Pro Rivalries - Hellmuth vs. Negreanu

Phil Hellmuth Jr. and Daniel Negreanu have played at the highest levels of poker for the past 20 years. They are both confident and outspoken which means when they discuss each other or play with each other there is always likely to be fireworks. They are good friends off the table but fierce rivals on it and even their styles of play fit in such a way where the likelihood is that when they meet at the table there will be lots of memorable poker moments for us viewers to enjoy. Both players are regular entrants into the high stakes televised cash games so they get plenty of opportunities to lock horns.

Phil Hellmuth won the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1989 aged just 24 and has won an amazing 14 WSOP bracelets in his poker career. He has made 54 final tables so far and has made the money 115 times in total. His total poker tournament earnings stands just short of $20 million, showing his incredible consistency across many years of playing poker at the highest level. Hellmuth also won the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event in 2012 and he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007.

Daniel Negreanu also came close to capturing the WSOP Europe Main Event in 2009, but finished runner-up to the eventual winner Barry Shulman. Negreanu is the all-time biggest money winner in poker at present with over $30 million in tournament winnings. He has won 5 WSOP bracelets, 2 WPT bracelets and a SCOOP event. He was also runner-up in the Big One For One Drop event in 2014, which had a $1 million buy-in. Negreanu was inducted into Poker Hall of Fame in 2014.

There are a number of interesting facets to their rivalry. Both players care about accolades and want to be the best. It is this ambition, not to mention their outstanding poker abilities, that has saw them combine excellent play with their personalities to make both players household names. Both players want the limelight and they do not want to share.

Negreanu and Hellmuth’s playing styles match up well. Daniel likes to speculate with his hands investing large amounts of his stack only when he has the goods. Hellmuth plays a solid game and has fantastic post-flop abilities. Hellmuth does not take kindly to players “sucking out” on him or getting lucky. Both players will float when given the opportunity to take hands off one another on a later street.

Negreanu has made a living from knowing when to speculate and his small-ball poker approach means he often has the goods but not necessarily with hole cards that anyone would consider when trying to read his hand. This is yet another reason why the rivalry is such fun. Negreanu’s very style is based on making weaker hands pay and Hellmuth, like everyone else, is on the end of that occasionally. What makes Hellmuth so different from other players is that he is appalled when players dare to get lucky against him and reacts in an impulsive and emotional way that makes for fantastic viewing. The players love it too.

Both players are master marketers and know when the cameras are rolling with both of them present on a table they need to put on a show. This can put a strain on their relationship that off-camera and, for the most part on camera, is friendly and based on mutual respect for each other's achievements.

Negreanu and Hellmuth fell out for real some years back when Negreanu suggested that Hellmuth was delusional about his poker skills. He did concede later that Hellmuth had put in some work to make adjustments in order to compete with the best players, but in a blog post at the time he savaged Hellmuth in order, he said later, to cajole him into putting in some homework so he would get better.

This comment and others like it caused some friction between the two players for some time but eventually they ironed out their differences. In the following video Negreanu outlines his views on Hellmuth’s playing ability, which was recorded a couple of years after he had offered the criticism above. Daniel had previously conceded that Hellmuth had put in some work to freshen up his play and improve but despite praising his play in this video, still has a couple of digs that would have served to irritate Hellmuth, who has the highest regard for his own poker game as we all know.

Both Hellmuth and Negreanu are vocal at the table. Despite other players having massive respect for Hellmuth and all he has achieved in poker, they like to make fun of him, especially when he is “steaming”, a poker term for letting off steam or showing anger, which is a Hellmuth trademark. It never seems to put him on tilt where he makes mistakes, but the other players just like to wind him up and for theirs and the audience's entertainment.

One memorable occasion where Hellmuth was a victim of a cruel run of bad luck against Negreanu was in three consecutive hands where the poker gods conspired to deliver the worst hand to Hellmuth and he lost each pot. Hellmuth was not shy in telling Negreanu and anyone else who would care to listen exactly what he thought of his bad luck. Exchanges like this are part of their rivalry and a classic example of Negreanu using his table talk to mercilessly get under Hellmuth’s skin. You only need look at the view count of the many “Hellmuth and Negreanu” videos on PokerTube to see that their rivalry interests poker fans.

In 2015 their rivalry came to blows (in the poker sense) when Negreanu busted Hellmuth out of the WSOP Main Event. Played out on the featured TV table, the blinds were $4,000 - $8,000 and Hellmuth picked up pocket Queens, spades and hearts. Hellmuth raised the pot to $20,000, the small blind called with Ad Js and with Ac Kc Negreanu re-raised to $56,000. Hellmuth instantly declared all-in, which was a re-raise of $294,000. This got rid of the small blind who correctly let his AJ go, leaving Negreanu to call the bet for an extra $238,000 and wish Hellmuth luck in the hand. The pot of $617,000 went to a race and after the flop came down Ks 3s 9h, Hellmuth’s only hope was a backdoor flush draw, a runner runner straight or the unlikely Q to make a set on the turn or river. Negreanu was a heavy 85% favorite after the flop. The turn card was the Jc which gave Phil some outs for the straight, but the river showed 5c and it was all over for Hellmuth. You can view the action as it happened in this video.

A combination of style, personality, media and fan interest in both players and the high standard of their poker play means that whenever Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth are at the poker table together there is an air of anticipation regarding what is going to happen next. We want the fireworks, the comedy and the action and we are rarely disappointed. Their rivalry is a backdrop of both players believing they are the best in the world and both players know the other is a genuine threat to their chances of notching up yet another major success to add to their already fantastic poker resumes.

There is little doubt that they will meet again and we cannot wait for the ensuing fun and games.