Poker Hall Of Fame Members
The 10 finalists for the 2020 Poker Hall of Fame class were announced by the World Series of Poker Thursday evening. The living members of the hall of fame will vote to decide which finalist gains entry into this elite group.
- Poker Hall of Fame Finalists Announced. Voting Will Now Commence Among the 31 Living Members. 18, 2020) – Following nearly two weeks of open nominations for the Poker Hall of Fame, today the list of ten finalists was announced.These finalists will now be considered by living members of the hall of fame, who will allocate a ballot of ten total points to any or all of the.
- Pages in category 'Poker Hall of Fame inductees' The following 58 pages are in this category, out of 58 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.
The finalists for this year are: Patrik Antonius, Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow, Matt Savage, Isai Scheinberg and Huck Seed.
In 2019, Chris Moneymaker and David Oppenheim become the 57th and 58th individuals to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. More information can be found here.
This year has three first-time finalists, including the first “duo” nomination with McEachern and Chad getting the nod for their legendary commentary work on ESPN’s WSOP broadcasts. The two were the voice of poker for an entire generation of poker players and gave the play-by-play for nearly every historic WSOP hand.
The pair was on the mic for Moneymaker’s ace on the river to eliminate Phil Ivey in 10th place from the 2003 main event, his heads-up king-high bluff against Sam Farha in that same main event, and even some of the more recent memorable ones like Matt Affleck getting his aces cracked by Jonathan Duhamel’s pocket jacks to finish 15th in the 2010 main event, propelling Duhamel to victory.
Antonius and Scheinberg are the two other first-time nominees.
Antonius, a Finnish pro who made a name for himself with a couple of deep runs in World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour events in 2005, eventually became a feared cash game player and was a regular in the biggest online cash games during the late 2000s.
He consistently battled against the likes of Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan in the infamous “Rail Heaven” $500-$1,000 no-limit hold ’em games on Full Tilt Poker and played some of the most memorable hands in live poker history from his appearances on “High-Stakes Poker,” which was recently rebooted on PokerGO.
Aside from his high-stakes cash game expertise, Antonius racked up more than $12 million in live tournament earnings. His largest score came in 2018 when he finished second to Justin Bonomo in the Super High Roller Bowl China for $3.15 million. He also had a solid summer, cashing 10 times in the international-facing online WSOP.
Having just turned 40 earlier this month, it was the first year he was eligible for a nomination.
Like McEachern, Scheinberg was nominated as a non-player. He was the founder of PokerStars, which eventually became the world’s largest poker site. It was the site that held the $39 satellite tournament that Moneymaker won in 2003, giving him the $10,000 buy-in to the WSOP main event, which he turned into $2.5 million and arguably sparked the poker boom.
In 2011, PokerStars exited the U.S. market in the wake of actions taken by the government on Black Friday. It paid out its American players’ existing balances almost immediately. Full Tilt Poker, its main competitor was insolvent and was unable to pay its players back, leaving many American online players in a stressful financial situation.
PokerStars worked out a deal to acquire the now-defunct Full Tilt Poker in July 2012 and used its own funds to pay back the players. Despite the deal, Scheinberg was still facing charges from the U.S. government but recently settled those last September.
Veteran tournament director Matt Savage was left off the 2019 list but was a finalist in previous years. Savage, Chad and McEachern and Scheinberg are the only non-player nominees in this class’ finalists.
Six-time WSOP bracelet winner David Chiu and Swedish pro Chris Bjorin fell short of finalist status in 2020 after making the cut in 2019.
Last year, 2003 WSOP main event champion Chris Moneymaker and high-stakes cash game fixture David Oppenheim were voted in, becoming the 56th and 57th inductees. This year, only one person will be inducted.
According to the WSOP, the criteria for the induction is as follows:
• A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
• Be a minimum of 40 years old at the time of nomination
• Played for high stakes
• Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
• Stood the test of time
• Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.
The inductee will be announced Wednesday, Dec. 30, prior to the start of the WSOP main event heads-up finale between Damian Salas and whichever player emerges victorious from the U.S. final table on Dec. 28. The heads-up battle will take place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
A formal induction ceremony is expected to take place in late 2021. Here is a look at all 58 players that were inducted since the Poker Hall of Fames’s inception in 1979:
| Name | Year Inducted |
| Johnny Moss | 1979 |
| Nick “The Greek” Dandolos | 1979 |
| Felton “Corky” McCorquodale | 1979 |
| Red Winn | 1979 |
| Sid Wyman | 1979 |
| James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok | 1979 |
| Edmond Hoyle | 1979 |
| Blondie Forbes | 1980 |
| Bill Boyd | 1981 |
| Tom Abdo | 1982 |
| Joe Bernstein | 1983 |
| Murph Harrold | 1984 |
| Red Hodges | 1985 |
| Henry Green | 1986 |
| Walter Clyde “Puggy” Pearson | 1987 |
| Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson | 1988 |
| Jack “Treetop” Straus | 1988 |
| Fred “Sarge” Ferris | 1989 |
| Benny Binion | 1990 |
| David “Chip” Reese | 1991 |
| Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston | 1992 |
| Jack Keller | 1993 |
| Julius Oral Popwell | 1996 |
| Roger Moore | 1997 |
| Stu “The Kid” Ungar | 2001 |
| Lyle Berman | 2002 |
| Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan | 2002 |
| Bobby “The Owl” Baldwin | 2003 |
| Berry Johnston | 2004 |
| Jack Binion | 2005 |
| Crandell Addington | 2005 |
| T.J. Cloutier | 2006 |
| Billy Baxter | 2006 |
| Barbara Enright | 2007 |
| Phil Hellmuth | 2007 |
| Dewey Tomko | 2008 |
| Henry Orenstein | 2008 |
| Mike Sexton | 2009 |
| Dan Harrington | 2010 |
| Erik Seidel | 2010 |
| Linda Johnson | 2011 |
| Barry Greenstein | 2011 |
| Eric Drache | 2012 |
| Brian “Sailor” Roberts | 2012 |
| Scotty Nguyen | 2013 |
| Tom McEvoy | 2013 |
| Daniel Negreanu | 2014 |
| Jack McClelland | 2014 |
| Jennifer Harman | 2015 |
| John Juanda | 2015 |
| Carlos Mortensen | 2016 |
| Todd Brunson | 2016 |
| David “Devilfish” Ulliott | 2017 |
| Phil Ivey | 2017 |
| John Hennigan | 2018 |
| Mori Eskandani | 2018 |
| Chris Moneymaker | 2019 |
| David Oppenheim | 2019 |
Table Of Contents
The lone 2020 inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame is none other than 1996 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ Huckleberry Seed.
“Hearing the news that I am being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame this year brought back memories of my early poker days, walking into the Binion’s Horseshoe, about to start a poker session, admiring all the Poker Hall of Famers on the wall,” Seed said. “It feels good to be included with all the poker legends that I once idolized and competed against over the years. Thank you everyone.”
After an open-nomination process, Seed was ultimately chosen from 10 nominees that included the likes of PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg and first-time nominee Patrik Antonius. Seed has been a familiar name on the nominee list for many years, and now his time has come. The 31 living Hall of Fame members who voted welcomed him into their ranks.
In total, 30 ballots were cast with one abstention. Out of a potential 300 votes — each voter got 10 points to distribute — the final tally was as follows.
- Huckleberry Seed – 76 Votes
- Matt Savage – 51 Votes
- Isai Scheinberg – 45 Votes
- Eli Elezra – 30 Votes
- Antonio Esfandiari – 23 Votes
- Lon McEachern and Norman Chad – 20 Votes
- Ted Forrest – 20 Votes
- Mike Matusow – 17 Votes
- Patrik Antonius – 15 Votes
- Chris Ferguson – 3 Votes
Seed becomes the 59th individual inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame and follows in the footsteps of Chris Moneymaker and David Oppenheim, who comprised the class of 2019.
In order to be eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame, Seed had to meet the following criteria:
Poker Hall Of Fame Members
- A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
- Be a minimum of 40-years-old at time of nomination
- Played for high stakes
- Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
- Stood the test of time
- Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible
positive and lasting results
Seed's Poker Résumé
Seed was born on Jan. 15, 1969, and grew up in Corvallis, Montana. Given his 6-foot-7 height, Seed had a knack for basketball and was a member of both the 1987 Montana All-State and Caltech basketball teams. In 1989, he took a leave of absence from college and started playing poker becoming a “young gun” of the game at the time.
According to The Hendon Mob, he earned his first tournament cash in 1990 and has since amassed more than $7.6 million in tournament earnings. A four-time bracelet winner, Seed won his first in the 1994 WSOP when he took down Event #3: $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha for $167,000.
In 1996, he made history by taking down the WSOP Main Event for a career-high $1 million.
In 1999, Seed made another run at the Main Event title but ultimately fell in sixth place after being eliminated by eventual champ Noel Furlong.
In 2000, he won Event #17: $1,500 Limit Razz for his third bracelet, and follow that up with a win in the 2003 WSOP Event #27: $5,000 Limit Razz for his fourth, in which he defeated Phil Ivey heads-up. That same year, he also won the WSOP Tournament of Champions for $550,000. Toss in a pair of 50K Poker Players Championship final table appearances and a win in the 2009 NBC Heads-Up Championship, and Seed’s résumé ranks among the best in the game.
Members Of Poker Hall Of Fame
Long History of Prop Bets
In addition to his poker accomplishments, Seed is also well-known for his prop bets. Some infamous ones: he bet (it’s been reported both $10,000 and $50,000 against Phil Hellmuth) he could float in the ocean for either 18 or 24 hours (he lost that one); he booked a six-figure bet he could break 100 four times in a single day playing on a desert golf course using a five iron, sand wedge, and putter (he won); and that he could go a year without shaving (a funeral obligation forced him to give up).
He also once bet he could do a standing backflip against Howard Lederer despite having never done one. He had two days to learn and won the $10,000 bet. Speaking of Lederer, Seed once bet him he could beat him in a 50-yard dash while hopping on one leg. Lederer’s two-legged test run went so well that Seed conceded and paid out $5,000.
Another time, he bet Doyle Brunson he could run a mile in 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Seed gave it a valiant attempt clocking in at 4:47.
Poker Hall Of Fame Members Names
Fellow long-time pro Erik Seidel tweeted an enthusiastic endorsement of Seed's candidacy in the days leading up to the vote:
Hall Of Fame Members
Reasons Huck is my top HOF pick:
Poker Hall Of Fame Members Wikipedia
— Erik Seidel (@Erik_Seidel)Poker Hall Of Fame Members
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