Poker News Daily asked me for my thoughts about the ten finalists for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame. This caused me some angst as I decided what criteria I should use in giving my input.
I mean, let’s consider the Baseball Hall of Fame. Back in my youth, I lived and breathed baseball, so I know a little about the game. There are some interesting problems that come up in selecting candidates there. For instance, people still argue whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. His results on the field are beyond dispute, but then he sullied the entire game with his subsequent gambling problems.
As I thought about that, I decided that if I had a vote (which I don’t), I would have to include a component that I wasn’t embarrassed to see that person in the Hall of Fame, no matter what his or her accomplishments were on the felt. If it helps gauge my attitude about this, in my record book, Hank Aaron is the home run leader.
So here are this year’s candidates, broken into a few groups.
Ship them this year, please
Chris Ferguson: Chris is arguably the most recognizable poker player in the world (who doesn’t live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). He helped develop the software for Full Tilt and via his sponsorship by them has appeared on what seems like virtually every poker TV show in history. And he’s got five bracelets. Chris is soft-spoken and a bit of an introvert, but he is always pleasant and polite with the fans that surround him begging for autographs.
Dan Harrington: Another guy who has been around forever and has made himself relevant at the tables and as a writer. It is strong enough that he won the 1995 WSOP Main Event. However, his back-to-back final tables in the 2003 and 2004 Main Events, the latter of which had a post-boom field of 2,576 players, may make him the “Johnny Vander Meer of Poker.”
While many others had reached consecutive final tables in the sub-100 player fields of the early days, Harrington may well be the only person who will ever do it when the average field of the two consecutive events was over 1,500. Away from the tables, Dan has been a prolific and highly influential writer, perhaps best known for quantifying the “M” value of stack size in a tournament.
Linda Johnson: Linda isn’t a regular participant in the tournament tour (she’s too busy running poker cruises), so you’re not going to see her racking up a room full of tournament trophies, her bracelet in Razz notwithstanding. But her true value to the game has been twofold:
1. She nurtured the game through its dark times and never slowed down after the boom. Even with her busy schedule, she hosts poker meetings, answers e-mail questions about poker, makes appearances, teaches classes, and acts as the ultimate poker ambassador.
2. Her generosity, both through poker and outside of it, is unimaginable. Linda and I are friends and much of what she does is under the radar. She has shared her good fortune with more people than anybody (including her) could count.
Tom McEvoy: Tom won the WSOP Main Event 27 years ago. And then last year he won a made-for-TV tournament of former champions. He still cashes in major events and made himself relevant in the online poker world early with his representation of PokerStars. On the ambassador front, he is unfailingly polite and gracious (and in fact was one of the first people to push for non-smoking poker tournaments).
Erik Seidel: Erik is my sleeper. He is one of those folks (along with Barry Greenstein) who truly understands poker’s place in the greater world. He’s got a family and spends enough time away from them with his Full Tilt duties as it is. So, he doesn’t choose to play in every cash game and TV show that he could. In short, if Erik Seidel devoted every waking minute to poker and promoting himself, the writers would be climbing all over each other to vote for him.
His famous battle with Johnny Chan was in the 1988 WSOP Main Event – 22 years ago – and he’s won eight bracelets since. In short, I suspect that poker Hall of Famedom is not high on Erik’s list of life priorities. Sort of the “Cal Ripken of Poker,” Erik has simply gone out and done his job, incredibly well, for over two decades. Oh, and he’s been a gentleman throughout, from the baseball cap right down to the running shoes. I’d stand up and cheer at his Hall of Fame induction.
Just wait, they’ll be in
Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, and Jennifer Harman: These three are getting in – it may just take a little time. The internet has made time compress, but remember we’re talking the Hall of Fame, not All-Star, balloting here. For instance, unless a meteor strikes the Earth and envelops the planet in a two-year smoke cloud that destroys life as we know it, Phil Ivey is going into the Poker Hall of Fame at some point. But another five years won’t change that and will likely only add to his already near-immortal resume.
Greenstein and Harman have been mixing it up in the biggest poker games in the world for the last decade or so; they have no difficulty there. And Harman was the go-to person when the big game denizens needed help in their match against Andy Beal. Furthermore, both have recently turned their attention to charitable work – that’s huge in my book. I just want to let their cakes bake a little while longer.
Honorable mention
Scotty Nguyen: Forgive me, but his antics take him off my list (as they did for fellow PND writer Dan Cypra). Scotty certainly has the poker (and crowd-attracting) chops to get into the Hall of Fame, but until he gets his behavior under control, he’s not on my list.
Daniel Negreanu: So I really like Daniel. He’s a great guy and fun to talk to. And given another few years, his tournament and cash game record would almost certainly merit Hall of Fame consideration. But he needs to learn to control his rants. Maybe that means realizing that he doesn’t really have “off the record” as an option when he’s standing around a reporter. Perhaps it’s just letting some old stuff fade out of his life and fully embracing the extraordinary fortune that the game of poker has brought him. I’m not sure, but I hope he’ll find whatever it is.
Lee Jones is the Card Room Manager for Cake Poker and has been in the online poker business since 2003. He is also the author of “Winning Low Limit Hold’em,” which is still in publication over 15 years after its first printing.