Daniel Negreanu MasterClass Review:
Can It Teach You to Play For High Stakes?

Content and Structure of the Daniel Negreanu MasterClass

It’s an organized course that starts with basic game theory in the early stages and slowly builds up to bluffing, betting, tells, strategies, and playing live poker as a professional poker player.

Daniel Negreanu MasterClass is complemented with a 122-page class guide that reviews everything covered in each lesson. The class guide doesn’t feature any assignments, so you can read the chapters in the workbook as you finish the course or treat it as a book to retain what you learned. There’s also a poker fundamentals guide that explains the rules of the game.

All of Negreanu’s teachings from his poker course are in 38 lessons. The total length of the course is 7 hours and 40 minutes. While some are much longer and others are shorter, the typical lesson is 12 to 13 minutes.

Since this MasterClass is nearly 8 hours long, consider finishing it chapter-by-chapter by following the structure below. You can also opt for my fast-track lesson plan to complete the course faster without missing the essentials.

Poker Fundamentals

1-5 Lessons Summary

Before diving into betting, bluffing, implementing strategy, and other topics, Daniel Negreanu starts his poker MasterClass by explaining the basics. It’s a valuable section to beginners that Daniel covers board texture, hand ranges, guessing the opponent’s range, and how table position affects bets.

In the last lesson, he briefly explains the game theory of optimal poker and shows insights into poker math. This section of Daniel Negreanu MasterClass is catered more to beginners and intermediates. But experienced players can learn just as much, especially from Negreanu’s perspective.

Betting and Raising

6-9 Lessons Summary

The following section covers betting and raising. Daniel starts this section by going over C-betting, check-raising, and three betting – touching on the importance of it in the modern game. He also pinpoints the common mistakes beginners make when betting and raising.

This part of Negreanu’s MasterClass features two quizzes on how to check-raise, ensuring you know when to utilize it. The betting and raising lessons end with a hand review from EPT Barcelona.

Mastering Bluffing

10-17 Lessons Summary

Daniel Negreanu transitions from betting and raising to bluffing, starting with the basics. He details various ways to detect the bluff of an opponent while teaching how to bluff like the greatest poker players.

Daniel covers more advanced bluffing techniques from the 12th lesson, explaining bet sizing, over-betting, and mixed strategy. He goes very in-depth in these. The following two lessons, Mixed Strategy: Hand Review and Pre- and Postflop Mistakes, also do a good job reinforcing these detailed lessons.

Tournament and Cash Game Strategies

18-22 Lessons Summary

Daniel Negreanu begins this section by sharing his excitement about tournaments. Naturally, it’s the most engaging section, as you can see his passion for playing poker professionally in tournaments.

Negreanu breaks the tournament and covers the early and middle stages in a single lesson. He then touches on the late-game strategy. These lessons essentially teach how to survive early and strategize in the later stages. Before wrapping up this chapter, Negreanu talks about cash games and maximizing your chances of winning.

Masking and Spotting Tells

23-28 Lessons Summary

Lessons 23 through 28 were the most fun. Daniel Negreanu explains the ins and outs of poker face. He starts the 23rd lesson with how to mask your tell and add to these with spotting opponent tells.

These build up the Table Talk lesson. If you ever watched any of Negreanu’s games, you know he tends to be chatty. So I was intrigued to learn about his take on table talk to gain leverage. This lesson explains the more psychological side of poker in the closing part of this chapter.

Tilt and Table Image

29-31 Lessons Summary

The next three lessons are about managing tilt and your table image. Daniel explains tilt for those who don’t know and gives tips on managing it. Daniel then shares his tricks for leveraging the game by tilting opponents. These explanations lay the foundation for the following lesson on controlling your table image. He teaches how to keep your cool when the stakes are high.

Daniel goes over everything taught in these two lessons in another hand-review lesson. It showcases how he used metagame to steal a pot from an opponent.

Playing Poker Professionally and Closing

32-38 Lessons Summary

The last section is for advanced players looking for tips on playing poker professionally. In these lessons, Daniel talks about profiling players, selecting games, proper bankroll management, his practice methods, and gives a glimpse into the life of a poker player.

Daniel Negreanu MasterClass ends with Daniel sharing his challenging experiences and closing thoughts. As a bonus, there’s a lesson on online play. Daniel explains how you can utilize playing poker online as a form of practice, focusing on game theory.

Fast-Track Lesson Plan

Finish Daniel Negreanu MasterClass in 5 hours, 16 minutes, and 33 seconds.

No.	Lesson	Duration
2.	Understanding Position	12:30
3.	Hand Ranges and Board Texture	27:52
5.	Game Theory and Math	11:09
6.	C-Betting	15:56
7.	Check-Raising	07:08
8.	Three-Betting	09:09
10.	Detecting and Executing the Bluff	14:31
13.	Overbetting	10:32
15	Mixed Strategy	18:29
17.	Pre- and Postflop Mistakes	10:08
18.	Tournament Strategy: Early and Middle Stages	12:24
20.	Tournament Strategy: Late Stages and Final Table	10:17
21.	Universal Tournament Strategy	09:32
22.	Cash Games	11:41
23.	Masking Tells	12:11
24.	Spotting Tells: Part 1	11:20
25.	Spotting Tells: Part 2	09:18
27.	Table Talk	10:29
28.	How to Think at the Poker Table	11:14
29.	Managing and Exploiting Tilt	19:10
30.	Table Image and Metagame	15:52
32.	Player Profiling	14:16
34.	Bankroll Management	11:18
36.	Life as a Poker Player	14:20
38.	Bonus Material: Online Play	05:47

Engagement and Retention of Daniel Negreanu MasterClass

Daniel Negreanu is friendly and engaging. He makes understanding challenging aspects of poker easy. However, the course has next to no visual appeal. Some graphics and animations appear here and there, but the majority of the course is just Negreanu talking.

It almost seems like he’s lecturing on poker. This lack of visual appeal is also something other MasterClass reviews mention. Nonetheless, you won’t find yourself bored learning from Daniel Negreanu. He’s an engaging teacher. And you won’t need to watch further lessons to completely understand something he already instructed.