Daniel Negreanu is in a zone. But this is no hot streak at the poker tables. Oh, no. Daniel Negreanu is all sorts of fired up about Full Tilt Poker.
You may remember our article from last week about the mini-controversy surrounding his interview with Poker Player UK. Negreanu covered several topics in the interview including the improvement in his online poker game and the current state of televised poker. His comments on those topics were plenty to get people talking, but he also had a few choice words on the subject of the ongoing Full Tilt Poker scandal.
On the Full Tilt Poker pros: “I’ve spoken to all of them. They are embarrassed and have disdain for their leaders. They trusted Howard (Lederer)…I didn’t. I don’t trust that family. It’s a family of scoundrels.”
Continuing on the subject of Lederer: “I don’t think he’s evil, but he’s arrogant. He talks to people like they are stupid. I don’t think he set out to defraud people, it’s just negligence, arrogance and incompetence.”
After all the talk on the poker message boards about the interview, both from poker fans and from Negreanu himself, one may feel it would be wise for him to just let it fester, stop talking for a while, and just keep playing poker. But in the immortal words of Boon from Animal House, “Forget it, he’s rolling.”
In the latest edition of his blog on FullContactPoker.com, Negreanu absolutely lets loose on the three primary antagonists in the Full Tilt fiasco – Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, and Ray Bitar. It is a true “tell me how you really feel” moment. Suffice to say he won’t be getting any Valentine’s Day cards from the trio next week. There is really no sense in paraphrasing the monologue or parsing it in any way, so here is a good, old wall of text:
“I’m disgusted by them and what they’ve done to smear the game with putrid decision making. Ray is a buffoon, Howard is arrogant, condescending, and incompetent, and Chris is a liar and has the warmth of a snow pea. These were never my friends, I never cared for any of them. I never trusted them for a second, and my “read” was always that these were not my kind of people. Why are they different from the rest of the group? These three were on the board, admittedly making all the decisions, and jeopardizing millions of dollars worth of players money that still hasn’t surfaced. You guys suck. I hope to never see any of your faces at the WSOP anymore, and I hope you live with the shame you deserve for the rest of your lives. Your own personal, private hell. You deserve all the wrath you’ve received from the poker world, and much more. You are scum and each of you absolutely deserves a few swift baseball bat swings to the groin area, old school Vegas style.”
Fortunately for Daniel Negreanu, he is as self-aware as anyone out there. “I know that I’d make for an awful politician because I always prefer to choose the brutal and honest truth and I’m not afraid to rock the boat,” he wrote. “My history and track record has proven that to be the case.”
There’s no doubt about that.