Famous Poker Players

This is based on what I know about them, poker and personally, which is almost entirely based on publicly available media. I might update this occasionally (last updated 8/30).


I particularly like:

• Barry Greenstein - Barry seems like a good person, and unquestionably one of the best poker players in the world. His book is one of my favorites, not just among poker books.
  
• Daniel Negreanu - Daniel's blog can get a lot gayer than even mine, but I respect that he speaks his mind openly. I also like that he seems to live a balanced life, not completely obsessed with only poker. And hosting all these heads up challenge matches, he's got some big balls for a little guy.
  
• Phil Ivey - In contrast to Daniel's balanced life respect, I respect how much this guy seems to be dedicated to his career. Dude plays long hours at the highest stakes. He is an unstoppable poker machine.
  
• Paul Phillips - Smart guy, great blog. I'd like to be more like paulp.
  
• Howard Lederer - Hearing of him almost exclusively in the context of tournament poker, I had no idea what a cash game beast he was until I read this book. Good book, by the way. He has really done a great job of capitalizing on this poker boom.
  
• Greg Raymer - ESPN's coverage painted him as another Chris Moneymaker, but Raymer wasn't a total fluke. He's had a lot of success in very big cash games, and everything I've ever heard this guy say about poker has impressed me. He seems like a classy guy as well.
  

I particularly don't like:

• Phil Hellmuth - What an egomaniacal fucking jackass. But jackassery sells, so he's making a crapload of money away from the tables. Very good tournament hold'em player, not very impressive otherwise. I think he'll turn out to be like the Paris Hilton of poker - a trainwreck that was fun to watch for a while, but eventually we'll all realize how pathetic he is and stop caring. But he'll still be rich. And he'll remind us of that as often as possible. Check this out.
  
• Johnny Chan - Rounders made Chan out to be the ultimate poker god, but we haven't really seen much of this guy in the poker explosion the last few years. Why not? This guy was perfectly positioned to be a huge poker star, but he's off making bad investments somewhere. I've heard that he is superstitious, blaming dealers for bad luck. He also made disparaging comments about billionaire Texas banker Andy Beal, who has given a group of the world's top poker players all they can handle in ultra-highstakes limit hold'em games (as high as $100,000/$200,000), which was described in this book. Except for his relatively low profile lately, most of my reasons for disliking him are based on obscure 3rd person accounts, so I could be way off here.
• Scotty Nguyen - Drunk and annoying, baby!
• Sam Farha - Just look at this guy. He looks like the ultimate sleezy gambler. There was that moment with Moneymaker where he barked at the dealer "I can read the cards better than you can." That wasn't the only time he offended a dealer. If it looks like a slimebag, and it acts like a slimebag, it must be a slimebag.
• Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari - Just read this.
  
• Everyone associated with "The Crew" - What a bunch of annoying assholes. Especially Dutch Boyd, who ripped off a bunch of people who deposited money in the now-collapsed online poker room he started.
  

Not as bad as I first thought:

• Mike Matasow - My first impression of him was the ugly incident of him taunting Raymer, but when you hear about some of the other insane stuff this guy says and does, you realize that he's just crazy. Rudeness is much more forgivable from an insane person. He seems like a genuinely nice guy who can't control his emotions or impulses whatsoever. Everyone who knows him says they love him, so I guess that counts for something.
• Scott Fischman - Disdain for "The Crew" aside, this guy is damn good at poker and seems to approach it the right way. He's had some obnoxious moments, like rolling on the table after winning a bracelet, but I'll assume he is maturing.