Negreanu on Phil and Phelps

Daniel Negreanu has never been the type to keep his counsel to himself. On two separate occasions he spoke about two world record holders. One was Phil Hellmuth who has a record number of WSOP gold bracelets. The other was Michael Phelps who has a record number of Olympic gold medals.

In an interview to PokerListings Negreanu was speaking about the changes in WSOP 2009. He is on the advisory council of the WSOP tournament. The talk veered from cancellation of re-buy events to the new event being introduced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of WSOP. This is the onetime commemorative gold bracelet $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament.

And Negreanu stated with finality that Phil Hellmuth has no chance whatsoever of adding on to his bracelet tally from this event. According to Negreanu “He [Hellmuth] is extremely good at taking advantage of bad players in huge fields and the mistakes they make.” But this event will be a four day event with a smaller field of 250 to 300 players. Negreanu reckons that there will be seven good players for each bad one. This situation requires a skill that Hellmuth does not possess.

Negreanu said, “… but playing against great players and all these great young players, his old-school thinking when it comes to winning tournaments just won’t cut it. I think Phil will be outclassed.”

In his video blog Negreanu spoke about Michael Phelps being caught red handed smoking marijuana. He was kinder to Phelps than he was to Hellmuth. Negreanu thinks smoking pot should be legal in the United States just like liquor is. “It is really ridiculous that it is not.” But Negreanu was quick to point out that he does not smoke pot and has never done so.

He feels for ‘the kid’, as he often refers to Phelps as, because all the media coverage that Phelps received after his Olympic feat has been hard on him. Even if Phelps and his friends went to a party the media reported it as if he was living in sin. Phelps love for poker, his girl friend and now the marijuana have been blown out of proportion according to Negreanu.

Phelps will have to be careful not to get into any more trouble and then in due time it would blow over. Negreanu’s last words were “What’s the big deal really. I’d squash it.” But Negreanu missed out on what Wicked Chops Poker was quick to catch on. With all the antics he has been up to “Poker player/Olympian Michael Phelps’ mission to sabotage a surefire $100M+ in endorsements is almost complete.”

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