Who was the greatest poker player ever?

[edge]

i think it is antonio esfandiari or however his name is spelled

he is pretty 1.4

[The DaveR]

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[lozen]

The guys dead and died young abusing alchohol and drugs.
He is a looser and not great.

[cjm8301]

I have to agree that I would say Stu Ungar needs to be strongly considered. All these people trashing him for his drug use and bad money management are missing the point. Ungar was a so smart at the poker table, because he could portray an image as being a loose cannon (although he often was) but he controlled the table and he knew what he was doing. A big reason why he died broke came from other gambling endeavers, not bad poker play.

[Jihad]

What an excellent question. Should be easy to answer due to all the empirical evidence out there.

[Zetack]

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Stu Ungar. 3 WSOP championships. 3 Super bowl of poker championships. No other player won both events once. Won 10 out of 30 poker tournaments he entered. WSOP main event was only the second NL holdem tournament he ever entered and he won it. He shoulda won 4 but was too intoxicated to show up for the last day of play. Went 16 years inbetween victories. He was the perfect combination of genious and crazy no respect for money gambler. The perfect combo.

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Maybe. Although I think longevity and consistency count for somthing and he had neither.

The 10 of 30 in tourneys is an astounding stat, if true. The problem is, although it's often repeated, nobody knows if its actually true. I suspect some hype there.

Also, reputedly, he was often a very poor cash game player. He was often strapped for cash and played desperately, he often played on drugs. When he was on drugs and strapped for cash he could be bullied around.

It's also been said that he can't get away from top pair.

I don't know, of course, I've never played with him, and I've only ever seen a few very short clips of him playing.

Those who seem to know say there is no question he was the world's best Gin player. As far as poker, I think the question is pretty open.

--Zetack

[CerebralDamage]

I asked Howard Lederer this question once. He told me:
"Stu ungar was the best no limit tournament player ever"
"chip reese is the best cash game player ever"

If you really want an answer to this question, go to
barry greinstien's webpage and read his player analysis. He is actually qualified to make an educated guess.

[CerebralDamage]

oops, i guess his web page is no more sorry.

[CerebralDamage]

here is that link.

[CerebralDamage]

for some reason my brain doesn't work.

It's barrygreenstein.com