Best tournament player of all time

[kjander]

After carefully reading this thread, following the WSOP and doing a lot of thinking I have come to the conclusion that Jeff Madsen is the greatest tournement player of all time.

As far as projecting his career bracelets I belive that one must first project the future of the WSOP. Clearly Madsen will win upwards of 5 bracelets next year and the following year. Considering there are so many non-WSOP events running, it is quite likely that Madsen will have a good majority if not all of the money that is currently in circulation in the poker community. I do think it is unlikely that the poker community will be able to keep putting money in at the rate that Madsen wins it. Therefore I believe it is likely that either A or B will happen.

A)The feilds will be so small by 2011 that Madsen will win about 80% of the events

B) The WSOP will coem to an end by 2011 and madsen will conservatively end his career with 43 braclets.

**Please note that these figures could be skewed as after my calculations I realized that tworooks and the rest of his casino patrons will be of age around 2010. This is likely to have major implications on the future of the WSOP.

[Jourdain]

Wow, u guys are really amazing. Predicting next years results, no. of bracelets...

Let me say that he did a good job this year and that I want see him back next year. The thing that is irritating, is that he is considered the best tournament player ever (hehehe). Let's review this topic within 5-10 years and we will see if everyone still feels the same.

I remember 2 years ago (and last year), Greg Raymer was mentioned as the greatest tournament player ever, now he is not even mentioned in the poll...

How about Bill Chen guys, is he still in the running????. He was 2 weeks ago.

Everytime when I feel down, I will look at this topic and I will feel better...

[fslexcduck]

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Let's review this topic within 5-10 years and we will see if everyone still feels the same.

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After careful consideration, I feel you may be right. After looking back on it later on, some people are going to feel very very stupid for what they've said in this thread.

[samjjones]

Diablo - Madsen is on pace to win 1,271,378 tournaments. This is assuming a full schedule of tournaments every year until he dies of a drug overdose at the age of 42.

[MrTeddyKGB]

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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.


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POTD.



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this is some funny [censored]

[Joe O]

So I'm considering a prop bet with a friend on whether or not Madsen will win the main event. What's a fair line? Obviously he won't win it every year, so I was thinking 2-1. But there is a lot of luck involved in tournament poker, so I guess that lowers his chances. Maybe 3-1?

[El Diablo]

Joe O,

Do you mean win main event ever or win main event this year?

I would say the odds are about the following:

Win ME this year: 4-1 against
Win ME this year or next: 2-1 against
Win ME in next five years: even money
Win ME in next ten years: 2-1 for (would be higher, but there's a chance he dies prior to then)

[El Diablo]

J,

"I remember 2 years ago (and last year), Greg Raymer was mentioned as the greatest tournament player ever, now he is not even mentioned in the poll..."

No serious analysts of the game ever said that. Many of us said about Greg then the same thing we say now. He is an excellent tournament poker player. Greg does not yet have the track record to put him in contention for greatest of all time.

[El Diablo]

kj,

" it is quite likely that Madsen will have a good majority if not all of the money that is currently in circulation in the poker community."

This might have been true a few years ago, but thanks to online satellites that large numbers of people buy into for small amounts of money, there is little fear of this. However, he will quite possibly break most of the tourney pros, so you are correct that the fields will be much smaller. Based on that, your first prediction of Madsen winning a high percentage (I think 80% is a little silly, though, even with fields of a few hundred I think he's unlikely to win much more than 50% of the tourneys) of WSOP tournaments in coming years is almost assuredly the correct prediction.

[cilldroichid]

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Greg does not yet have the track record to put him in contention for greatest of all time.

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Hehehe.