No Love Lost Here: Top 5 Who Hates Who in The Poker World

Sporting rivalry has often spilled over into dislike and even outright hatred and poker is no exception to the rule. For every Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neill feud, poker has its equivalent – and here we’re going to take a look at the top 5 poker feuds of all time.

Phil Hellmuth vs Sam Grizzle

It’s not hard to imagine other players falling out with the Poker Brat. Most everyone who is anyone has been at loggerheads across the table from Phil at some point in their career, and I could have filled an entire article on ‘Hellmuth fallouts’ alone, but the one Hellmuth feud which took things to a new level was his battle with Sam Grizzle: a name which will be known to older poker buffs but perhaps less so to the newer players.

Grizzle is an old-school hustler, renowned for building and blowing bankrolls quicker than most people can blink. His actual poker skills were good enough to top the $1million mark in career tournament winnings, but keeping that money was a different story for this Las Vegas gambler who can still be found at the tables.

When Grizzle and Hellmuth share a table, it’s a guarantee of trash-talking and needle where behind the smiles for the cameras the mutual dislike is clear to see. If looks could kill, in unguarded moments, both players would be six feet under from the other's stares!

Hellmuth may be unbearable with his table-talk at times, but as described by a commentator once:

In Hellmuth’s unfortunate case, he was talked out to the car park to settle one of their regular disputes – and Grizzle proved that the street-wise hustler had far more of an edge away from the tables, knocking the Poker Brat on his ass!

I’m sure many of Phil’s opponents down the years wish they had done the same!

Tony G and Negreanu vs Andrew Robl

Just like with ‘big Phil’, it would be impossible to talk about poker fall-outs and not have Tony G in the mix – and like Phil, it’s difficult to choose just one of the many arguments the Lithuanian loud-mouth has been involved in – even including a memorable one between him and the aforementioned Helmuth.

Instead, though, let’s recall a terrible ‘beating’ he gave out to young Andrew Robl a few years back which led to huge discussions over Tony G (and Daniel Negreanu’s) behaviour.

As LiquidPoker described it at the time though, Robl brought much of the abuse on himself:

As Carthac pointed out in the forum:

Both Tony G and Negreanu wrote about Robl’s appearance on the show afterwards, and for a while the whole stramash was quite unseemly, although Robl was far more inclined to pull up Negreanu than Tony G for the abuse he received.

Of Negreanu, however, he said:

Elizabeth Houston, the amateur ‘Loose Cannon’ on the show that night, added this to the melee:

Indeed!

Cates v Peat

Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates is never far from controversy – almost every thread or YouTube post wit his name contains games where he pisses people off by not paying attention, string betting, betting out of turn, etc.

The feud with David ‘Viffer’ Peat actually arose from Cates’ match-up with Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan – another story worth reading about – where Viffer and Jungleman had a side bet on the outcome of the match.

Cates stated:

The only problem here was ‘durrrr’ Dwan has never found the time to complete the 50k hands challenge which was disrupted by Black Friday, nor has he kept up payments on his ‘default’ scheme with Cates apparently.

Because of this, Viffer reckons his bet with Cates should be considered ‘null and void, equating it to an “act of god,” similar to a “rain delay in baseball.”

Naturally Cates disagrees, claiming Viffer has simply refused to honor the bet, having been told face-to-face by Peat:

To add insult to injury, it was reported that the refusal to pay came “when Cates was playing a $2k/$4k cash game in Vegas. Viffer had a piece of Jungleman’s action, due to business he’d done with other guys that Cates knew".

Of course poker is rife with unpaid debts, but for once Cates can honestly feel aggrieved about things!

Doyle Brunson vs. Layne Flack

It’s actually very hard to imagine Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson falling out seriously with anyone, but the game of poker has that uncanny ability ‘to start an argument in an ‘empty room’.

Particularly when the empty room has a character like Layne ‘Back-to-back’ Flack in it; a man connected closely to Russ Hamilton of Ultimate Bet infamy and well-known for his excesses of drink and women, the opposite of the Brunson we all know.

In a CardPlayer interview some years back, Flack was asked his opinion on re-buys in WSOP events, and whether it was the equivalent of ‘buying’ a bracelet. His response was a shocking one, as he stated:

Quite a claim, and not one which Doyle was happy about, naturally.

Of the specific claims he stated:

And I’m pretty sure that would hurt, the ever-popular Brunson having plenty of friends from the old days likely only too willing to help.

Flack, of course, backed down (or sobered up, or both) responding to a Facebook question about his Brunson falling out with the simple “What feud?”

A good move on Flack’s part, but as no stranger to controversy, ‘back-to-back’ Flack likely had bigger things to worry about – drug addiction, going broke, and DUI’s among them.

Daniel Negreanu v Annie Duke

Top of the list of poker feuds, however, has to go to the Negreanu-Annie Duke affair, a mostly online exchange which was actually a tag-team battle of sorts, Negreanu apparently with Jennifer Harman at his back, while Howard ‘The Professor’ Lederer championed his sister Annie’s cause.

Now, it’s not every day you’ll see the usually mild-mannered Negreanu calling someone a “fucking cunt”, so Annie Duke must have seriously pissed him off, and it apparently goes back to when Daniel was a newbie in town, trying to make his way among the poker world’s big names.

The first public shot came from Lederer in a Google group posting where he wrote an ‘open letter’ top Negreanu.

Negreanu responded with:

And with that, the boys were off on a wild and woolly online slanging match heads-up!

Negreanu’s friend and mentor in his early days, Jennifer Harman – quickly popped up in the conversation, Lederer stating:

Daniel responded with the burn:

Ouch!

Negreanu then describes exactly why he has no love for Annie Duke, stating:

Lederer accuses Negreanu that he has

Negreanu, in what has by this time descended into school playground bickering replied:

Negreanu then went on to describe how filthy Duke would be when playing poker, saying:

Naturally, Lederer found it difficult to defend his sister – not only Negreanu finding her behavior and approach highly distasteful – but Negreanu himself didn’t come out of it unscathed, several times having to admit faults in his own demeanor and interactions with the poker world.

At the end of the lengthy exchange the men agreed to disagree, Lederer stating that:

Negreanu responded with:

It wasn’t the end of the nastiness, though, as was reported in an interview with Bluff magazine. When asked for his response to Duke’s stance against female-only tournaments he pointed to the declaration on her website ( ‘The best female poker player in the world’) and said:

Of course, Lederer was never likely to rally too many defenders of his sister’s faith, since his 2011 FTP debacle made him the target of so much public anger.

This week’s apology will likely do little to change any views – and with Duke having left the poker scene almost completely, it means Daniel wins the playground argument, doesn’t it?

So, a healthy dose of hate in the poker world! Who’d have thought it? If you know of any other rivalries which have over-stepped the mark, feel free to add them in the comments section below!