Drama Negreanu Drama

The drama over the last year or so in the poker world has mostly revolved around two figures in their own, sometimes overlapping, sagas—those being Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Isildur1. But now there’s a new face embroiled in some poker drama for once, and it’s an old and familiar new face—that of Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu.

To be fair, Daniel Negreanu, one of poker history’s most successful pro players and currently the Team PokerStars pro known to FOX audiences as the star of PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge”, is on the receiving end of this drama, and not the giving end. What he received was a challenge from another poker player and what he’s receiving now is a flurry of flack for refusing.

Matt “ADZ124″ Marafioti was the player who posed the challenge to which Negreanu replied, “If I wasted my time responding to all the completely insane nutjobs on the Internet, I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day.”

Marafioti is no mere nutjob, though. At least not according to rumors that he won more than $5 million in online poker. His challenge to Negreanu is to play heads-up poker at whatever stakes Negreanu chooses. He even offered Negreanu $500 per hour for his time. Sounds more like a publicity stunt than an honest challenge.

This is not Marafioti’s first challenge to Negreanu either, having posed a $100,000 bet to him at this year’s PCA High Rollers’s event on which of them would cash in more over the 10 next live events they played in together.