PokerStars to Release Daniel Negreanu Documentary, “Kid Poker”
Global online-poker leader PokerStars has released the full trailer for its upcoming documentary on prominent poker pro Daniel Negreanu. Advance hype for the “Kid Poker” documentray began in earnest on Friday when Stars released the film’s trailer on its YouTube channel, though an official release date for the full documentary has yet to be announced.
It’s an interesting project for both PokerStars and Negreanu, who remains the largest and most marketable poker personality associated with Stars. PokerStars itself is a site that has increasingly looked to mainstream-celebrity endorsements as a way of pushing its brand, making this project even more interesting for its departure from the norm. Just this week, for instance, Stars also announced an endorsement deal with Brazilian football superstar Neymar, the latest in a long line of such sports- and celebrity-deals offered by the site.
With the Negreanu documentary, Stars takes a stab at the marketing outreach from the other persepctive — packaging the commercially successful life of Negreanu in a package targeting the mainstream and poker-playing wannabes, as well as humanizing the image of a poker pro via the personable and outspoken Negreanu, who’s well suited for such a project.
The documentary is described briefly by PokerStars as follows: “Daniel Negreanu, the man, the legend, and the subject of a soon to be released documentary that promises to take you into the mind and soul of one of the greatest poker players to have ever graced the felt. PokerStars Original Films presents KidPoker.”
“I’m not surprised at where I am,” intones Negreanu at the trailer’s start. “I always felt that I was going to be successful at whatever I did.” The documentary promises to provide plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of Negreanu’s life, with plenty of highlights of Negreanu’s poker career, including his arrival on the Vegas poker scene nearly two decades ago, plus his election in the Poker Hall of Fame last year.
Plenty of other famous poker faces are expected to be on hand throughout the documentary, offering their takes on Negreanu, his poker skills, and the reasons for his success. Already appearing in the trailer are Jennifer Harman, Antonio Esfandiari, John Duthie and others, with dozens more prominent pros and poker-industry execs expected to appear in the full documentary, when it’s released.
The documentary plans to go all the way back to the humble beginnings of Negreanu’s poker career. The son of Canadian-Romanian parents, “Kid Poker” first made his mark in games in the Toronto, Canada poker scene before doing what so many other local poker champs have tried as well — taking their games and bankrolls to Las Vegas for a stab at what has traditionally been poker’s toughest global stage.
Negreanu wasn’t an instant success, either. He went broke early on in Vegas, before retooling and regrouping. Negreanu didn’t break through on the torunament scene until 1997, when he won two events at the Foxwoods Poker Finals, and followed that up with the first of his six (to date) WSOP bracelet wins in Las Vegas in 1998. The popular Negreanu has traveled the globe for most of the last two decades playing both tournaments and cash games, with notable success in all poker formats.
Here’s a link to the 2:25 trailer for “KidPoker,” courtesy of PokerStars Original Films, now available on Stars’ YouTube account:
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