Why Today's High-Stakes Poker Pros Don't Celebrate the Big Wins
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Ever wondered why modern era high-stakes poker pros rarely celebrate winning big pots or even major titles? Are they just boring people — human robots, if you will? Not exactly.
Seth Davies, the $250,000 WSOP Super High Roller champion, offered his perspective in a video on X while attending the 2025 PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona.
Currently ranked #16 on the Hendon Mob All-Time Money List, Davies is having a banner year with more than $12 million in earnings. His breakthrough bracelet win in the summer netted $4,752,551, while Triton Montenegro in May saw him pocket another $6 million, including his first Triton title.
What Does Davies Say?
While 2025 has been a career-defining year, Davies explained there have been countless bullets, near misses, and the kind of sustained losing stretches that explain why poker’s biggest winners rarely feel like celebrating when they finally do come out on top.
"High-stakes players are robots. No emotions, no reaction, even when they win millions. That’s what people say but here’s the truth: tournament poker is losing, losing, losing hundreds of thousands at a time. That’s just the reality of it until you finally run deep and take one down, and that makes up for all those losses and more.
Don’t be fooled. Losing for thousands of hours comes with a range of emotions, and the biggest one when it comes to winning might surprise you. It’s not joy. What you see on camera is empathy and respect. Losing so much takes emotional control, and when you finally do win, you can’t help but have empathy for the person who lost because you’ve been in those shoes for most of your career. That’s literally me on this trip: five events, multiple bullets. I’m down €350,000. This is where the etiquette comes from.
Is it bad for the game that people don’t show emotions? Probably. People love drama, rivalries, reactions and that’s fair enough. But high-stakes tournament professionals don’t put in thousands of hours to aura-farm for a Twitter clip. They respect the game, and they’re here to win trophies. They breathe competition, and in most cases, they’re professionals, not entertainers."
Is It Bad for the Game?
Davies’ comments sparked debate among other high-profile pros, including Dan “Jungleman” Cates and Daniel Negreanu, both of whom argued that emotion has its place in poker.
Cates, fresh off a $15 million win in high stakes cash games, pushed back on the idea that professionalism and entertainment are mutually exclusive.
“You can both be a professional and an entertainer,” Jungleman said on X. “I would argue that it is short-sighted and in fact not professional to at least consider the EV of being an entertainer.”
Negreanu, never shy to weigh in on the culture of the game, took the conversation further by pointing out the difference between high- and low-stakes poker.
“Every major sport or game is driven by the elite of the elite showing emotion."
“I would argue that it’s more important to be professional at low stakes when Grandma Better goes broke and not celebrate." Negreanu compared.
"For non-pros it’s real money being lost, not just a day’s work. We aren’t hand-holding at high stakes. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. If you can’t handle a celebration when your opponent wins a big hand, or look down upon it in a ‘too cool for school’ manner, learn to deal with it.”
Negreanu emphasized that the biggest sports and games are defined by the emotions of their stars.
"What’s most important is to be authentically who you are,"
“Every major sport or game is driven by the elite of the elite showing emotion. Think Tiger Woods fist pump or even a club toss or two. That’s what engages people and makes them care. Imagine Michael Jordan hitting a buzzer beater and not celebrating because he wants to be empathetic to the losers. Magnus Carlsen is as competitive as all hell and if he loses he sometimes slams the table."
"The WSOP main event final table, part of its charm and allure is the energy from the crowd and the players. IMO what’s most important is to be authentically who you are, and if a river card makes you feel like fist pumping, there is nothing inherently wrong or disrespectful about it.”
Negreanu became a superstar in an era — the 2000s — where the top pros we all saw on TV were entertainers as much as they were poker players. Tony G once infamously taunted Ralph Perry after busting the Russian from a televised event, shouting "on your bike" at his opponent.
Even in the modern era, there are still some high-stakes players who show emotion in victory. Doug Polk, in the 2023 WSOP $25k Heads-Up Championship semifinals, went absolutely bonkers after hitting a two-outer on the river to leave Chris Brewer with crumbs. But those type of reactions, in this era, are few and far between.
For his part, Davies agreed that context matters, saying, “I don’t think many regs would feel disrespected by a fist pump or anything. And in reality, you definitely do see some emotion when the tournament is actually won. Obviously less when someone wins a flip five-handed where nothing they did was skillful.”
