blonde poker forum

I was watching Daniel Negreanu on TV the other night and I got to wondering...

Expressed as a percentage, how much would you say each of the following factors contribute to his success?


Ability

Charisma

Luck



Please feel free to include additional factors if you think it necessary.

I'm going for


Ability 45%

Charisma 35%

Luck 20%

Ability 15%
Charisma 20%
Luck 65%

Depends how you are defining success. In winning a net $8.7m over the last five years in tournaments I think it would be 85% Ability, 14% Luck, 1% Charisma. For being in the right place at the right time with Pokerstars, 49% Luck, 49% Charisma, 2% Ability.

95%
4%
1%

Adding a new dimension -

Mental strength - 50%
Ability - 45%
Luck - 3%
Charisma - 2%

I awarded good points for charisma because I think it gets him a lot of sponsorship and media work.

You have to admit he's good value for money. If he just sat and sullenly played cards I don't think his net worth would be anything like it is now.

Im not surprised he's something of a force to reckoned in the HR circuit, he's a smart guy, very, very experienced at live poker and very comfortably bankrolled for the events. He also seems to be kind of smart about game selecting the SHR's so all in all no surprise to see him be a small winner in these events. Even though his results are very skewed by his 2nd place finish in the $1m buyin. He says a lot that he really tries to put work into his game for these tournaments but that his commitments to pokerstars make it hard for him to do as much as he'd like and that's probably why he finds himself lagging behind the elite guys a little in these fields.

TBH given he's been around so long and how rich he is I think it's commendable he still has the drive and desire to be competitive. You can tell by his blog posts he really does care about being a winner at poker even though it's largely irrelevant to him financially at this point.

Think he's always had a plan and a strategy for his poker career and it's kind of worked out perfectly.

75%
20%
5%

'timing' should be taken into account in the luck factor so think most people are undervaluing his luck value for sure.

Luck doesn't feel like the right word, otherwise we'd attribute pretty much everything to 'luck',it's just standard existentialism. He deserves more credit than to label it as luck (sorry Keith).

yeh for sure but we were only given 3 categories :D

could build a BR when poker strat was very immature, got on TV when free scam money was being pumped in, sponsored because of timing etc. for sure played a huge part in his career.

I gave you the option to add categories.

ah I thought we had 3 categories but could mention factors :D

Yes, my bad. I could have been clearer.

luck is massive.  If he was born in a shithole; he wouldn't be so succesful, if he was born later, he'd likely have had to struggle more; if he ran bad first few times he played live, he might have drifted awat; if he didn't meet the people he did, he may not have signed for stars.

Luck is massive, even amongst those who work hard.  Would have put charisma higher if I didn't know that stars would have signed a plank of wood back in the day.

Ability 50%.  Luck 40%.  Charisma 10%.

all very true. loads of people though have had lucky breaks and not had the talent/knowledge/energy/drive to capitalise and whatever we think of Dnegs defo can't say that about him.

I am not denegrating him in anyway.  I fully recognise a large amount of my success in poker was down timing too.  I was also born in a succesful country, could have bought a house that was cheap, and am white male.  Running good.

You see the luck thing everywhere.  I am doing a contract where I worked 20 years ago, and there a few people there that I used to work with who have done very well through jobs, property, pensions etc.  I know other who left who were just as bright, worked just as hard, joined companies that then closed, have had multiple forced moves, not found it easy to get decent work etc.  Randomness is huge.   

I work with someone who talks about how I am very unlucky because of a few very minor bad things that have happened over the last few months.  I just can't persuade him otherwise.   His logically thought process is terrible.

Negreanu appears to have worked hard, but has almost certainly run really good too.

I know he posted his tournament winnings it would be interesting to know how his cash games went over the same period.

timing was / is everything.

talent and charisma without opportunity wont equate to much

he was able to cash in on his personaility at a time when poker was a spectator sport.

he was able to cash in on his talent at a time when games where soft and juicy.

if we could take the negraeau of 1998 and place him in 2018 and place him the same 'x' percentile of the world's top players, i dont think he has anywhere near the same sucess in 99% of those universes.

I couldn't allocate percentages as far as talent, charisma etc is concerned but he's got to where is through talent. Although it's a harder game now than when he first hit the big time he remains up there with the best when many others have fallen away. That's proof that he has the talent to stick at the the top.

He's a thinking player and has over the years verbalised his hand analysis during and after hands at the table. This has helped many to learn the game and inspired many more. The only weakness I can see in his game is that he often works out when he's beat in a hand but then calls anyway.

I suspect he'll be around for many years yet as he's shown that he continues to work on his game and seeks to continually learn from other top players. That shows humility on his part and although he thrives on the limelight he hasn't got an inflated ego about the game.

He also has an excellent temperament, which is no doubt a factor in being able to remain objective when playing.

Is he perfect?

No.

But I have a great deal of respect for him and his ability. Hopefully one day I'll get to sit at the same table in tournament.