Stu dominated the major big buy in tourns he played and he didnt play too many of them.
Winning multiple wsop mains and the other main poker tourn, the superbowl of poker multiple times.
He won the main 3 times and if he hadn't ODed and was blinded off but still made the Main final table because he had such a huge stack, lol, would have won it a fourth time.
Nobody ever won it 3 times, not even Moss who was the dominate nlh player of his time.
Nobody has come close to Stu and never will because there isnt a huge skill gap between todays tourn crushers like the one befween Stu and the top pros of yesterday.
Nobody on the Op list has come close and some of them had a chance to play in major big tourns before the boom and didnt do what stu did so Im not buying the tourn numbers greatly increased stuff either.
It would be like telling the Grinder after winning the main and the other major tourn he won this year at the Wsop, good job, now go do it a few more times and here's the Stu qualififer: only play in a limited amount of the thise big buy in tourns.
You can argue about Michaels performance in tbe Players championship is Stu like but what about in all of the Wpt, Wsop etc over the decades now, where hes won some titles here and there but has played countless big buy in tourns.
And Im not knocking the huge achievements of Michaels long list of awesome achievements that a lot of ppl would give their first born for lol but comparing the awesome achievements of michael this year still do not come close to like Stu dominating the fields in his day.
The answer is Stu.
Winning multiple wsop mains and the other main poker tourn, the superbowl of poker multiple times.
He won the main 3 times and if he hadn't ODed and was blinded off but still made the Main final table because he had such a huge stack, lol, would have won it a fourth time.
Nobody ever won it 3 times, not even Moss who was the dominate nlh player of his time.
Nobody has come close to Stu and never will because there isnt a huge skill gap between todays tourn crushers like the one befween Stu and the top pros of yesterday.
Nobody on the Op list has come close and some of them had a chance to play in major big tourns before the boom and didnt do what stu did so Im not buying the tourn numbers greatly increased stuff either.
It would be like telling the Grinder after winning the main and the other major tourn he won this year at the Wsop, good job, now go do it a few more times and here's the Stu qualififer: only play in a limited amount of the thise big buy in tourns.
You can argue about Michaels performance in tbe Players championship is Stu like but what about in all of the Wpt, Wsop etc over the decades now, where hes won some titles here and there but has played countless big buy in tourns.
And Im not knocking the huge achievements of Michaels long list of awesome achievements that a lot of ppl would give their first born for lol but comparing the awesome achievements of michael this year still do not come close to like Stu dominating the fields in his day.
The answer is Stu.
In my opinion, it’s really hard to pick just one, because playing styles change over the years. But I really admire Phil Ivey for his calmness, technique, and ability to read opponents like very few can. At the same time, Daniel Negreanu is amazing at talking at the table and “extracting” information. Each of them has their own brilliance.
Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel are a great starting point
The real difficulty in evaluating poker lies in its situational nature. Everything depends on context—whether you're talking about a specific time period, cash games versus tournaments, WSOP bracelets, buy-in sizes, field sizes, or even the specific variant of the game. Each of these factors dramatically influences the level of competition, strategy required, and overall complexity. There's no single standard by which to measure poker's difficulty—it all depends on the circumstances.
The real difficulty in evaluating poker lies in its situational nature. Everything depends on context—whether you're talking about a specific time period, cash games versus tournaments, WSOP bracelets, buy-in sizes, field sizes, or even the specific variant of the game. Each of these factors dramatically influences the level of competition, strategy required, and overall complexity. There's no single standard by which to measure poker's difficulty—it all depends on the circumstances.