Who are the most famous poker players of all time? Discover the list of poker celebrities and much more information in this article.
Poker has remained one of the most popular games for years. The fact is that it requires having brilliant analytical and logical skills, as well as a bit of luck. Millions of people prefer playing this card game and even earn good money. So, who are the leading poker players you should know about? How much money do they earn? How did common people become celebrities in the field of poker? It's time to find all the truth about playing this card game and the possible incomes you can earn if you try it too.
Many of us dream of ditching our boring, soul-crushing jobs in exchange for that easier and rewarding life filled with fun, excitement, and lots of money, but of course, what kind of gig should we get to achieve that?
If poker is one of those answers, we all know too well that poker is not for everyone. But, one woman has proven that it doesn't take a very extraordinary skill to be able to make that leap from that daily humdrum world into a higher, more thrilling landscape - that if you just push yourself more and with a little luck on your side, you can flourish and make it bit doing something you don't know anything about before.
Last month, Aria High Roller regular Seyed Reza Ali Fazeli got indicted over a $6.2 million Super Bowl and World Cup ticket scam, which involved obtaining huge sums of money from investors meant to buy World Cup and Super Bowl tickets, but instead he used the cash to fund his lavish gambling and personal lifestyle.
Some of the poker world's brightest shining stars competed in the 2017 Triton Super High Roller Series Manila HK$250,000 (approx. $32.2k) 6-Max Event over the weekend. The event drew a field of 43 entries, including 8 re-entries, which generated a prize pool of HK$10,113,600. It took just about 12 hours of play on the second day to boil down a very talented field of poker pros into just one player: Daniel Colman.
Season 13 of the European Poker Tour (EPT) is currently in Barcelona, Spain, and the €50,000 buy-in Super High Roller is down to a final table of 9 players out of 102 entries (86 entrants and 16 re-entries - 3 more entries than in 2015) after 2 days of play.
A big congratulations to Erik Seidel, the winner of the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller.
The tournament drew 71 entries and Seidel received €2,015,000 (the single biggest cash of his 27-year poker career) for being the last man standing. He's now third on poker's all-time money list - ahead of both Phil Ivey and Daniel Colman.
On Sunday, the first starting day of three kicked off at Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. 183 players bought in for $10,600 each (8 more than Day 1a of last year's Main Event) and 97 players were still sitting at the tables after seven 90-minutes levels of play.
On Thursday, a massive field of 475 players went to Casino Barcelona to participate in Day 1A of the 2014 European Poker Tour Main Event! After eight 75-minute levels of play, the tournament director called it a day and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi bagged up the largest stack (186,600) amongst the 279 survivors.
The survivors from Day 1 A & B continued their play in this year's main event on Tuesday. The two fields were seated in different rooms in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino; survivors from Day 1a played in the Amazon Room while the B's were playing in the Brasilia and Pavilion rooms. Once Day 2 was concluded, approximately 700 players survived from both fields out of the +1,900 players that came through from Day 1.
The chip leaders from Day 1, Martin Jacobson and Trey Luxemburger, could not hold on to the top through Day 2 although Jocobson played very well most of the day and finished 9th on 342,700 chips. Luxemburger finished the day on 64th with a stack worth 186,800. The man that bagged the most after Day 2 is a relatively unknown player called Tim Stansifer who took over the lead with a chip count of 481,500.
This event saw 470 runners who battled it out for 3 days and 28 levels of play until a winner had been crowned. After defeating Thomas "Thunder" Keller heads up, John Kabbaj was awarded his second gold bracelet and $267,327 in prize money!
In case you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, we are happy to inform that the one million dollar buy-in event BIG ONE FOR ONE DROP will be back at the 2014 World Series of Poker after a year of absence. The event will take place over three days, from June 29 to July 1, 2014, with all play being filmed for television.
On Sunday, the final seven players returned for the 2014 Aussie Millions Main Event final table, where a massive AUD$1.6 million first prize was up for grabs! After nearly 12 hours of battle, Ami Barer of Canada was the last man standing after defeating fellow countryman Sorel Mizzi in what can be described as a record short heads-up battle.
Event #8: €25,600 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em (the final gold bracelet event at the 2013 WSOPE in Paris) saw 80 entries and only 13 players remain after two days of play. Philipp Gruissem was the only one to bag up more than a million chips at the end of Day 2. The German poker pro won a 700,000 pot with AA during Level 17 against Jason Mercier's AQ on the board Q10366. Gruissem will bring 1.269 million chips to Day 3.
On Friday, the final table of Event #5: €2,200 No Limit Hold'em began with 7 players and Erik Seidel was the chip leader. The American poker legend was looking to win his 9th WSOP bracelet and got the best possible start as he eliminated Max Greenword and Mike Watson within the first 15 hands.
Only 7 players of 337 entries remain in the €2,200 9-handed No-Limit Hold'em event after two days of action-packed poker. Erik Seidel will lead the remaining squad of players to today's final table where a first prize of €148,820 is put aside for the winner.
The European Poker Tour Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller (the first event of EPT Season 10) came to an end on Sunday with Vitaly Lunkin as the champion! The event saw 51 entries and Lunkin, a Russian poker pro with two WSOP bracelet to his name, had to overcome increadible players such as Erik Seidel, Steve O'Dwyer and David Benefield at the final table! He received his first EPT trophy and a sweet €771,300 for the amazing achievement and now "only" needs a WPT title to complete poker's Triple Crown!
Final table results: 1st Vitaly Lunkin €771,300 2nd Erik Seidel €557,100 3rd Steve O'Dwyer €355,100 4th Mike McDonald €269,400 5th David Benefield €208,150 6th Ole Schemion €159,200 7th Fabian Quoss €128,515
It's not only in Vegas that big sums of money are at stake at the moment, because today a HKD 1 million buy-in (approx. USD$130k) tournament kicks off in Macau, China. Guangdong Ltd Asia Millions (2 re-buys maximum) is hosted by PokerStars Live at the City of Dreams (PokerStars LIVE Macau) and will run until June 7, 2013, with live streams. Chinese businessman and several well known poker pros (Gus Hansen, Isaac Haxton, ElkY, Jonathan Duhamel, Erik Seidel and a few others) are due to attend the event, which is expected to become one of the biggest high roller events in history!
THE WEBCAST BROADCAST DATES: DATE: WEDNESDAY 05/06/2013 EVENT: $100,000 HKD DAY 1 START TIME: 15:00 local time in Macau (GMT +8) from level 1 END TIME: APPROX. 00:30 local time in Macau (GMT +8) to end of level 8
DATE: THURSDAY 06/06/2013 EVENT: $100,000 HKD DAY 2 START TIME: 15:00 local time in Macau (GMT +8) from level 9 approx. END TIME: APPROX. 00:30 local time in Macau (GMT +8) to 8 players
DATE: FRIDAY 07/06/2013 EVENT: $100,000 HKD DAY 3 FINAL TABLE START TIME: 15:00 local time in Macau (GMT +8) from level 1 approx. END TIME: APPROX. 21:30 local time in Macau (GMT +8) to winner
While most poker players think €100,000 is an awful lot of money, there are some who have the bankroll to use it for a single tournament. On Monday, the 2013 EPT Monaco Super High Roller (€100k buy-in) kicked off and saw, believe it or not, 48 entries. Phil Ivey was in for two bullets, but still he wasn't among the 29 players who survived the day.
Jason Mercier had better "luck" than Mr. Ivey. He bagged up 1,183,000 chips and has about 1 million more than his closest opponent - Sorel Mizzi. Here are few other big names who made it through Day 1: Viktor Blom, Sam Trickett, Erik Seidel, Faraz Jaka and Scott Seiver.
There's €4,900,000 in the prize pool at the moment, but most probably it will pass the 5 million mark today as registration close at noon. It will be interesting to see if Phil Ivey makes another attempt!
The season XI World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star main event ended up as the record for field size at this tour stop (643 players). Last Friday, after 5 days of play, the field had been narrowed down to a final table with the following 6 players:
Seat 1. Joe Nguyen - 2,175,000 (72 bb) Seat 2. Erik Seidel - 3,435,000 (114 bb) Seat 3. Chris Johnson - 2,740,000 (91 bb) Seat 4. Paul Volpe - 5,525,000 (184 bb) Seat 5. Kai Chang - 2,590,000 (86 bb) Seat 6. Joe Kuether - 2,830,000 (94 bb)
Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star saw a field of 44 players play down to a final table of 6. Paul Volpe finished second in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic main event last week and now has another chance to lay hands on his first WPT title.
The second day of World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star is over and now there are only 44 players left , all of whom are guaranteed $16,890 each. Paul Volpe, a well-known online grinder who finished second in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic last week, is in a decent lead with 1,394,00. In fact, his closest opponent, Brendon Rubie, has less than 900k.
Volpe is not the only poker star who's doing well. Mario Ho, Antonio Esfandiari and Erik Seidel all have about 800,000 chips and all are looking very strong. It will be interesting to see how Day 3 plays out. Right now it looks like we have some big names on the final table - where a $1,138,350 first prize is up for grabs!
On Monday, the first starting day of World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star (San Jose, California) kicked off with 270 players. The field included some of the biggest stars in the game of poker, however, only 109 made it through the day and, unfortunately, many big names hit the rail: Phil Hellmuth (picture), Daniel Negreanu, Michael Mizrachi, Scotty Nguyen, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst (to mention a few).
While most of the poker world focused on WSOP Europe and PokerStars' WCOOP last week, a £100,000 buy-in tournament took place at Aspinalls, a private gaming club in London, England. Among the 21-players to show up for the expensive tournament were Phil Ivey, Sam Trickett, JC tran, Erik Seidel, Tobias Reinkeier etc.
Some of the biggest stars in the poker world are in Macau at the moment. The reason for this is that the Macau High Stakes Challenge, a $258,000 buy-in tournament with an optional rebuy, is starting today, with the winner potentially recieving about $5 million dollars.
The tournament will be played at StarWorld Hotel and Casino's Poker King Club and according to Sam Trickett, 80 players had registered for the tournament yesterday, including Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Joe Hachem. Trickett will also take part in the tournament. It might be a very expensive week for him if he doesn't get into the money since he just purchased a Ferrari 458 Spider with a price of approximately $257,000.
The long-anticpated Super High Roller in Barcelona, Spain, is now just 1 hour away and lots of well-known faces in the poker world are getting ready to compete for some serious cash, including Phil Ivey, Jonathan Duhamel, ElkY, Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, John Juanda and Erik Seidel.
According to the latest updates, Nearly 50 players are confirmed to be registered for this brand new event, which is set to become the largest poker tournament ever held on Spanish ground. The event will be played over the next 3 days and players will begin with 250,000 chips each. The blinds will start at 500/1000 (100 ante) and all levels will last an hour.
Tony G is back with yet another trash-talking video. This time it's Erik Seidel, who Tony G knocked out from the PartyPoker Premier League V, who gets a taste of Tony G's sarcastic humor.
Erik Seidel, who had outstanding tournament results last year, has dropped 2 positions since last week on the Global Poker Index. The main reason for this drop is due to his 2nd place finish in the Epic Poker League $20,000 NLHE 6-Max Main Event aging into Period 2.
Global Poker Index released a new list of the top 300 tournament poker players the other day. GPI used a formula that takes a player's result over the six half-year periods . Erik Seidel, as usual, holds the the Number 1 position, and close behind him are Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Jason Mercier.
The field has been narrowed down even further as another day of the WSOP Europe Main Event is over. The 25 remaining players will now fight for a seat at the final table where some serious cash is up for grabs. Leading the field is Max Silver, from UK, with 1,769,00, and close behind him his fellow counterman Chris Moorman with 1,769,000 chips.
Another day of the WSOP Europe Main Event is now in the books, and today, when play continues, 115 players will continue the long road towards the final table. In a quite big lead are two Americans, Constand Rijkenberg with 462,800 chips and Hoyt Corkins with 429,900 chips. In 4th place is Jake Cody with 323k, and in 9th place is Erik Seidel with 291,900. Another 2 big names that made it through Day 2 with plenty of chips are Patrik Antonius (23rd place - 228k) and Liv Boeree (202,300).
The total prize pool is €5,692,800 and 64 players will receive a share from it. The winner will get amazing €1,400,000, and the runner-up will get €800,000.
Yesterday the second day of the €10,400 NLH Split tournament of WSOP Europe was played. And once the day came to an end the field of 72 players had been narrowed down to 16 in the 6-max format. The remaining players are now guaranteed at least €28,831 each and the first prize is amazing €336,008. Erik Seidel, Jason Mercier, Matt Waxman, Michael Mizrachi and Brian Hastings are among the 16 players that will return to the tables today and play Day 3. So, one can expect the rest of the tournament to be very exciting.
It took all night before the Epic Poker League 8-Max tournament (Main Event - $20,000 buy-in) had a winner, Mike "TimeX" McDonald. In the final hand McDonald called David Steickes all in with A4. Steicke had K2, and neither of them hit anything on the table so McDonald took home the tournament with Ace kicker.
The second ever Epic Poker League Main Event is down to a final table, and, as you can see below, it's not lacking in talented and well-known players. However, the biggest name on the final table is Erik Seidel who's had an amazing live tournament year. Seidel will bring 1,031,000 chips to the final table - only David Steicke has more chips - 1,059,000. Steicke and Isaac Baron (3rd place - 876,000 chips) will most probably be Seidel's biggest threats on the final table.
Day 3 of the EPL Main Event is over and the final table is now set! Hasan Habib, who had the second biggest stack at the beginning of Day 3, is the one who will bring the biggest stack to the final table, which will be played 2pm local time at The Palms Casino in Las Vegas. It's an extremely good final table we will get to watch today. Just have a look at the final table seating and chip count below and you understand what I mean.
In case you missed it: The Epic Poker League Main Event ($20,000 buy-in) is being played in Las Vegas at the moment. Two days are already in the books and 18 of 137 players will return tomorrow and play Day 3. All of these players are guaranteed at least $43,190 each, and the winner will get just about $1 million. The big favorite to take home the first prize at the moment is Sam Trickett, from UK, who has taken a huge lead!
The WPT Super High Roller was the first-ever event with a $100,000 buy-in in the U.S, and the turnout was a huge success! Not less than 29 players entered the tournament and made it one of the most interesting & thrilling tournaments in WPT history.
Bonomo, Rajkumar, Negreanu, Lindgren and Seidel made it to the final table after several hours of play. Of these players, Erik Seidel and Erick Lindgren ended up playing heads-up. However, during level 20, both players decided to take a break and continue the day after (Friday).
Erick Lindgren and Erik Seidel are the last 2 players in the WPT World Championship Super High Roller event at Bellagio in Las Vegas. Yesterday, during level 20, tournament director Jack McClelland gave Seidel and Lindgren the option to play it out or take a break and continue the day after. Both players agreed that they would prefer to take a break.
Today at 12:30pm the heads-up will resume. It will for sure be a very thrilling match to follow since both players are extremely good and have plenty of chips to gamble with. And of course the first place prize of $1,092,780 adds to the thrill!
Here are the chip stacks they will be returning to: Erik Seidel - 7,120,000 (71 BBs) Erick Lindgren - 4,480,000 (45 BBs)
Last night the American poker pro Erik Seidel won the NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship and received a first place prize of $750,000! Thanks to the huge win, Erik Seidel also overtook the lead from Daniel Negreanu on the All Time Money List.
2011 has been a fantastic year for Erik Seidel so far. He has won more in these 2,5 months than he has won in a whole year before. Let's now hope that Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey haven't given up for the fight for the top spot on the All Time Money List!
2011 has started in the best possible way for the American poker pro Erik Seidel. Already has he made it to the final table in not less than 6 major poker tournaments and won some serious cash! However, the win at the WPT LA Poker Classics High Roller event, which was played a few days ago, must have been very special to him as he overtook Phil Ivey on Poker's All Time Money List.
Erik Seidel has now won $13,95 millions (50k more than Phil Ivey) and is now "only" $160,000 behind the leader, Daniel Negreanu. It will be interesting to see how this list will look at the end of the year. The top players in the poker world play so many tournaments, with large buy-ins, that it might change just in a week or two. Yes, when 2011 kicked off, Phil Ivey was in the lead. Now, only 2 months later, both Negreanu and Seidel have passed him.
Everyone has been talking about the the super high roller event with a massive buy-in of $250,000 at this year's Aussie Millions. First it was meant to be a heads-up event, then an 8-game mixed event, and finally the tournament crew decided that it was going to be a single table no-limit hold'em tournament. Not less than 20 players signed up for the tournament and created a prize pool of stunning $5 million dollars. The field included poker gods such as Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, John Juanda, Daniel "jungleman12" Cates and Annette Obrestad.
Mike Sexton was the only person to get inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame last year. This year, 10 players players were nominated and 2 of them were chosen by the 16 living hall of fame members and a selected group of media members based upon five criteria:
A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
Played for high stakes
Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
Stood the test of time
Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.
Day 1 of Tournament of Champions is now in the books. 22 of 27 players (20 of them chosen by popular vote) have survived and made it to the second starting day. In the top of the field is Erik Seidel (72,075) closely followed by Johnny Chan (71,325) and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow (70,575). I must say that it was a quite entertaining first day of the tournament.
Many great plays, bluffs and lay downs is what we got to see in the first day of the tournament. But maybe this is what to expect when the poker world's elite are playing cards? I'm sure that day 2 of the tournament will be as interesting as the first one, and I hope that "The Mouth" will make it far in the tournament! Not because he's the best poker player, but because he's a great entertainer at the poker table! :)
The 64-player starting field at the NBC national Heads-up championship was filled with the biggest names in the poker world today. Even for someone who hasn't followed poker for all that long - most of the players who took part in this tournament must be familiar. Anyhow, even though the starting field was dominated by men, it came to be a women who took down the tournament. Annie Duke played focused, concentrated and showed no fair against any player she was up against from the very first hand she played. However, she had a really, really hard road to walk since she was up against some of the world's best HU poker players.
Anyhow, in the final, Annie Duke was up against the poker legend Erik Seidel who has won not less than 8 WSOP Bracelets. Just like Annie Duke, Erik had played great poker from the very first hand in the tournament. However, Erik had also crushed some of his opponents on the way to the final table (for example: Peter Eastgate - 2008 WSOP Main Event champ) and earned lots and lots of respect as he proved to be extremely good at playing heads-up.
After a very though duel between the 6 last remaining players on the final table it came to be Team PokerStars Pro, Alexandre Gomes who took home the tournament and the first prize of $1,187,670. Erik Seidel didn't manage to keep the good flow he had earlier in the tournament and he was the first player that had to leave the final table.
Now there are only 6 players left in WPT Bellagio Cup. Of these 6 players we find no less than Erik Seidel, a man that already has won the most a poker player can win in his life (8 WSOP bracelets and a WPT title for example). Now he's aiming for another win as he is one of the last 6 remaining players.
Many of us dream of ditching our boring, soul-crushing jobs in exchange for that easier and rewarding life filled with fun, excitement, and lots of money, but of course, what kind of gig should we get to achieve that?
Last month, Aria High Roller regular Seyed Reza Ali Fazeli got indicted over a $6.2 million Super Bowl and World Cup ticket scam, which involved obtaining huge sums of money from investors meant to buy World Cup and Super Bowl tickets, but instead he used the cash to fund his lavish gambling and personal lifestyle.
Some of the poker world's brightest shining stars competed in the 2017 Triton Super High Roller Series Manila HK$250,000 (approx. $32.2k) 6-Max Event over the weekend. The event drew a field of 43 entries, including 8 re-entries, which generated a prize pool of HK$10,113,600. It took just about 12 hours of play on the second day to boil down a very talented field of poker pros into just one player: Daniel Colman.
Season 13 of the European Poker Tour (EPT) is currently in Barcelona, Spain, and the €50,000 buy-in Super High Roller is down to a final table of 9 players out of 102 entries (86 entrants and 16 re-entries - 3 more entries than in 2015) after 2 days of play.
A big congratulations to Erik Seidel, the winner of the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller.
Main Event
On Thursday, a massive field of 475 players went to Casino Barcelona to participate in Day 1A of the 2014 European Poker Tour Main Event! After eight 75-minute levels of play, the tournament director called it a day and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi bagged up the largest stack (186,600) amongst the 279 survivors.
The survivors from Day 1 A & B continued their play in this year's main event on Tuesday. The two fields were seated in different rooms in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino; survivors from Day 1a played in the Amazon Room while the B's were playing in the Brasilia and Pavilion rooms. Once Day 2 was concluded, approximately 700 players survived from both fields out of the +1,900 players that came through from Day 1.
This event saw 470 runners who battled it out for 3 days and 28 levels of play until a winner had been crowned. After defeating Thomas "Thunder" Keller heads up, John Kabbaj was awarded his second gold bracelet and $267,327 in prize money!
In case you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, we are happy to inform that the one million dollar buy-in event BIG ONE FOR ONE DROP will be back at the 2014 World Series of Poker after a year of absence. The event will take place over three days, from June 29 to July 1, 2014, with all play being filmed for television.
Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star saw a field of 44 players play down to a final table of 6. Paul Volpe finished second in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic main event last week and now has another chance to lay hands on his first WPT title.
