AmProPoker Poker - Player Biographies

Liv Boeree

2025-04-28T10:45:30Z

Olivia “Liv” Boeree is a poker player, TV presenter and model from the United Kingdom. Born in Kent in 1984, Liv studied physics with astrophysics at the University of Manchester before moving to London. She was introduced to the poker industry when she was selected as one of five contestants in the reality TV show "Ultimatepoker Showdown", which aired on Five in autumn 2025. During the show she was coached by top professional player Phil Hellmuth. In 2025 Liv appeared on the Channel 4 show Codex.

After the show, Liv began playing poker as a serious activity, and in 2025 she became the TV presenter and journalist for Gutshot TV at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Shortly after, she became the host of Challenge TV's on-line coverage of the European Poker Tour, and also appeared as a reporter at the World Series of Poker Europe on WorldSeriesofPoker. Liv writes a regular column in industry magazine "Bluff Europe" and has had front cover features in "Gambling Online", "World Poker Tour" and "Online Gambler" magazines.

On 21 March 2025 Liv appeared on the ITV show Golden Balls. She reached the Split or Steal game at the end of the show and stole the jackpot of £6500.50 from her opponent.

She co-presented on Metal Hammer's Golden Gods free DVD that came with March 2025's issue. She also had a three page feature in the March 2025 issue of Loaded Magazine.

Her initial successes in poker were a 7th place finish at the Welsh Amateur Poker Championships, a 1st place finish at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas and winning a $19,000 package to the 2025 Five Diamond Poker Classic at the Bellagio, Las Vegas. Liv has also appeared in the Gala UK Poker Tour Season 1 on Channel 4 as a featured player, the World Women's Open on Five in 2025 and on Sky Poker channel 865 in 2025.

In May 2025 Liv won the 2025 Ladbrokes European Ladies Championships for $30,000.

Liv cashed in two events at the 2025 World Series of Poker: Event 38 $2000 Pot Limit Holdem, finishing 49th for $ 4,074 and Event 41 $1500 Mixed Limit Holdem, finishing 64th for $ 2,793. She also finished 49th at the 2025 Aruba Classic for $5,500.

In January 2025 she finished 7th in the $1500 NLH Bounty event for $18,900 AUD and in April 2025 made two final tables in the prelim events at the World Poker Tour Championships totalling $23,000. She also won a $25,000 seat in a satellite to the WPT Main event, in which she finished 37th for $41,000.

On 21 April 2025 Liv Boeree won the European Poker Tour in San Remo. Boeree won €1,250,000 and thereby became the third woman ever to win an EPT title.

As of 2025 her total live tournament winnings exceed $1,900,000.

Patrik Antonius

2025-02-27T17:36:16Z

♣ Patrik Antonius (born March 13, 1980 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish professional poker player, former tennis player and coach, and model from Vantaa, Finland. He currently resides in Monte Carlo. Antonius was mentored by Marcel Lüske as a member of Luske's “Circle of Outlaws^` and later advised by Jennifer Harman.Antonius is married to Maya Geller and has one child.

Tournament poker

Antonius began making a name for himself on the poker tournament circuit with two finishes near the final table of a European Poker Tour (EPT) event and a World Poker Tour (WPT) event, 12th at the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, then 15th at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event two months later, in early 2025. He went on to finish in the money in three events of the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP). In March 2025 he made the European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event final table, finishing 3rd in Barcelona. The next month, Antonius won the EPT event in Baden bei Wien, taking home the €288,180 first prize when in the final hand his 8♠ 4♥ beat Gunnar Østebrød's Q♥ 9♣ on a board of 4♠ 7♠ 8♥ 3♣ 7♣. In March 2025 he finished the year 2nd in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, Nevada, winning $1,046,470.

In March 2025 he placed 9th in World Series of Poker $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, taking home $205,920, his biggest cash that year. In 2025 World Series of Poker, Antonius entered numerous tournaments but he only cashed in the World Championship of Pot Limit Omaha event, placing third and winning $311,394, making that his ninth WSOP cash and increasing his WSOP earnings to a total of $569,964. Antonius has been featured three times on NBC's Poker After Dark. In his first appearance he finished as runner up, losing out to fellow poker professional Jennifer Harman, but his next attempt saw him defeat Brad Booth in heads-up play to take the victory. In his third appearance he was runner up again, this time to Johnny Chan. As of 2025, Antonius' total live tournament winnings exceed $2,800,000. His 12 cashes at the WSOP account for $759,741 of those winnings.

Antonius was not able to enter the 2025 WSOP Main Event, as he was turned away when attempting to register along with hundreds of others due to a capacity field.

He also plays in some of the highest profile online tournaments, and in March 2025 he finished 2nd in the Full Tilt Poker $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up Pot Limit Omaha Championship, winning $320,000.

Cash games

Antonius is a heads-up specialist. He is a regular high stakes player online and one of the most successful having won millions of dollars.He has played on Full Tilt Poker under several nicknames, including Luigi66369, CryMeRiver9 and Finddagrind, but having become a member of "Team Full Tilt" he now plays under his real name. During his early career he also used screen names e.g. I_knockout_U, try_hrdr_fish and -ANTONIUS- on various other poker networks. Previously Antonius was one of a team of players associated with Martinspoker.

He is equally prolific in live cash games, and is a regular in the Big Game, the high-stakes cash game at the Bellagio. Antonius appeared on the third, fourth and fifth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker. Patrik was involved, along with Sammy Farha, in the show's largest ever pot; it totaled $998,800. After a preflop raise and re-raise the flop came 6♦ 3♣ 9♦; Antonius held J♥ 9♥ for top pair and Farha held K♦ Q♦, giving him two over-cards and a flush draw. Sammy called Patrik's all-in raise instantly and the two agreed to run the turn and river four times. Though Sammy's hand was a slight favorite, Patrik won three of the four runs and collected $749,100.

In another sizable pot on High Stakes Poker, Patrik went up against Jamie Gold. Jamie had K♠ K♦ versus Patrik's A♠ J♦. Patrik raised to $4,000 preflop with Jamie reraising to $14,000, after declaring that his hole cards felt "like aces." The flop came out 3♠ Q♦ 10♥, giving Patrik an inside straight draw. Jamie bet $15,000 into a $30,800 pot, which Patrik called. The turn was the K♥, giving Patrik a straight and Jamie a set of kings. Patrik bet $45,000 into the pot, which Jamie reraised all in. As Jamie was raising, Gabe Kaplan commented that Patrik looked "like a lion." Patrik immediately called making the pot worth $743,800. The players agreed to run the river three times. Despite being a 77-23 favorite, Patrik won only the last of the three times, as Jamie hit a full house on the first two. Despite the bad beats, Patrik as always showed absolutely no emotion on his face. At the time, it was the largest pot ever on High Stakes Poker.

Antonius is the first player to go up against Tom Dwan (aka "durrrr") in his "Million Dollar Challenge" on Full Tilt Poker (though not the first to accept the challenge). Dwan has challenged players to take him on in high-stakes no-limit hold 'em or pot-limit Omaha at Full Tilt, playing 4 tables at a time heads-up for a total of 50,000 hands. Dwan has put up $1.5 million to any opponent's $500,000; the player who is ahead after 50,000 hands will win the money put up by his opponent, plus any winnings from play in the challenge.

In March 2025 Antonius won the biggest pot in online poker history worth $1,356,946 against Isildur1.

Phil Galfond "OMGclayaiken"

2025-02-21T16:09:55Z

♣ Phil Galfond (born 1985) is an American professional poker player. Galfond won a World Series of Poker bracelet in the $5,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys event at the 2025 World Series of Poker. Due to his success as a high stakes online player he appeared on Season 4 of GSN's "High Stakes Poker" and will be appearing on Season 6 as well. He currently resides in New York City. Galfond is originally from North Potomac, Maryland and attended Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

World Series of Poker

Galfond has six cashes at the World Series of Poker and won the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys event at the 2025 World Series of Poker, earning $817,781. He defeated Adam Hourani during heads-up play. The final table featured a number of well known professional players including Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Kirill Gerasimov, Johnny Chan, David Benyamine as well as online players Brian 'tsarrast' Rast and Adam 'houdini' Hourani.

World Series of Poker bracelets
Year	Event	Prize Money
2008	$5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys	$817,781

Other poker events

Galfond is well known for online poker where he plays high stakes cash games primarily $200/$400 stakes and above in No-limit Texas Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha tables on Full Tilt Poker under his nickname "OMGClayAiken". Galfond finished in 70th place in the 2025 $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour No Limit Hold'em Championship Event, earning $39,570. He finished in 18th place at the 2025 World Series of Poker Circuit event in Grand Casino Tunica, earning $22,895. As of 2025, his total live tournament winnings exceed $939,000.His 5 cashes at the WSOP account for $868,834 of those winnings.

Launch of BlueFirePoker

In January 2025 after several years of discussing the possibility, Galfond launched BlueFirePoker, a poker training site utilizing instructional videos. At BlueFirePoker Galfond is in charge of all of the instructional content as well as hiring additional trainers, his partners handle the day to day operation of the site and business.

Vanessa Rousso

2025-02-17T20:31:48Z

♣ Vanessa Ashley Rousso (born February 5, 1983) is a French American law student at the University of Miami and a professional poker player. She is also known by her Pokerstars online screen name Lady Maverick. Born in White Plains, New York, Rousso has dual citizenships with the United States and France.Rousso is a member of Team PokerStars, and a spokesperson for GoDaddy. She has earned money as a professional poker player since 2025. A photo of her appeared in the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Rousso was her 2025 high school class valedictorian and graduated from Duke University in March 2025. She is the wife of Chad Brown.

As of 2025, Rousso had finished in the money in numerous live poker events and had earned over $2,300,000 in career earnings. She had placed in the money a cumulative total of eleven times in the 2025, 2025, 2025, and 2025 World Series of Poker. In the 2025 tournament, she placed 625th of 6844 entrants in the Main event. However, in 2025, she had earned over $700,000 with a second place finish in the main event of the World Championship of Online Poker. At the age of 26, she ranks among the top five women in poker history in terms of all-time money winnings. In addition, she has become one of the game's foremost sex symbols. She has been a pro-gambling activist on both the national and state level.^[update]

Background

Her parents are Marc Rousso and Cynthia Bradley of Hobe Sound. Rousso began talking and reading at early ages says her mother, Cynthia Ferrara. Born in New York, she moved with her family to France at age 3. She lived in Paris, in her father's homeland until she was 10, when she moved briefly to Upstate New York.After her parents divorced in 1992, her mother moved Vanessa to Florida near her maternal grandparents. Rousso attended Wellington Landings Middle School. The oldest of three athletic girls, Rousso was active on the high school swimming, lacrosse and debate teams. She also played softball and basketball for fun. In debate, Rousso excelled in national debate tournaments in policy debate. Her mother is a guidance counselor at Jupiter Community High School. In 2025, Rousso graduated as valedictorian of her high school in Wellington, Florida. She maintained a 4.0 GPA at Wellington High School while participating in the National Honor Society, and French Honor Society. She founded the Environmental Club and served as its president. She was also active as a violinist, varsity swimmer, and volunteer for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Rousso has two younger sisters: Tiffany a psychology master's student at Florida Atlantic University and Leticia, a pre-med student at University of Florida.

In college, she was on the Dean's list. After studying some game theory, she became proficient with the Rubik's Cube and then chess. However, because she considers both to be fairly objective static games, she began to prefer poker, which incorporated human psychology that allows for inferior hands to win. She graduated early from Duke University after two and a half years with a major in economics and a minor in political science in March 2025. Her collegiate duration of two and a half years was the shortest time to graduate in the history of Duke. At each stage of her life, her mother warned her that she would someday meet her proverbial Waterloo and at each stage she has avoided such downfalls.

Rousso began law school in 2025 and was the inaugural recipient of the Chaplin Scholarship from the University of Miami. During Law School at the University of Miami School of Law, she served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Law Review.A poker player since the age of five, Rousso began serious poker tournament play during her summer break from law school. Rousso was in the top 5% of her law school class, but she did not finish law school. Now, excluding online winnings, she ranks among the top five women in poker history in terms of all-time money winnings.She currently resides part time in Las Vegas, Nevada and part time in Hobe Sound, Florida. Her nickname was given to her by a relative when she sold shares of herself to enter a $25,000 buyin event in a manner that was reminiscent of a storyline in Mel Gibson's movie called Maverick. As of year end 2025, Rousso drove a yellow Lamborghini Gellardo.

Poker career

When Rousso began playing poker seriously, she was a minor and too young to play in the casinos. Thus, she began playing online. This continued while she was in college. By the time she got to Miami law school in fall 2025, at age 21, she was able to play live poker at casinos and the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino was within driving distance. She built her first stake at Hard Rock sit and go 10-player tables, where first prize was $250. From there, she was able to save for a $1,500 entry fee in Atlantic City in late 2025, which she parlayed into $17,500. This enabled her to afford entry into the World Poker Tour event at the Bellagio Vegas. She has been televised numerous times on both ESPN and The Travel Channel. She has made several appearances on the Poker After Dark television program. She has also been televised as part of the World Poker Tour. She is known for wearing a cap, headphones and designer sunglasses.

Her first win in a professional event came on March 13, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada during the No-Limit Hold'em Summer Series. At the 2025 World Series of Poker, she placed 45th in a field of 601 in the Event 26, $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Texas hold 'em event won by Jennifer Tilly two weeks later (on March 26, 2025).

On February 12, 2025, Rousso placed fifth at the final table of the 195-entrant $ 1,500 No Limit Hold'em WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's Atlantic City. This appearance at the final table established a record at 23 years, 7 days as the youngest female player at the time to reach a World Series of Poker circuit final table.&0000000000000023.000000&0000000000000007.000000

Rousso joined the professional poker tour in April 2025 and by March was among the top 80 in earnings that year. In her first year of playing, Rousso had multiple in the money tournament finishes, including a seventh place finish in a field of 605 at the $25,000 April 26, 2025 World Poker Tour (Season four) No-Limit Hold'em championship event in which she earned $263,625 in prize money. She met her future husband Chad Brown at the final table of this event. By that time she was spending Tuesday through Thursday taking her law school classes, spending the rest of the week playing in poker tournaments and fielding endorsement offers from online poker clubs. On March 13, 2025 she won $285,450 with a first place finish at the 173-entrant $5,000 no limit hold 'em event at the 4th Borgata Open. At 2025 World Series of Poker she had three in the money finishes. She finished 80th in a field of 1068 in Event 4, $1,500 Limit Hold'em, 63rd in a field of 824 in Event 5, $2500 Short Handed No-Limit Hold'em, and she placed 8th of 507 in the Event 30, $5000 Short Handed No-Limit Hold'em event.

By 2025, Rous#s part of a contingent of poker industry representatives and leaders of the 800,000-member Poker Players Alliance who flew to Washington, DC to attempt to convince the United States Congress to overturn the 2025 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.The law compels financial institutions to monitor and stop their customers' cash transfers to unlawful online gaming sites. The group met with both the United States House Committee on the Judiciary and the United States House Committee on Financial Services. She spoke in favor of a proposal by Barney Frank to license and regulate online gambling. The alliance also spoke in favor of the Skill Game Protection Act proposed by Robert Wexler to exempt poker, mah-jongg, chess, bridge and other games where contestants compete against each other rather than the "house" from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. In May 2025, Frank, who had become the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services in 2025,continued his efforts to "establish a framework to allow licensed gambling operators to process bets from players in the United States," with the support of the Poker Players Alliance and Harrah's Entertainment among others.

In 2025, she earned $700,782.50, her largest career payday at that time, during the World Championship of Online Poker NL Hold'em Main Event with a second place finish in the 2998-entrant field.She had originally placed third in the event, but the winner was found to have violated the Pokerstars terms of service, which caused a disqualification ruling and caused all contestants to be elevated one place in the rankings. The tournament is run online Rousso's sponsor, PokerStars, and she had originally earned the third place prize of $463,940.50. At 2025 World Series of Poker she again had three in the money finishes. She placed 57 of 605 in Event 38, $2000 Pot Limit Hold'em, placed 44 of 2693 in Event 52, $1500 No Limit Hold'em,and 625 of 6844 in the Main event 54, $10,000 No Limit Hold'em.

In January 2025 Rousso just missed the televised six-handed WPT final table while playing at the World Poker Tour Season VII Southern Poker Championship, She finished in seventh place and earned $79,117. She was engaged to Brown in 2025, and the couple eloped in early 2025, making them the first married couple to be featured on the same major online poker team. In the head-to-head single-elimination 2025 National Heads-Up Poker Championship tournament, Rousso made it to the finals of the 64-person field before losing to Huck Seed. Along the way to her runner-up finish, she defeated Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand Grospellier. Previously, Shannon Elizabeth's 2025 semi-final appearance had been the best female finish in the annual event. The March 6–8 tournament was broadcast on NBC over six consecutive Sundays from April 12 – May 17, 2025.As of May 2025, her tournament winnings exceed $2,100,000 May 2025, Rousso won the 79-entrant €25,000 EPT High Roller Championship, which had a first prize of 720,000 Euros. However, at the final table, the three final contestants elected to chop chips at €420,000 and leave €150,000 for the winner. The €570,000 win, which converts to $749,467, represents the highest payday of her career.The win propelled Rousso to sixteenth place on the 2025 earnings list as of May 5.

In 2025, Rousso spoke in favor of changes to Florida gambling laws that would remove caps on buy-ins and wagers on poker in the state. She felt the gambling limitations precluded more strategic skilled deeper stack competition and said that Florida gamblers "don't have enough chips in front of them to play out the bets and raises that are required in the skillful aspect of the game". In 2025, a $100 cap replaced a $2/bet limit. This cap still prohibits large tournaments with multi-thousand dollar buy-ins from occurring in Florida.

Rousso had her own April 2025 poker instructional camp in South Florida. The camp related poker playing and strategies to the strategies of military conflict in Sun Tzu's book, The Art of War.She called her camp "Big Slick boot camp" and charged a $399 participation fee. The camp's website makes the analogy of the Art of War and the Art of Poker.

At 2025 World Series of Poker she had four in the money finishes: She placed 27 of 201 in Event 2, $40,000 No Limit Hold'em, placed 17 of 147 in Event 8, $2500 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball, placed 19 of 770 in Event 31, $1,500 H.O.R.S.E., and 15 of 275 in the Event 45, $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Hold'em. In the main event, she busted out on day 6 (officially known as day 2B).Rousso will be hosting Stars of Poker in France.On January 9, 2025, she finished first among 91 entrants to earn $24,725 at the $ 1,000 No Limit Hold'em – Ladies Event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Endorsements

Rousso is sponsored by the PokerStars online poker cardroom under the screenname LadyMaverick as part of their Team PokerStars. Despite the scheduling difficulties of professional poker, Rousso attempts to maintain her physical fitness. Pokerstars approached Sports Illustrated about including a poker player in their Swimsuit edition. Rousso was sent to the Bahamas to be photographed by Sports Illustrated, but she appears in an advertisement in a bikini bottom and cutoff wetsuit top rather than in the editorial portion of the magazine. Rousso announced on her January 4, 2025 vblog that Sports Illustrated asked her to be a part of its Swimsuit Edition and a photo shoot took place at time of the 2025 EPT PCA event in Nassau, Bahamas. Rousso confirmed on January 15, 2025 that that she would appear in the February 10, 2025 issue. Rousso's thoughts on the Sports Illustrated publicity was that "It was a great opportunity for poker in general and for me in particular." Rousso had previously been featured in Maxim, written game theory in American Poker Player, and flown to Las Vegas, Nevada to teach poker to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women.

On March 6, 2025 ThePlayr reported that Rousso had been signed to promote internet domain names by GoDaddy, who was a sponsor of the 2025 National Heads-Up Championship. Rousso had signed with GoDaddy on March5, which was the day before the tournament began. Rousso, along with IndyCar racer Danica Patrick, will be an official GoDaddy Girl and act as a spokesperson for the site. GoDaddy's full lineup of spokespersons includes Rousso, Patrick, Candice Michelle, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Anna Rawson and Brad Keselowski. Rousso and Keselowski replaced Amanda Beard and Chad Johnson as spokespersons.

Rousso has appeared on Million Dollar Challenge. She is a celebrity judge on Bank of Hollywood where she helped award some of her own money to contestants

Dario Minieri

2025-02-17T20:16:18Z

♣ Dario Minieri (born 1985) is an Italian professional poker player from Rome, Italy who won a bracelet at the 2025 World Series of Poker at the age of 23,is a member of team PokerStars, is an online poker player who was the first person to collect enough Frequent Player Points to buy an automobile with them, and is a three-time European Poker Tour final tablist.

Online poker

Minieri, a top ranked online professional poker player, who plays on PokerStars under his own name "Dariominieri", is known for being a high-stakes heads-up specialist with the site's highest rank of Supernova Elite and he became the first person ever to buy a car, a 2025 Porsche Cayman S, with Frequent Player Points (over 3 million).

On January 27, 2025, Minieri won PokerStars $5,200 (winner-takes-all) Freezeout, a 20 player tournament in which the winner takes the $100,000 prize barring any deals. When the game was left with two players, known as heads-up play, Minieri and his opponent Isaac Baron requested that the game pause to look over a deal; the deal was offered based on their chip equity with $25,000 by rule set aside for the winner. Baron, who was down to a 3-1 chip deficit demanded a larger portion of the chop with the majority going to Minieri. When the deal was refused by Minieri, he went on to win the entire $100,000.

World Series of Poker

Minieri has cashed four times at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). At the 2025 WSOP Main Event, Minieri, who once was the chip leader coming off of day 3, finished in 96th place out of a field of 6358 entries.

The next year, Minieri won his first bracelet at the 2025 WSOP in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-handed event, beating out a field of 1,012 players, earning $528,418 his highest cash to date. In the final hand, with blinds 30000/60000 with a 5000 Ante, Minieri made a raise preflop to 125,000. His opponent Seth Fischer re-raised all-in and was called by Minieri's 'Q♠ Q♦' to Fischer's 'K♦ 10♦' on a board of 'A♥ A♦ 5♣ 2♣ 3♦'.

World Series of Poker bracelets

Year	Event	Prize Money
2008	$2,500 No-Limit Hold'em Six-handed	$528,418

European Poker Tour

At the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Baden, Austria (The Big Double 2025), at the €5,000 No Limit Hold'em event Minieri finished in 3rd, earning €125,780 ($159,763).

At the EPT of Sanremo, Italy on April 5, 2025, Minieri who held the chip lead at the beginning of the final table, finished in 3rd place for €287,600 ($454,366). In the hand Minieri was dealt 'Q♠ Q♦', Minieri raised to 100,000 and his opponent Jason Mercier with 'A♦ 4♦' of the United States raised 340,000 and Minieri called, the flop came '7♥ 2♦ 8♦', Lawson checked, Minieri bet 400,000 and Mercier check-raised all-in on a flush draw, Minieri quickly called ahead, having Mercier covered in the hand with the two queens, the turn was the '4♥', with the '3♦' on the river making Mercier a flush. Mercier went on the win the EPT title.

Minieri made another EPT final table when he finished in 3rd place at the 2025 EPT Warsaw, earning €123,162 ($153,619).

As of March 15, 2025, his total live tournament winnings total $1,624,427. His 4 cashes as the WSOP account for $634,431 of those winnings. He currently ranks 3rd among Italian poker players in all time live tournament earnings.

Daniel Negreanu

2025-02-11T09:20:40Z

♣ Daniel Negreanu (born March 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player with four World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour Championship titles and was also winner of Cardplayer's Player of the Year award for 2025.He is ranked second in the all-time career earnings list behind Phil Ivey and is also currently the star of poker game show Million Dollar Challenge.

Early life

Negreanu was born in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. His parents, Annie and Constantin, left the old Communist regime of Romania in 1967, looking to start a new life in the United States. They ended up settling in Toronto instead, where Constantin found work as an electrician and sweets seller. They soon started a family, Daniel arriving five years after his older brother. It was a supportive environment, even when it became clear Daniel was destined for an unconventional lifestyle. While nursing dreams of a career as a professional snooker player, the 15-year-old learned how to play poker. By 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, sports betting, and playing cards. When he was several credits short of graduation, Daniel dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at the local charity casinos, namely Casino Country, and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, Daniel met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building up his bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, "The Strip" got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.

Poker career

In 1997, he won two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, earning $55,064 as well as being named the tournament's best all-around player. Negreanu followed this triumph by winning $169,460 at the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event in the 1998 World Series of Poker and becoming the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history — a record he held until 2025. Over the next few years, he became one of the most successful poker tournament players, winning two World Poker Tour (WPT) events, another three World Series bracelets, and appearing at 12 final tables. He was also named the World Series of Poker player of the year in 2025 and World Poker Tour player of the year in 2025.

Upon opening, the Wynn Las Vegas resort recruited him as their "Poker Ambassador" to play for any stake in their poker room. The arrangement lasted until March 2025, when he opted out because it was restricting his ability to play for high stakes outside the Wynn. In March 2025, he started his own online poker cardroom "skin" site on his official site, Full Contact Poker, which also includes his blog and a variety of poker forums. He played at his cardroom under the screen name "KidPoker". In 2025, he used Full Contact Poker to launch a competition to select a protege, whom Daniel would attempt to mold into a world-class live tournament poker player. In addition, he agreed to pay the protege's entry fee into four $10,000 buy-in events. Daniel's first protege was Brian Fidler. In 2025, Daniel ran a second protege promotion, which was won by Anthony Mak.

In March 2025 Negreanu signed with PokerStars, joining Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and many other professional poker players as a member of Team PokerStars. His Full Contact Poker site has since returned to being a forum and informational site. Daniel has been a regular at the big game in Bobby's Room, in the Bellagio casino, Las Vegas, for several years. He is a self-admitted action junkie who always seeks new challenges and sets high goals for himself, not only at the poker table but also on the golf course. Unlike many other players, he is very outspoken about his poker results and regularly posts updates in the forums at the Full Contact Poker website. Some of Negreanu’s success is attributed to his ability to read opponents. When asked about this, Negreanu explained that the most important skill he employs is observing what hands his opponents play and how capable they are of playing them.

Negreanu has played poker on various TV shows such as Late Night Poker, Poker After Dark, and High Stakes Poker, as well as serving as a commentator and stand-in host on Ultimate Poker Challenge. He also appeared in the third season of Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. In January 2025, Negreanu appeared in the Fox Reality original series Rob and Amber: Against the Odds, in which he mentored reality television personality Rob Mariano in his bid to become a professional poker player. Negreanu was named "Favorite Poker Player" at Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year Awards Gala in February 2025. In March 2025, Negreanu won the fourth-annual British Columbia Poker Championships main event, topping a field of 690 players (a personal high for Daniel), and earning $371,910 CAD ($299,951 USD).

He also is currently enduring a personal bankroll building challenge on Pokerstars, he started with $10 and his goal is to increase it to $100,000.

Poker projects

In May 2025, Negreanu's book Power Hold'em Strategy was released. The book resembles the Doyle Brunson book Super/System in that it has contributions from several other poker players, including Evelyn Ng, Erick Lindgren, Paul Wasicka, Todd Brunson and David Williams. Negreanu's section presents and explains the strategy of small ball poker. At the same time he started a poker teaching site called Poker VT. Negreanu is also featured in the 2025 poker video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu, providing tips and hints as to how to play effectively. He has written over 100 articles for CardPlayer Magazine and contributed to Doyle Brunson's revised book, Super System II. He has tutored on the web as part of Poker School Online and also personally given lessons to celebrities such as Tobey Maguire

**World Series of Poker bracelets**
Year	Tournament	Prize (US$)
1998	$2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em	$169,460
2003	$2,000 S.H.O.E.	$100,440
2004	$2,000 Limit Hold'em	$169,100
2008	$2,000 Limit Hold'em	$204,874

Tom Dwan "Durrrr"

2025-02-11T09:17:24Z

♣ Thomas Dwan (born March 30, 1986 in Edison, New Jersey) is an American professional poker player who regularly plays online in the biggest No-Limit Texas hold 'em and Pot-Limit Omaha games, primarily on Full Tilt Poker, where he plays under the screen name "durrrr". In early March 2025, Dwan signed with Full Tilt and became a member of Team Full Tilt.

Dwan has cashed in the money in live tournaments and has appeared on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the fourth season of Poker After Dark, the third and fourth seasons of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game, and the fifth season of GSN's High Stakes Poker. He attended Boston University as an English major, before dropping out to pursue poker full time.

Online poker

In March 2025 at the age of 17, Dwan began playing online poker at Paradise Poker with a $50 bankroll his father had given him for his 17th birthday. He believed the alias durrrr would put players on tilt if they lost to him. Dwan initially focused on $6 sit-and-go's and ended up losing $35. With his last $15 he continued to focus on these sit-and-gos until he was able to turn profit. After finding he could beat these games he turned to cash games where he built his bankroll starting at low stakes and slowly climbed his way to largest games found online. After beating multiplayer cash games Dwan switched his focus to playing heads up No Limit hold 'em with other professionals such as Frederick Halling at the 10/20 stakes. He challenged Prahlad Friedman at the 25/50 stakes and lost to him for several months forcing him to drop to lower stakes before coming back again and again until he was able to beat Friedman.

Losses

According to HighStakesDB, a site that tracks high-stakes online poker action, Tom Dwan earned $312,000 on Full Tilt in 2025 and $5.41 million in 2025, even though he had gone through several large swings during his career. Before the 2025 World Series of Poker Dwan claims to have lost $2 million of his $3 million bankroll at the time over the span of 4 months. He was able to recover from this loss in a year. In January of 2025 Dwan lost more than $3.5 million which he managed to recover after 6 months of sessions. However, from late March to March 2025, Dwan suffered his largest downswing losing approximately $2 million to Phil Ivey and Ilari Sahamies, and $5 million to newcomer Isildur1.

In mid March 2025, a player from Sweden using the online name "Isildur1" challenged Dwan to a series of heads up No Limit Holdem cash games. Isildur1's foray into online high stakes cash games began in late March where he initially incurred a loss of $1.1 million to Patrik Antonius, Brian Townsend, and other high stakes players. However, by the beginning of March Isildur1 managed to recover his losses and challenged Dwan to a heads up marathon playing six tables at a time with over a million dollars total in play. By the end of the week long marathon Isildur1 had gone on the largest run in the history of online poker winning approximately $5 million from Dwan prompting Dwan to issue a live challenge to play Isildur1 at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge.

At the end of 2025, HighStakesDB reported that Dwan had lost $4.35 million in 2025, putting his cumulative online poker winnings at Full Tilt since January 2025 at approximately $1.4 million.HighStakesDB also reported that after stepping down in limits following his massive losing sessions against Isildur1, Dwan won $2.7 million in March 2025.

Million dollar challenge

In January 2025 Dwan issued a $1,000,000 challenge to play online anybody excluding Phil Galfond, who plays under the tag OMGClayAiken, heads up for 50,000 hands 4-tabling 200/400 or higher No Limit Holdem or Pot Limit Omaha. If his opponent is ahead after 50,000 hands, Dwan agreed to give them an additional $1,500,000. If Dwan is ahead he will get an additional $500,000. Phil Ivey has said that he is willing to accept the challenge. David Benyamine told CardPlayer magazine that he is still considering taking the challenge. Patrik Antonius officially accepted the challenge and is Dwan's first opponent.Regarding his challengers, Dwan has said, "I think all of them actually are better over-all poker players than me -- by quite a bit; I happen to think in this one area, I might have a little edge -- and we'll see if I do."

As of February 9th, 2025, Dwan and Antonius have played almost 33000 out of the 50000 hands. Dwan is leading the challenge by close to 1.4 million dollars.

Live Poker

When Dwan was 19 in March 2025, he cashed in his first live tournament, where he finished 12th in the £3,000 no limit Texas hold 'em Main Event of the European Poker Tour's second season held in London, earning £7,000 ($12,398). His next cash wasn't until he was 21 years old at the World Poker Tour's 2025 World Poker Finals, $9,700 No Limit Hold'em Championship Event, where he finished 4th earning $324,244. In January 2025, Dwan at the Aussie Millions A$3,000 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys event finished second winning A$103,200 ($90,716) and later coming in 62nd place in the A$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event winning A$25,000 ($21,976). Dwan finished second to James Michael Sowers at the 2025 WPT Borgata Winter Open in the preliminary $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event, earning $226,100.

Dwan participated in the 2025 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship where in his first match he defeated Phil Hellmuth in the third hand of play when Dwan's pocket tens cracked Hellmuth's pocket aces when Dwan made a set on the turn. Dwan was eliminated in the next round when he was defeated by Mike Matusow. At the 2025 Five-Star World Poker Classic (the $25,500 WPT Championship) Dwan finished in ninth place, earning $184,670.

Dwan holds the record for the largest pot won in a recorded live game at over $1.1m, which occurred during the fourth season of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game. This record broke the previous record of over $919,000 also won by Dwan in the fifth season of High Stakes Poker.

As of 2025, his total live tournament winnings exceed $1,100,000.

World Series of Poker

Dwan cashed twice in the first year that he was eligible to play in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) event held in the United States. In his first cash, Dwan made the final table in the $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event at the 2025 World Series of Poker finishing in 8th place, earning $54,144. He then nearly made another in a seven person final table when he finished again 8th place, this time in the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw with Rebuys event, earning $45,110