best poker players

Max Rofls

Lol @ Michael Mizrachi. What I hear from other pro players is that its a fish on a heater , probably still better than us, but they always say they aren't under the impression of how he plays.

And most have won their bracelets in SNG type of MTT's as well with like less than 200 players.

Alot of votes for Hellmuth. I think he is good, but he has a terrible attitude.

My favorite player is Daniel Negreanu. He seems to have a great attitude, and he is really good at reading people.

Second would be Antonio Esfandiari. He just won that big drop or whatever the heck it's called for 18 million. Nice win right.....

T-Dubs82 said:

#3 is for lulz right?

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Lol exactly what I was thinking.

Beanfacekilla said:

Alot of votes for Hellmuth. I think he is good, but he has a terrible attitude.

My favorite player is Daniel Negreanu. He seems to have a great attitude, and he is really good at reading people.

Second would be Antonio Esfandiari. He just won that big drop or whatever the heck it's called for 18 million. Nice win right.....

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Best ever joke i saw about Helmuth was:

I want to make a Phil Hellmuth pull string doll, all its little lines it says are:

****!

This is unbelievable!?

****ing amateurs!

Is this ****ing for real!

I don't know why I play poker anymore!

This is ridiculous!

Unreal!

Idiots!

MaDaMan said:

Best ever joke i saw about Helmuth was:

I want to make a Phil Hellmuth pull string doll, all its little lines it says are:

****!

This is unbelievable!?

****ing amateurs!

Is this ****ing for real!

I don't know why I play poker anymore!

This is ridiculous!

Unreal!

Idiots!

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Lol. That is stuff he says for sure.

What ivey does is poetry. Im surprised nobody mentioned phil Lakk. One of my favs.

Any amateur poker player that can win a $40 online buy in satellite to the wsop main event tourney & win 1st place,then take home 2.5 million gets my vote.

There are a lot of hsnl online pros that are better than 90% of the people listed in this thread. The guys sitting 5knl+ on a daily basis waiting to play anyone are better than pretty much anyone who spends their time traveling the tournament circuit.

On that note why has isildur not been mentioned? He plays a ton of games, he's world-class at HUNL, but seems to just crush all the top regs at whatever game he chooses to play and is just absolutely fearless.

Also gonna be a rebel here and challenge people to actually back up Ivey being the best in the world. He's run hot over a super-small sample at nosebleed online cash as well as tournaments. He's obviously very good and at a lot of games but has he ever even played anyone super-tough? He played in 500/1k when Guy was donating to the games did he ever play anyone else world-class over a biggish sample at nosebleeds? It's clear he's nowhere near the top at HUNL today is there any proof he's near the top in other games?

Don't get me wrong I'm not hating on him but the amount of people in here and in the poker world in general who just take it as gospel that Ivey=god actually perplexes me a bit. He's clearly good but is there really any proof that he's better than the other really good high-stakes players?

Oh one more thing OP you should clarify do you mean who is a favorite to win the most money or who has the best poker skills? Because those are two very different things. A gto bot would be better than any single player in the entire world but Hellmuth, someone considered a fish at hsnl cash would probably be able to use his abilities to exploit fish better and have a higher winrate in soft games, for example live tournaments. Hellmuth takes a lot of shit but he's pretty good at game selection, making an image, and then using it to exploit recreational players a lot, even if he does it by being a huge dick.

MaDaMan said:

Best ever joke i saw about Helmuth was:

I want to make a Phil Hellmuth pull string doll, all its little lines it says are:

****!

This is unbelievable!?

****ing amateurs!

Is this ****ing for real!


I don't know why I play poker anymore!

This is ridiculous!

Unreal!

Idiots!

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Build the doll.Ebay the doll. They will come.

Ivey is easily number one...and the larger the win rate, the smaller the sample has to be to become statistically meaningful. That isnt to say I would make the Ivery case solely on online cash results, I wouldnt.

He also consistently is named by the world's best as the world's top player...not a small piece of the puzzle...

He also has dominated live donkaments in all forms of the game no one has before...and is amazing at NLH too.

He also survived in the largest live games where all games were played for a decade in his early to mid 20s--30s.

I could keep going, but the onus really becomes on a rival claim at this point all things being considered...

Who would be considered better than Ivey, ALL GAMES BEING CONSIDERED?

P.S.

Im going to go ahead and guess John Monette hasnt been mentioned....that is a shame imho.

p.p.s.

Any mention of someone who has solely been successful in donkaments is obviously ridiculous on its face....the best poker players either play a mix of donkaments(mostly the majors/WSOP) and cash or predominantly case.

Why, bc there is a zillion times as much EV in playing a 2/4k mixed game every day at the Commerce than in jetting off all over Europe and the US trying to cash a golden ticket and incurring thousands of ancillary expenses at each stop.

Im not saying the lifestyle isnt bawws as heck, but as far as just making money, live high buying donkaments outside the WSOP are less and less profitable to the vast majority of players.

A2345Razz said:

Ivey is easily number one...and the larger the win rate, the smaller the sample has to be to become statistically meaningful. That isnt to say I would make the Ivery case solely on online cash results, I wouldnt.

He also consistently is named by the world's best as the world's top player...not a small piece of the puzzle...

He also has dominated live donkaments in all forms of the game no one has before...and is amazing at NLH too.

He also survived in the largest live games where all games were played for a decade in his early to mid 20s--30s.

I could keep going, but the onus really becomes on a rival claim at this point all things being considered...

Who would be considered better than Ivey, ALL GAMES BEING CONSIDERED?

P.S.

Im going to go ahead and guess John Monette hasnt been mentioned....that is a shame imho.

p.p.s.

Any mention of someone who has solely been successful in donkaments is obviously ridiculous on its face....the best poker players either play a mix of donkaments(mostly the majors/WSOP) and cash or predominantly case.

Why, bc there is a zillion times as much EV in playing a 2/4k mixed game every day at the Commerce than in jetting off all over Europe and the US trying to cash a golden ticket and incurring thousands of ancillary expenses at each stop.

Im not saying the lifestyle isnt bawws as heck, but as far as just making money, live high buying donkaments outside the WSOP are less and less profitable to the vast majority of players.

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Not sure how complete PTR tracking is, but as far as nlhe it has Ivey with a 2.63ptbb winrate over 41k hands, and a lot of those hands are at cap where variance is absurd and a lot of those hands are with Guy, a fish who just came in and donated millions.

Again I'm not saying he's bad or anything, but there's just no proof he's the best of all time, especially by a large margin as people everywhere seem to accept. Donkament results from 10 years ago are all but irrelevant and if you only include results from when they were relevant no one will have a reasonable sample size. It's obvious he's not a fish, it's obvious he's good, no one denies that. But to say he's not just the best player but far and away the best player in the world?

I'll go out on a limb and say isildur is better than he is at poker right now if you need a name.

Also I can't prove this because Ivey hasn't played HUNL in forever but I'd bet these days Ivey would be considered a fish at HUNL and that the top players like isildur, sauce, kanu, ike, etc. would pounce at the opportunity to play him.

Well of course Antonio Esfandiari at $23,257,484 is the top money maker as for Ive he sitting at 6th place with $14,660,084 which is just above The Grinder at $14,062,590.

offrdmom said:

Well of course Antonio Esfandiari at $23,257,484 is the top money maker as for Ive he sitting at 6th place with $14,660,084 which is just above The Grinder at $14,062,590.

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Money won in my opinion is not a good indicator as the best poker players. If so you'd have to say Jamie Gold is one of the top.

nc_royals said:

Money won in my opinion is not a good indicator as the best poker players. If so you'd have to say Jamie Gold is one of the top.

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Jaime Gold..... right.

hackmeplz said:

Not sure how complete PTR tracking is, but as far as nlhe it has Ivey with a 2.63ptbb winrate over 41k hands, and a lot of those hands are at cap where variance is absurd and a lot of those hands are with Guy, a fish who just came in and donated millions.

Again I'm not saying he's bad or anything, but there's just no proof he's the best of all time, especially by a large margin as people everywhere seem to accept. Donkament results from 10 years ago are all but irrelevant and if you only include results from when they were relevant no one will have a reasonable sample size. It's obvious he's not a fish, it's obvious he's good, no one denies that. But to say he's not just the best player but far and away the best player in the world?

I'll go out on a limb and say isildur is better than he is at poker right now if you need a name.

Also I can't prove this because Ivey hasn't played HUNL in forever but I'd bet these days Ivey would be considered a fish at HUNL and that the top players like isildur, sauce, kanu, ike, etc. would pounce at the opportunity to play him.

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1) HU NL is one mode of one form of poker....while I would agree that 5-6 yrs ago many of the most talented young guns became HU players bc of the win rates possible, that is less and less the case with each passing yr.

HU NL isnt the most important game to master anymore...and just getting action past mid stakes can be a grind.

2) PTR isnt complete or accurate...Ivey is the #1 winner in the history of online poker, period. You can spin this or try to manipulate numbers with all sorts of calculations, but no one quibbles with the fact that he is the number 1 earner online of all times.

3) So what his online HU game isnt top notch if he just jumped into them without practicing.

I GUARANTEE YOU his mixed game performance would be 10000x better than HU NL specialist even if his HU game would take a few months to ramp up.

4) Are you joking about MTT results being old/outdated...the guy is pprobably one of the most dominant all around donkament players since 2003(post boom) without having to grind the circuit.

He is the world's best HORSE MTTer....almost without a doubt.

He is once of the top 3-5 Draw MTTer.....almost without a doubt.

He is a top 10 stud variant MTTer....almost without a doubt.

5) Quite simply you've proven our point by being several posts and hundred of words in this debate without putting forward ONE VIABLE alternative!!!

Spit it out....

Who would it be???

p.s.

If your point is that we cannot be 100% certain of Ivey being the world's best, fine, that is an obvious part of poker with its live cash games, unknowable ROI in donkaments....etc.

I said isildur as one alternative. When I consider who's better though I'd expect them to be able to beat everyone else HU. So at nlhe I'd pick the guy who can crush everyone at HUNL over the guy who wins the most mtts. I don't know enough about the other games to judge.

Anyway my point was I could probably be wrong, you seem to know way more than I do about the other games, but a lot of people just blindly accept him being the best without proof. I was just asking for some evidence to back up that statement. Thanks.

hackmeplz said:

I said isildur as one alternative. When I consider who's better though I'd expect them to be able to beat everyone else HU. So at nlhe I'd pick the guy who can crush everyone at HUNL over the guy who wins the most mtts. I don't know enough about the other games to judge.

Anyway my point was I could probably be wrong, you seem to know way more than I do about the other games, but a lot of people just blindly accept him being the best without proof. I was just asking for some evidence to back up that statement. Thanks.

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Can you explain how this would be the case when 99.% of poker is not played HU....and many poker games arent really suited for HU play?

It is a completely nonsensical statement.

The best player is effectively the best HU player?

Lolwhut?

Isildur has done absolutely nothing in MTTs except win a small field high roller...nice win but hardly meaningful at all.

Isildur has just started playing draw games, so....I wont comment.

Isnt Isildur like the biggest loser in online PLO in history, lol?

I love Isildur, I think Isildur has almost limitless potential in SH/HU NLH...and probably even MTT play if he can change gears at all.

I think putting forth a guy who wasn't even clearly up in poker lifetime a few months ago as the world's best poker player is pretty LOL.

nc_royals said:

Money won in my opinion is not a good indicator as the best poker players. If so you'd have to say Jamie Gold is one of the top.

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Honestly if he played more he be one of the top dog.. Malibu beach body ready..dude
Go Go Go for Da Gold!!!!!!!

1.Phil Hellmuth 2. Phil Ivey 3.Eric Seidel 4. Daniel Negreanu 5. Vanessa Selbst

Seraphim said:

Lol ok so this is the best players right now correct? no offense to chan but he is not a top 5 player right now cause I'm pretty sure he hardly plays anymore but maybe I'm wrong. My list is based on overall not just tournys
1.ivey
2.selbst
3.durr
4.merson
5.seiver

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I agree but flip Seiver with Selbst

Shaun Deeb
Moorman1

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I gotta give Vanessa Selbst credit cuz she's a chick! lol I love the fact that she has poker balls bigger than most guys! :vroam: