Would’ve made George Carlin blush
Daniel Negreanu is in internet jail. On Sunday, Twitch suspended the Poker Hall of Famer’s channel following an incident during his Friday night stream in which he let loose with a barrage of expletives and threats on a viewer.
Negreanu was playing in the 2020 World Series of Poker Online Event #24: $400 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed and, as he has been doing each night, he live-streamed his Friday poker session. We do not have the text of exactly what was written, but a viewer allegedly said something in the chat about Negreanu’s wife, Amanda Leatherman.
What was said was apparently pretty bad, because it lit a fire under Negreanu. He immediately released the devil, uncorking a stream of fire that included more than one of the seven dirty words:
Hey, Tom Estrada, go f**k yourself, you piece of s**t,” he began.” “Block that c**k motherf*****g piece of s**t. F**k you, f**k you, f**k you in your ass. How about that? Okay, Tom Estrada, f**k you in your ass. Eat some of that, you piece of s**t. Come f*****g step to me and say that and I will knock you the f**k out. How about that?
WARNING: NSFW
He wasn’t quite done, adding, “I will break your f*****g teeth if you come step to me and I will feed ‘em to you anally.”
Alright, then.
Poker community takes exception
The poker community has been none too thrilled with Daniel Negreanu’s response to a viewer. While nobody would say that a viewer saying inappropriate things in chat, especially about the streamer’s family member, should be condoned, the general consensus is that Negreanu’s threats of violence, however hollow they might ring, are way over the line. And someone in Negreanu’s position as one of the most visible ambassadors of the game and front man for GGPoker, home of the next batch of WSOP Online events, should know better.
He also didn’t seem at all remorseful shortly thereafter, joking about the outburst on Twitter and creating a meme to celebrate it. Not that he was expected to be remorseful, necessarily – his leaning into the controversy simply took many by surprise.
Second meltdown this month
This is the second time Negreanu has had a public display of real anger during the 2020 WSOP Online. Earlier this month, he suffered multiple connection problems while he was playing. His internet seemed to be fine, as his stream carried on, but his WSOP.com client disconnected from the server on more than one occasion.
An understandable problem, to be sure – I was on the horn with Xfinity today because of internet issues of my own, even after trying a different router and modem. Negreanu, though, was unable to hide his frustration (again, understandable with money on line), swearing up a storm and coming close to taking out his desk, chair, and laptop. It was somewhat entertaining, to be honest, as it was a bit awkward seeing someone who is normally pretty positive rage out like that.