Poker can be a lifelong career for some and for others it can be a hobby or a pastime. For the people on this list, they have made their way to the top of the game and can be regarded as legends of poker.
We look at some of these legends to see where they are now and whether they still play the iconic card game or not.
Chris Moneymaker
It seems to be the reason that a man with that moniker would be admitted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Despite the fact that his name is only an Anglicized version of his family’ German surname, “Nurmacher,” Moneymaker has undoubtedly built a name for himself in poker. And not without justification.
Moneymaker was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2019, following a long career in which he won a WSOP bracelet and over $2.5 million in the WSOP alone.
He’s won over $4 million in total! And it appears he still has it, since he has made an appearance at the 2021 WSOP Main Event where he won $38,600. The legend responsible for the poker boom still has gas left in the tank.
Daniel Negreanu
Daniel Negreanu is not going away from the World Series of Poker or the poker game in general, anytime soon.
And how can we be certain of this? Because he mentioned it on his vlog. Indeed, Daniel Negreanu, inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014, is an influencer.
You may find him as a brand ambassador on GGPoker, where you can also find a link to his Twitch feed with all of his current online poker exploits.
Before the 2003 poker boom, he was already dominating high stakes cash games in Las Vegas at Mirage and, when the game relocated, Bellagio. Negreanu, dubbed “Kid Poker,” has always had a flair for analyzing his opponents as well as the ability to enchant an audience. That’s why he’s long been one of the game’s best ambassadors.
Kid Poker still plays poker to this day and does not look like stopping anytime soon.
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Hellmuth is one of the world’s tallest professional poker players, standing at 6 feet 7 inches. He stands out in a crowd and has been a top player since the late 1980s.
Hellmuth lost heads-up to two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in the 1989 World Series of Poker Main Event.
Back then, the majority of the Main Event field was made up of top players. Hellmuth, who was only 24 at the time, was a relatively unknown player who had yet to gain the respect of the poker world. He went on to defeat Chan, considered the strongest player in the game at the time, and swiftly rose to become one of the world’s most feared tournament players.
As of 2021, Hellmuth holds the record with 16 WSOP titles, and no one is even close to catching up. He’s the only player in history to win bracelets in four different decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). He has also made 64 final tables with 186 money finish es.
He was last seen beating Vince Vaughn last year and we will most likely see him appear some time this year as well.
Doug Polk
Polk, the uncontested king of online heads-up No Limit Hold’em and Twitter feuds, announced his retirement from the game in 2018 and stated that he no longer loved playing poker.
He turned to his other love, cryptocurrency trading, having first bought Bitcoin back in 2013 and gained quite a fan following on YouTube, 166k subscribers to his DougPolkCrypto vlogs.
Polk was enticed out of retirement in 2020 to face Daniel Negreanu in poker’s Grudge Match of the Century, and he accepted $1.2 million from his opponent, but pledged he would not participate in a rematch or any subsequent challenge.
Doug Polk has a total lifetime live tournament winnings of $9,454,008. Among these winnings are three first-place finishes in WSOP bracelet tournaments.
Polk was also a lucrative online heads-up cash game and sit n go player at the highest stakes. There, he went under the alias WCGRider. He earned around $1.5 million on Full Tilt after the market reopened on Black Friday.
Eli Elezra
Eli Elezra, known as the kind grandfather of the poker industry, is the newest inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame. The 60-year-old Israeli poker player earned his spot among the greats during the 2021 season of the World Series of Poker.
He was already a five time World Series Of poker bracelet winner, and he participated in several tournaments. In that time, he reached the final table 21 times and had 75 money finishes. He attributes his accomplishment to Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson, who “trained this fish to swim with the sharks,” as he stated when he won one of his bracelets.
Elezra is still an active player today and has participated in two Poker tournaments in 2023.
Vanessa Selbst
There have been several highly successful crossovers between hedge-fund managers and poker, and Vanessa Selbst is possibly the most well-known player to get into trading.
Because the changing nature of the game “asked me if I would rather adjust my connection to the game or go on,” the all-time winningest female player in history opted to retire from the green felt in 2017.
“It’s tiring, exhilarating, and absolutely humbling every single day,” Selbst said of her new work, but putting up her passion for cards hasn’t been easy, with Selbst appearing at the WSOP not long after her career transition.
Vanessa Selbst is a renowned poker player for reasons other than being the all-time winningest live event pro. She has a total rounded up to $12 million in tournament winnings and is the first woman to ever win three World Series of Poker bracelets in non-ladies events. In reality, all three of her bracelets were obtained through open events.
From 2008 to 2014, she won three World Series of Poker championships, the most recent in a $25,000 no-limit hold’em tournament for $871,148.
Her largest career win came in 2010 at the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event, when she earned $1,823,430 for a $8,500 buy-in. In 2013, she took home another large prize at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ($25,000 High Roller for $1,424,420).
