Nine Finalists for Poker Hall of Fame Announced

The ballot for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame is now officially released, and the list of ten players that the public nominated has now been whittled down to … nine.

That’s right, for some reason the PHOF decided to axe Tom Dwan from the list of nominees, a nifty two-step around the ‘public’ nomination process that was meant to generate the list of possible inductees this year. The official word on Dwan’s removal: “With all due respect to Mr. Dwan, one of the games most exciting young players, he does not currently meet the criteria for Hall of Fame selection. We wish him well and expect he will again be considered once he has ‘stood the test of time.’”

Seems like that’s something the voters could have decided for themselves. Anyhow, the list as it now stands:

Barry Greenstein
Dan Harrington
Phil Ivey
Tom McEvoy
Men Nguyen
Scotty Nguyen
Daniel Negreanu
Erik Seidel
Mike Sexton

This list is now sent to the fifteen living current members of the HOF and fifteen media members. Each gets two votes, and any nominee that gets chosen by 75%+ of the panel gets in. The inductees will be announced Saturday, Nov. 7 during a break from the WSOP Main Event final table.

The one guy that everyone seems to agree on: Mike Sexton. It’s hard to discount the role Sexton played in the poker boom of the early 2000’s through his work with Party and the WPT. While online poker would have likely taken off in the US without Sexton’s help, the magnitude and immediacy of the public immersion in the game is largely to his credit. Doyle Brunson, who holds a vote, agrees: “If he isn’t one of the people selected, something is wrong. I know of 3 votes from the living members at the HOF that Mike will get. Binion and Crandell Addington both assure me Mike will be their 1st choice, also.”

Some names likely to generate controversy: Men Nguyen and Scotty Nguyen. Men has been dogged by reports of cheating during various points in his career, and Scotty’s ‘loveable drunk’ persona really took a hit with his behavior, caught on camera in excruciating detail, in the 2008 WSOP.

Names likely to arrive DOA: Tom McEvoy, who really only rolled onto the list thanks to a big push from PokerStars, and Daniel Negreanu, who’s a bit too young and hasn’t had the sort of recent success that might override that issue in the minds of some voters.

Just like the baseball hall, there are no clear brightlines for what constitutes a HOF career in the poker world. Instead, voters are directed by a few basic, vague guidelines that they can obviously override in favor of personal preference. Those guidelines are:

(1) Must have played against top competition.
(2) Played for high stakes.
(3) Played consistently well, gaining respect of their peers.
(4) Stood the test of time.

For non-players:

(5) Contributed to the overall growth and success of poker with positive and lasting results.

You can’t see Dwan in the PHOF, but you can watch him on Full Tilt Poker. Read this before creating an account at Full Tilt Poker.