‘Leader of Stupid Inc’ essay.
Trolls abound on social media, of course, but this anonymous poker insider and business expert is way too well-versed in both to be ignored as such.
If it all seemed pretty one-sided against Negreanu, then things didn’t improve much when Florida pro Darryl Fish had his say…
https://twitter.com/DarryllFish/status/1162499481234857985?s=20
Not everyone was dead-set against Negreanu. However, some even asked to participate in the next set of votes, Jonathan Little among them…
Might as well throw me in for fun.
— Jonathan Little (@JonathanLittle) August 16, 2019
Despite all the reasonable and well-founded negatives aimed at Dnegs, as always there seem to be very few ways to change the man’s opinion.
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