Best Poker Players in the World – Hall of Famers

Poker started gaining popularity in the middle of the 19th century, and shortly after, the first prominent players surfaced. In the last few decades, the game and the industry evolved so much to the point where the challenge became international. Discover some of the best poker players of all time and learn how they got there.

Before we take it any further, we do like to highlight that the following world’s best poker players are picked and stipulated not only based on their earnings but professional experience and contribution to the game and its development in the last 100 years. For many people, the occupation of “professional gambler” was a joke until some of the below-mentioned gentlemen proved them wrong and showed the public that poker is a way to make money. This is because it is a player-versus-player game where a person needs a complex combination of different skills to win.

List of Best Poker Players – Present & Past Pro Players

If you are an experienced player, you probably know some of the names in our list of the best poker players. For that reason, we have gathered them below with additional links that will lead you to each person’s story, statistics and achievements. If you are a novice, we suggest you start from scratch and read everything top to bottom, so you find out not only the top 7 best poker players of all time but also how they changed the industry.

Nowadays it is totally different from any time before. We can’t miss highlighting that fact because, before the new age of technology, everything was way more complex, costly and impossible to achieve for many people around the world. In our modern era, it is hard to imagine how big international events were set up without the internet and the vast optionalities it brings.

Some of the best poker players in the world are legends from the days before digitalisation , people who actually helped with the popularisation of the game and raised it to a professional level. Some of them are not exactly role models, but after all, we speak about gamblers who like risks.

Phil Hellmuth – The King of Poker

Born in 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin, Phill Hellmuth grew up as an outsider. He says that he struggled a lot in the local high school, not only with his grades but with socialisation too.

After graduating from Madison High School, Phill moved to the University of Wisconsin to get a higher degree but eventually dropped out. This was the moment when he decided that he would chase a career as a professional poker player.

At this point (the late 1980s), there were few places where you could play pro poker regularly, which was an obstacle for gamblers back in the day. In 1989 Phil Hellmuth became one of the youngest winners of the WSOP tournament. Therefore, he was nicknamed – the brat.

The accumulated ¾ of a million from the 89 WSOP was enough for him to settle in Palo Alto, California and in 1992 to marry Katherine Sanborn.

This was only the beginning for Phil. Between 1989 and 2015, he was most active and able to acquire over $25 million from live tournaments only. Up to this date, he is the person that holds the most WSOP bracelets – 16.

He was able to play against and beat some other of the best poker players of all time that we will mention down the road, like Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Chip Reese, Daniel Negreanu and many more.

Undoubtedly, Phil Hellmuth is among the best poker players at the time. Still, due to the fast-changing digital environment and constantly improving online services, many new rising stars are ready to compete and reach the top. The truth is that Phil is not so active and has not been thriving in the last couple of years, but we give it to the fact that he is already 58 years old and has two sons to care for.

Daniel Negreanu – The Ambassador of Poker

Daniel Negreanu has a fantastic life story which we find inspiring for any person with a vision of his future. He was born in Romania, but his family moved to the USA at the age of seven and later on to Toronto, Canada.

This was the beginning of Daniel’s journey. At this time, he was not aware yet of his true passion – poker, but he was known as a “risky player”.

In his teenage years, Daniel was quite a trouble. He was numerous times reported for bad behaviour and disobeying school rules. Even as a kid, he dreamed of being rich and living in California, and eventually, his dreams came true.

The first time he got close to a gambling circle was when he was 16. He was spending a lot of time at sports betting and pool halls, where he picked up the gambling habit.

At 18, he was already a skilled player, but nobody was yet considering him as a future hall of famer. At the age of 22, he collected the needed money to make his trip to Las Vegas, but you know the drill – the first attempt always fails.

That’s how he returned to Toronto to start building a bankroll again. If you like to read more about Daniel Negreanu, this is the place.

His first significant win was the WSOP in 1998, when he took a prize of almost $170,000, but this was only the beginning for him. He won another five bracelets in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2013 Asia and 2013 Europe. He was awarded Card Player of the Year in 2004, 2005 and 2013. His overall winnings go above 40 million, while his biggest win was in 2014, when he won $8 million by taking second place in the Big One of One Drop tournament.

Daniel Negreanu is one of the world’s best poker players of our time, not only for his professional achievements but also because he became an ambassador of poker worldwide. While some poker legends competed mainly in the USA, Daniel followed all major competitions worldwide. Plus, his fluent English and inspiring life story helped him bring more attention to himself and the poker industry of our time.

Phil Ivey – A Living Poker Legend

Phill Ivey is among the youngest best poker players in this chart. He was born in 1977 in California but moved to New Jersey when he was still a baby. He graduated from Old Bridge High School and started working at a telemarketer firm in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, he was gambling illegally with a face ID in Atlantic City.

Indeed Phil is one of the people with many nicknames. One given in the telemarketing company was “No Home Jarome”, then in 2002 he got the nickname “The Phenom”. His most recognizable and famous nickname is “the Tiger Woods of Poker”. But how did his pro career start?

After a few years of practice and a built bankroll, he won his first WSOP bracelet (2000), getting almost $200k as a reward, and this was just the beginning. Up to this date, all assets of Phil Ivey go above 100 million US dollars, which makes him one of the richest gamblers in the world.

He is one of the significant figures of the last two decades that proved that poker is not only a game and entertainment but a profession and sport like any other.

For over 20 years in the game, Phil Ivey won ten WSOP bracelets and one WPT title, but this is far from everything. He was part of the so-called “the Corporation” group, a collective fund gathered by some of the best poker players in the US. The members of the Corporation changed during the years, but the most significant win was the one against Andrew Beal, where they were able to acquire $16 million in three days. Phil Ivey was among the leading players in this game.

The whole story of these three poker days was told in the book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King written by Michael Craig. In recent years you can encounter him playing online poker on different platforms. Phil is definitely among the best poker players in the world and, of course, a proud member of the poker hall of fame since 2017. Unlike many other gamblers and poker players, he knows how to manage his funds.

Stu Ungar – Gambler to the Bone

The story of Stu Ungar is actually quite sad because he is a bright example of compulsive gambling disorder out of control. Stu was born in New York in 1953 and raised in a Jewish family, but not in the traditional way. His father was a bookie and a loan shark that ran a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Stu was into card games and gambling at an early age, which reflected his overall way of life.

Little Stu dropped out of school in 9th grade to play underground gambling. However, his father died when he was only 14 years old, leading Stu to a new level of downfall.

For over four years, he did small jobs for crime figures like Victor Romano. At the time, Romano was one of the best poker players in New York, allowing Stu to learn from the best.

Stu built the reputation of a cocky and rude player that couldn’t keep his mouth shut, but that was okay since Romano was staying behind him. He has been hustling on card games since the age of 10. After his father’s death, he was the man in the house, and the need for money led him to a different lifestyle not entirely proper for a kid.

He dropped out of school to play Gin Rummy in the late 1960s when he won his first $10,000. In 1976 it was necessary to leave town because of gambling debts. This was when he moved to Miami, Florida, but a year later, he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where the real trouble began. Stu was no stranger to bad habits like drugs and alcohol, which were part of his gameplay.

Shortly after arriving in Vegas, he got so good that many local players regularly refused to participate in tournaments with him. In 1980, he made his way to his first WSOP bracelet and a win of nearly $400k. He was so good then, so he became the champion twice in 1981 and again in 1983.

We can’t miss mentioning that apart from poker, he was a huge blackjack fan, too, so he was mostly spinning his money on one of these games. Stu was a stranger to regular jobs and didn’t have a single day of working experience. All he knew was gambling. When we add child trauma, drug addiction and personal issues like his divorce and loss of his mother, it is no surprise he ended up in a drug and alcohol rehab, but it never worked for him.

In addition, his ex-wife committed suicide in 1989, which didn’t bring any good to him. In 1990, at the WSOP main event, he was found unconscious on the floor from a drug overdose. After a few years and a severe battle with gambling and drug addiction, Stu was able to grasp his life in hand and even win one more WSOP bracelet in 1997, earning the nickname “the comeback Kid”.

He tried hard to stay clean, but it was impossible. In 1998, he died from a drug overdose in a cheap Las Vegas Motel. Despite the sad story of Stu Ungar, he is among the world’s best poker players of all time because of his bold attitude, extraordinary intuition, and ability to play poker and blackjack. Many other legends of his time, like Doyle Brunson or Jonny Moss, respected him and felt sorry for him.

Doyle Brunson – A Poker Pioneer

Even if you are not such a big fan of poker, you probably know Doyle Brunson because he has been one of the most significant people in the industry for the last 70 years.

He dedicated part of his life to the game and the people playing it, but let’s go through his story and find out how Doyle became part of the list of the best poker players in the world.

He was born in a small town in Texas called Fisher Country. In his youth, he was after a professional NBA career, but a severe knee injury changed the course of his plans.

Despite all his struggles, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in Administrative Education. With such education, he was aiming at a principal school position.

Yes, but no, his life took a different direction. After graduation, he started working as a salesman and playing illegal five or seven-card stud. Suddenly he could acquire his whole salary on just one game, which made him start thinking of becoming a professional gambler.

In 1960, luck was not on his side. He was mainly playing in illegal halls where he often encountered criminals.

In the 70s, he made his way to the pro leagues. After all, the WSOP tournament first edition happened in the 1970s, where the big money prizes were. If you look at the achievement of this poker legend, you will see that his best period is precisely the decade between 1970 and 1980.

He won six of his bracelets in that decade, two in 1976, two in 1977, one in 1978 and 1979. The prizes were not that massive like a decade later, but still, they were big enough to live like a king. People like Doyle or Chip Reese proved that poker could be a primary income and a real profession.

The 1980s were not so successful for Doyle Brunson, but still, he could score several 3rd and 4th places. We missed mentioning that in 1978, he realised there was no handbook for poker, so he wrote and published one. Several decades later, in 2004, he released a second book with improved systems and know-how brought by himself and names like Bobby Baldwin or Mike Caro.

Doyle had played professionally since 2018, when he officially retired from the poker scene. In 1990 and 2005, he won another four WSOP bracelets, his last. Don’t get us wrong, he kept competing, winning many online tournaments with massive prizes, but he didn’t get another WSOP bracelet.

He was part of creating the WSOP, the poker hall of fame, and many other tournaments around the USA. Doyle Brunson is one of the people who made poker famous in several states. This member of our list of the best poker players is a living giant and one of the founders of the poker industry we know today.

Bryn Kenney – The New Kid on the Block

Bryn Kenney is one of the most successful and best poker players of the last decade and a half. His debut was in 2007, at the age of 21, at the East Coast Poker Championship.

There is not much info about his personal story that we can share with you because he was able to keep himself incognito or at least to stay private as much as he could.

From a professional perspective, he emerged as a figure in the poker society after 2010, more precisely after winning his one and only WSOP bracelet in 2013.

However, he participated in many tournaments not only in the USA but also in Asia and Europe. Bryn defeated the champion Joe McKeehen in 2016 and won over $1.5 million. Is it interesting to mention that before his poker journey, he was a skilled Magic the Gathering player.

Bryn Kenney also set the new record for the biggest prize won on poker – $20.5 million on the Triton Million for Charity Event by taking second place (players had struck a deal previously). Due to a splitting deal agreement with Zang, Kenney took the bigger prize despite his second place.

In 2020 it became evident that his total winnings from live tournaments went above $55 million, which makes him one of the most successful newcomers who deserve a place in the list of the best poker players in the world.

Justin Bonomo – ZeeJustin in Play

Justin Bonomo is another good Magic the Gathering player who switched to professional poker and won a fortune. At 19, he made his debut at the French Open – EPT.

Similar to our previous best poker player, there is not much information about his background and story. We can tell that he was born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, but currently lives in Panorama Towers in Las Vegas, and he is not a fan of monogamy, at least so far.

From a professional point of view, we can tell a lot. Less than 20 years after his debut, Justin holds 3 WSOP bracelets and assets with an overall value of over $45 million.

The first five years of his career were just the beginning of one brighter future, which appeared in the decade 2010-2020. That is the period of all of his achievements and grand prizes. In 2018, he won a stunning $10 million.

As a modern poker player, you can find him playing online at some of the best online casinos.

We can’t miss to tell you that the recent stats show that Justin Bonomo is overtaking the place of poker player number one from the famous Daniel Negreanu. This is one of the reasons why he is part of the top 7 best poker players of all time.

Other Famous Poker Players of All Times

Poker has always been a preferred game for many gamblers simply because it is played against other players, bringing the need for good skills and less luck. Many of the below-mentioned names are poker community pioneers because they proved that the game is a real professional sport. Here are some other world best poker players:

It is not secret that men mostly prefer gambling, but in the last 70 years, there are plenty of famous female poker players that rarely got the chance to shine under the spotlights. If you are curious enough, you should research names like Vanessa Selbst or Kathy Liebert and see how ladies play poker professionally.

FAQ

Many questions could pop up in your mind while thinking about the best poker players of all time. To make your life easier, we have gathered the most commonly asked questions about them and their life stories and achievements. If you want to find more info, you should hit the link in each answer.

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