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[DanielNegreanu]

LIVELY UP YOURSELFBy David Lloyd - Monday, 17th January 2005When darts player Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor was a guest on Soccer A.M. recently he talked about how it feels, to become a World Champion. “After you’ve won it, you wake up and think…I don’t want to go through all that again”. As it happens, he’s gone through all that again on twelve occasions…but that’s World Champions for you! What Phil said, ignited a theme I’d been chewing over throughout December as I followed Daniel Negreanu’s exploits throughout the Five Diamond Poker Classic at the Bellagio. Motivation…how do we get it, how do we lose it and how do we get it back?These are questions that apply to us all, not just World Champions. You can bet we’d all come up with a myriad of different answers to those questions but that’s really not the point. It’s whether we know our own particular answers or in many cases whether we even bother to search them out, that will, eventually make us better or worse at what we do. It was, with this agenda in mind that I ended up following the fortunes of another poker player more closely than I usually might.As Daniel Negreanu took his seat in the first event of the Five Diamond it might have looked like just another day at the office but it wasn’t, not if you take a closer look. Here’s the background (highlights only). Placed 2nd and 3rd in the two WPT main events running up to the World Series where he became WSOP ‘Best All Round Player’, then following that up by winning the Championship of Poker at the Plaza in June. The icing on all these cakes came in September when he won the WPT event in Atlantic City. Have I missed anything…oh yeah…at a rough estimate, something like $2,680,000 in prize money.This brings us back to the motivation theme. There has to be a point, where it’s just not about money anymore. I’d spoken to Daniel earlier in the month and we’d touched on the motivation theme in a roundabout way (I’d asked him if he’d swap the WSOP Best All Round Player title for winning the big one – his answer was a huge and immediate ‘No way!’). That answer should tell you a lot about what makes him tick. However, after so many great results, I had wondered to myself how he was going to get himself going for the next one.I didn’t have to wait long to find out. If you happened to have been reading his journal at the time, ( www.fullcontactpoker.com) a new goal appeared, built around a battle with John Juanda to become World Player of the Year. He had a 428 point lead over his friend Juanda and keeping that lead, briefly became the be all and end all. In hindsight, having one eye constantly looking over your shoulder and measuring success by whether your opponent makes a final or not, can’t be a great recipe for winning tournaments, and so it proved. Daniel seemed to be in some kind of poker lull and it as pretty obvious he knew it.These are examples of the key words and phrases he was using in his journal at the time…Bored / heart clearly not in it / no interest / didn’t have the focus / didn’t try that hard / sloppy play / not motivated / lack focus / weakness / uncomfortable / distracted / negative / bad luck / bad play / smoke / lack of desire.Compare those with the key words and phrases that Daniel used once he was back on top of his game…Successful / simple rule / I really want to / never played better / grabbed every chip / focus never better / excellent / it’s going to happen / confident / feeling great / get job done / won / winning / natural high / loving itSometimes words speak louder than words.Retrospect is an easy place from which to view the world but I wonder whether Daniel’s ‘Goal / Motivation’ was good enough for his subconscious. Can we fabricate or ‘big up’ lesser goals in order to motivate ourselves or do the challenges always have to be the real deal? I’d like to believe the first one but my heart goes with the latter. I have a feeling Daniel needed something more than just staying in front to get him going again. Well, if that’s what was needed, then that’s what happened. When David Pham won the $3100 No Limit Hold’em event he picked up 1440 ranking points, coming from nowhere and going straight to the top of the leader board for World Player of the Year.All of a sudden Daniel Negreanu was in second place and had a real goal again, something tangible and hey…guess what…he immediately gets back on his ‘A’ game, Interestingly, with only two tournaments left to get back in front and on the leader board Daniel’s first ‘A game’ decision was to take a day off . He didn’t play in the penultimate event and focussed all his energies on the main event. Now that’s class! Game selection at it’s very best.The rest is history of course. He went to the televised final table with an insurmountable chip lead and pretty much decimated the field to win his second WPT event and exactly $1,770,218 into the bargain. Not a bad day’s work in sight!Now here’s the thing…the day before the final there was absolutely no mention of becoming World Player of the Year in his journal (just making the last nine had ensured the title). It wasn’t even an issue anymore; he was totally focussed on one thing, winning the main event. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words!

[poker_bull]

Do you agree with him when he stated:

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Retrospect is an easy place from which to view the world but I wonder whether Daniel’s ‘Goal / Motivation’ was good enough for his subconscious. Can we fabricate or ‘big up’ lesser goals in order to motivate ourselves or do the challenges always have to be the real deal? I’d like to believe the first one but my heart goes with the latter.