Best tournament player of all time

[Turn Prophet]

I am the best ever. I mean, I have like 50% ITM on $11 SnG's. Doesn't that make me the best? I mean, I've won like a thousand SnG's, and this Madsen kid has only won two tournaments. And Johnny, Phil, Doyle? Come on, I never see them play SnG's, so they obviously can't be the best. I demand to be up on that list.

[/sarcasm]

[nath]

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ZOMG, best thread ever...The answer is obv Madsen. He's still so young, he could win like 50-100 bracelets still.

I wonder if he's related to Michael Madsen, the actor who played the bad guy on ESPN's "Tilt?" Or perhaps he is related to Mark "Mad Dog" Madsen? He went to college at Stanford and played for the Lakers. so they do have the California thing going.

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Michael Madsen is in movies. Movies are made in Hollywood. Hollywood is in California. Could all three be related?

[FUJItheFISH]

John D'Agostino is my pick. Young, highly skilled in various forms of poker, high potential, and solid placings in the past two years since hitting the scene (with bigger and tougher fields).

[DarthIgnurnt]

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The answer is obv Madsen. He's still so young, he could win like 50-100 bracelets still.

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At first I thought it had to be John Gale, because he has come out of nowhere to win all of the prestigious events.

But then I Googled Poker Stove, or some kind of Poker Calculator I don't remember exactly, and I input "2 bracelets per year" for Madsen (remember it's early, he might win 3 bracelets or 4 this year maybe).

If my calculations are correct, this kid would have between 100 and 200 bracelets by the time he is Doyle Brunson's age. That's way more than the 10 that Doyle has now.

THANK YOU.

[snagglepuss]

there can be only one...

[Huckster]

Stuey.

[Jackie Onassis]

Hahaha Yeti.

[JustPlayingSmart]

El Diablo,

Bravo. It's about time someone made a "best of all time" poll that actually had reasonable choices. I'm gonna go through each 1 by 1 with some analysis before giving my overall decision.

Jeff Madsen -- kid is 21 and has mad skillz. He won a regular NLH event. No big deal, a lot of guys have done that. Youngest ever, though, so that's pretty tight. But his 2nd bracelet was in the 6-max event. All of us online ballers know that 6-max is where it's at. Full ring is for the nizzits. You have to ball, plain and simple, and he balled. Flat out posterized E-dog. I haven't even mentioned his Omaha/8 final table. I mean, come on, Omaha/8, I didn't even know people still played that, and he's scoring bones, dragging pots, and clowning guys 1.2 times his age. Even if he's not the best ever (and I ain't saying that yet), this is the breakout performance of all time.

John Gale -- this guy is for real. WPT, WSOP, what can I say. He should have had a bracelet last year, but that guy from the Beach Boys sucked out on him over and over. Talk about BS. That dude couldn't sing, and he can't play poker, and he lucks out. If Gale had won that, he'd be higher up in my mind, but he didn't, so I can't give him a ton of props just yet. Mark my words, though, guy is fo' real.

Joe Hachem -- Only won the most money ever. $7.5 million baby. Pass the sugah' and then pass me the cheese. I have seen 2005 WSOP over 44 times in its entirety, and this man has made me squeal with pleasure on a number of occasions. Plus I have a soft spot in my heart for him since he purposely got 2nd to Dutch Boyd so that Boyd would have enough money to pay MS Sunshine the $56,000 that he owes. Barry Greenstein gives money to kids. Joe Hachem gives money to poker players. Nuff sed.

Daniel Negreanu -- I think you jumped the gun on this one. He has 2 WSOP wins, but hasn't done anything in the WSOP except rebuy a lot. Talent wise he is scary, but last year he just got owned over and over. Plus, if I remember, he plays in the cash games some. Is it possible you're just attracted to him, and that you put him on the list because you want to see more of him? I'm a little surprised at that Diablo. You can't be biased when you're creating these polls, no matter how cute a guy is. Besides, he's married to Evelyn Ng.

Johnny Chan -- Dude beat Seidel. He flopped the nut straight and checked it 3 times. Has there ever been a single event that encompassed more pure ownage than this? I doubt it. 10 bracelets baby. Plus, he took it all home and won PSII, and I don't mean stacked on the Sony gaming console. I haven't seen much of his play though, so I don't know a ton about him. I guess a lot of his bracelets were in weird games, like DONKEY and loogie or whatever that one game is. Chan is the bomb, but I don't think he's enough to win this crown.

Phil Hellmuth -- We might have a winner, folks. A couple days ago Ivey said that nobody plays every hand perfect, except Phil Hellmuth. I mean, a lot of people think Ivey is the best player around, and he says Phil Hellmuth plays ever hand perfect. Plus, the guy is a 9 time Hold em champion. Plus he won the heads up tournament. He's the only guy who doesn't need any luck to win. In fact, if there weren't luck involved, he'd probably win every one. I heard some guys talking at Wendy's, and they said that Phil Hellmuth will probably win 20 bracelets in his life. That's a lot of bracelets. He's basically Superman. He can dodge bullets. He has X-ray vision into people's souls. When this guy is in the zone, it's like when Jordan said he thought the rim was "a big old, huge bucket."

Doyle Brunson -- This guy is really good. He's 91 years old, and he's still balling. I haven't seen much of him on TV though. I'd like to see more of him. For now, I'll assume he's really good, but it's hard to call him the best.

Now for the add ins: I'm glad you remembered these guys. I applaud you for realizing nothing is perfect on the first try.

Bill Chen -- 2 bracelets. One in limit. That is for real. Limit hold 'em is all luck. I heard Mike Matusow say it. So for him to win a bracelet in a skill game and a luck game in the same year is pretty amazing. It shows he can avoid all the landmines (copyright NYWalker) but he's also got game. If he was younger, I'd say he's up there with Madsen. But guy is old, and I've never heard of him before this year, so I don't know what was going on in his life before this year. Guess he was sucking.

Stu Ungar -- What a shame. Guy played 30 tournaments in his life. He won 10. Period. End of story. 1/3. Only guy who comes close to that is Madsen.

Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi -- this guy is dirty nasty. I can't give him the credit for best of all time yet, but in about 2 years, we may have to start rethinking that. This guy is gonna win some tourneys, that's all there is to it.

There are 10 guys here, that is fitting, so I will rank them from 1 to 10 on a best ever scale.

1) Phil Hellmuth
2) Jeff Madsen
3) Joe Hachem
4) Stu Ungar
5) Michael Mizrachi
6) John Gale
7) Bill Chen
8) Johnny Chan
9) Doyle Brunson
10) Daniel Negreanu

There are some guys who probably should be on this list, but didn't get there.

Tuan Le -- asian baller
Gus Hansen -- Sexy man. And did you see his call with T8ss versus Antonio. What a sick read.

Thanks for this poll, El Diablo. It has really forced me to think about who has tournament game, and who doesn't.

[lozen]

Im not a fan but doesnt TJ Cloutier have the most tournament victories? Wouldnt get my vote but the list is a joke

[Georgia Avenue]

lol donkaments...What OP doesn't seem to understand is that tournaments in general are just a bunch of whitehat $3-shade--wearing rednecks hollering all-in for 27 hours a day. It's not poker in any sense of the word and none of these donkey luckbags would stand a chance against a real cash game rounder like Ted Forrest or Mansour Matloubi. High stakes poker is all about manipulation and trickery, not coinflips and high-fiving railbirds. I heard Steve Dannenman on the radio today say that he's 5-6 in winning sessions in live games...WTF? Nice sample size tourneydonk!

All of you wsop fanboys should get a life, especially OP. If you grow some balls, maybe you should try coming to the Rio on Thursday where I'll be sitting on a bigstack in the 2/5 nl CASH game (didn't bother to qulaify for the main event) and matching up against a real shark. Sunglasses optional lol.

--GA