The finalists for the 2011 Hall of Fame were announced yesterday. The 10 players who have the chance to get inducted this time are the following: Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, Marcel Luske, Linda Johnson, Jack mcClelland, John Juanda, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen and Huck Seed. Of the 10 nominees, 4, Greenstein, Johnson, McEvoy, and Nguyen were nominated both in 2009 and 2010.
Due to a new rule that requires the candidate to be at least 40 years old, 2010 nominees such as Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu weren't on this year's list. Anyhow, Jack mcClelland, Marcel Luske and Linda Johnson might not be so familiar to everyone, so here's some information about them.
Jack mcClelland, who's 22 years of experience working with major poker tournaments such as WSOP, is the only non-poker player among the nominees. McCleeland is today the tournament director at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Linda Johnson began playing poker already back in 1974 and she has 1 bracelet and 7 money finishes at the World Series of Poker. Johnson is know as "The first lady of Poker", a phrase coined by Mike Sexton due to her lengthy association to the game. Apart from playing poker, Johnson has been wring for Poker Magazines for about 10 years and she also founded PokerGives.org in 2008, a nonprofit organization that makes it easier for poker players to donate money to charity.
Marcel "The Flying Dutchman" Luske, born 1953, is a professional poker pro from Amsterdam, Netherlands. Luske has created a name for himself in the poker world thanks to his success at major tournaments such as WSOP and EPT. In total, his tournament winnings exceed 3,7 million dollars. Luske has appeared numerous times on different poker shows and he's know to always be wearing suits, upside-down sunglasses and singing during poker tournaments and cash games.
