The Poker Hall of Fame is something that every poker player dreams of, but very few are able to accomplish. The likes of Phil Hellmuth, Dan Harrington, Stu Ungar, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Erik Seidel, and a few select other players have made it into the Hall. In total, there are 40 players in the Hall of Fame, and now 42 with the addition of the two newest Hall of Famers.
When it comes to deciding how people make it into the Hall of Fame, there are more factors than just how much money they have won. For example, Benny Binion is the founder of the WSOP, and Henry Orenstein holds the patent for being the creator of the hole card cam. On the other side it though, players like Phil Hellmuth have won an incredible amount of WSOP gold bracelets, and an incredibly impressive amount of money.
As far as the two players who made the cut this year, it was the always popular Barry Greenstein, and the well-known Linda Johnson. Greenstein has posted some incredible stats with his multi-million dollars in winnings, excellent high stake cash game results, and his charitable donations from tournament poker winnings. Greenstein has earned the nickname “The Robinhood of Poker”, and has won at least six figures during the live poker tournament circuit over the past nine consecutive years. Johnson on the other hand is now the second woman to be a part of the Poker Hall of Fame, and has played a huge role in poker over the years. She has won a gold bracelet back in 1997, and is also a publisher of the popular Card Player Magazine. She served on the Board of Directors for the massive World Poker Tour, and was also the founder of the Tournament Director’s Association.
As you can tell, both of these players have more than enough accomplishments to be considered popular names and faces in the poker world. The ceremony for these two will be held during the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event on November 8th in Las Vegas. The two beat out some big names in poker like Huck Seed, Jen Harman, John Juanda, Scotty Nguyen, Annie Duke, Marcel Luske, Tom McEvoy, and Jack McClelland.