Poker Hall of Fame

2014 Poker Hall of Fame Inductees

• Jack McClelland: Once an amateur trying to make a living playing poker,¹

  In his tournament career, McClelland won $77,490, including taking down the $200 Heavenly Limit Hold 'Em event at the Commerce for $33,966 on September 8, 2000.

  he didn't have much success and would always complain at home about how badly the tournaments were run. His wife altered his career track by telling him, "If you think you are such a genius, why don't you go and fix them?"²

  Quoted in Where Are They Now - Jack McClelland Poker Works.

  McClelland began working at the World Series of Poker in 1984 and became an assistant tournament director the following year. He TD'ed events around the world for the next quarter century, including the inaugural events for the Commerce Casino in Southern California and the World Poker Tour, before retiring in 2013.

• Daniel Negreanu: His accomplishments are too numerous to list, but some of the highlights include:
  • 1998: Youngest WSOP bracelet winner when he won the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold 'Em event at age 23 (a record that stood for six years before Gavin Griffin broke it).
  • 2007: Record four consecutive WPT Main Event cashes,³

    Tied with Kirk Morrison, who also cashed in four straight WPT events in 2007.

    where he also won two events (tied for the record with five others) and made three final tables (tied for the record with several others).
  • 2007: First player to be WSOP Player of the Year (2004) and WPT Player of the Year (then-record 2,600 points in 2007 that stood for nine years).
  • 2013: Only two-time WSOP Player of the Year.
  • 2013: First player to win WSOP bracelets in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific.⁴

    Jeff Lisandro matched him in 2014 with a WSOP APAC bracelet.

  • Career: Most total Player of the Year points.
  • Career: Tournament poker's all-time money leader (almost $30 million after his 2nd place finish in the 2014 Big One for One Drop pushed him ahead of Antonio Esfandiari)".

Notes:

• No new members were added in 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, or 2000.
• Thirty-three men were in the Poker Hall of Fame before Barbara Enright became the first woman in 2007. Linda Johnson was the second in 2011 and Jennifer Harman the third in 2015.
• Daniel Negreanu and Chip Reese were both enshrined at the age of 40, which has been the youngest allowed since 2011, a couple of years after the public nominated 23-year-old Tom Dwan.
• 1997 inductee Roger Moore is not the famous James Bond actor but a poker pro with $635,200 in career tournament earnings, including $144,000 from winning the 1994 WSOP $5,000 Seven-Card Stud event.
• Men Nguyen and Scott Seiver are the eligible players with the most WSOP bracelets, seven, who hasn't been inducted. Jason Mercier, Jay Heimowitz, Jeff Lisandro, Jeremy Ausmus, Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb, Ted Forrest, and Brian Hastings are next with six.
• Seven members are primarily famous for non-playing accomplishments:⁵

  Non-players are required to have "contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible, positive, and lasting results".

  • 1979: Wild Bill Hickok - Legendary lawman and poker player who was shot in the back and killed while playing Five-Card Draw (holding two pairs, Aces over Eights, now known as Deadman's Hand).
  • 1979: Edmond Hoyle - Died before poker was invented, but he's honored for his role in codifying card game and other rules.
  • 1990: Benny Binion - Conceived the World Series of Poker (1970), which took place in Binion's Horseshoe casino, which he had created from the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel.
  • 2005: Jack Binion - Son of Benny and President of Binion's Horseshoe casino, which hosted the WSOP from 1970 to 2004 (and the end of the Main Event in 2005).
  • 2008: Henry Orenstein - Although he also played poker and owns a WSOP bracelet, the inventor is best known for creating and patenting the hole card camera, one of the keys to the poker boom on television.
  • 2012: Eric Drache - Although he had three 2nd place finishes in WSOP stud events, he's best known for putting together the first satellite tournaments for the WSOP in the 1970s.
  • 2017: Mori Eskandani - Producer of poker shows like the NBC Heads-Up Championship>, Poker After Dark, and HIgh Stakes Poker.

External Links:

• Poker Hall of Fame article in Wikipedia