The 10 best tournament players in poker history Part 1

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Published January 11th, 2013 in Poker

For this series I will take a look at a player’s earnings as well as the number of major titles they have under their belt. These raw numbers will then go under the microscope where I will adjust the results based on how many entrants the tournament had, adjust prize-money won for inflation, and examine how prolific the player was compared to their results. What I was really looking for was the following:

Consistency
Major Wins
Recognized as the best among their peers

Some players were left off for a variety of different reasons –Johnny Chan, Mike Mizrachi, and John Juanda all received consideration—but in the end I was very happy with how the list shaped up.

#10 — TJ Cloutier

TJ Cloutier was one of the game’s giants prior to the poker boom. The all-time leader in tournament wins, Cloutier has twice been a runner-up for the WSOP Main Event title, and is one of the Top 10 players in terms of career earnings adjusted for inflation according to thehendonmob.com.

Unfortunately for Cloutier all of his success came before the poker boom, and since the early 2000’s he has been little more than the brunt of a joke, detailing the foolishness in loaning TJ money due to a really bad craps habit.

Still, when you look at TJ’s career achievements it’s a very impressive list, despite doing most of his damage before the poker boom.

49 career wins
2 WSOP Main Event runner-ups
6 WSOP Bracelets

#9 — Doyle Brunson

Ranking Doyle Brunson as a tournament player is a difficult problem. Doyle was playing tournaments when starting fields made them little more than a Sit & Go. But Doyle has also prospered in virtually every era, adjusting to new conditions and proving to be one of the game’s all-time greats. Unfortunately, for most of his career, tournament poker was a secondary pursuit for Doyle, who focused on the more lucrative cash games in Las Vegas – Doyle even boycotted the WSOP for a few years when Becky Binion ousted Jack Binion from the Horseshoe.

Still, Doyle is #2 on the WSOP Bracelet list with 10 wins, two WSOP Main Event wins, as well as a WPT win and two other WPT final tables. If Doyle put more of an emphasis on tournaments I could see him challenging for the 31 spot on this list.

#8 — Gus Hansen

Gus Hansen’s resume may not rival some of the other players on this list, but Gus changed tournament poker in the early days of the Poker Boom, and considering he plays a very modest schedule of his events, his results are pretty impressive.

3-time WPT Champion
7 total WPT final tables
WSOP Bracelet
Aussie Millions Champ
Five $1,000,000 scores
13^th on the All-Time Money List with over $11 million in career earnings

#7 — Phil Ivey

Pretty much anything Phil Ivey does in poker is going to land him on an all-time list (online, live, tournaments, or cash games, it doesn’t matter) and his tournament accomplishments have really been growing in recent years. Ivey is up to 8 WSOP Bracelets, he has a win in the $250k Super-High-Roller at the 2012 Aussie Millions, and a WPT win.

#6 – Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier

Of all of the Internet era players nobody has been more successful that Bertrand Grospellier, better known as ElkY. He has some competition in the form of Scott Seiver, Sam Trickett, Eugene Katchalov, and Jason Mercier, but ElkY has a Triple Crown, and has a really impressive list of accomplishments when you look deeper into the numbers.