Daniel Negreanu Quotes

Because I spent many years during my previous life as an academic researching game theory, some commentators rushed to presume that as Greece's new finance minister, I was busily devising bluffs, stratagems and outside options, struggling to improve upon a weak hand. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When a man tells me he's going to put all his cards on the table, I always look up his sleeve.

Poker is about understanding human behavior and managing emotions - yours and the other guy's. That's huge in poker, and it's huge in business.

I can bluff with the best of them.

Poker isn't the roulette wheel of pure chance, nor is it the chess of mathematical elegance and perfect information. Apart from the underlying mathematics, poker depends on the nuanced reading of human intention, interactions, and deceptions.

I learned that the people who have the cards are usually the ones who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly and give themselves away.

If you never bluff, you'll rarely get called. If you bluff all the time, you'll always get called.

I'm not a good poker player, but I've got one bluffing technique - as long as you're quick with the blinds, you're fine.

I learned playing poker that you never count your winnings because that's when you start to lose.

If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.

Confidence-building is not something that can go on forever. If it goes on forever then it becomes counterproductive.

Yes, I think poker really isn't gambling.

But in a tournament, you can be said in for all your money at any point so you can't make any mistakes so you have to, it's all about where you're sitting at the table.

There are no friends at cards or world politics.

I like to play cards. I'm not very good, because I don't want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I've learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker.

Iraq now says that it will, after all, destroy its missiles. President Bush said, 'Please, I used to pull the same trick. There'd be an intervention, I'd make a big show of pouring out the liquor and then there was a case under the floorboards.'

I do have a tendency to talk a lot at the poker table, which throws people off because they spend a lot of time trying to read me. But I talk a lot when I have a good hand and when I have a bad hand, too. Sometimes it annoys people so much they can't wait to get out of the tournament. And that can only be good for me.

Crying wolf is a real danger.

Poker is a game where you don't have to have the best hand to win. Poker is really reading other people and reading human emotion, which certainly comes into play in business.

I don’t bluff, but I do act with realism.

I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I speak the truth, and they never believe me.

You should always try to deceive your enemy.

If you have a vast organization, parade it before the enemy, openly show your power. If your organization is small, do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more that it does. If your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.

Whoever said “Keep your enemies close” didn’t have many enemies.

I've learned with Donald Trump - take him at his word.