This is not a list of the Greatest Hold’em players ever… or the greatest tournament Hold’Em players ever… it’s a list of the greatest Main Event No Limit Hold’ EM Champions ever (texas hold’em rules). Simply put, Phil Hellmuth and all his bracelets will not supercede multiple Main Event Bracelets.
Johnny Moss was rewarded one championship, the first, by vote. He beat 6 other players in the voting. His second championship, the second, he won but only had to best 5 other players. His third, the fifth main event, he beat 15 other players. He’s deducted points because of the size of the fields.
Dolye Brunson’s two titles came in fields of 22 and 34 respective, which isn’t quite as impressive as Johnny Chan’s back to back title over fields of 152 and 167. Chan’s second place finish the following year (to Phil Hellmuth) came in a 178 person field–what a run! Doyle’s second place finish (to Stu Unger) was in a 73 person field. Unger went back to back winning the next year over 75 people. Unger’s third first place finish, is the most impressive of Champions’ multiple first places finishes 1st in 1997 (16 years after his second title) and beating a field of 312.
With that said… the top of the list are the multiple champions:
1. Stu Unger: beating the biggest field of any multiple champion and three titles. Also won over an 18 year span.
2. Johnny Chan: Probably the most impressive three year run in terms of heads up finishes the WSOP Main Event will ever see. Two titles.
3. Dolye Brunson: Back to Back and a second place. Plus, he won two titles with 10-2.
4. Johnny Moss: Everybody touts what a world class player he is. Even if the fields were thin back then, you’d imagine he could play with anybody.
ITM finishes are a secondary concern. This is purely about championships. In the event of a tie, it’s purely subjective to split the two. Since, the rest of the title holders only hold one championship, let author bias run amock. I’ll side more with the more recent champions, but my support my bias with field size trumping the older champions. Want to disagree? Here’s a list of all the champions to give you some fodder.
5. Phil Hellmuth. The poker brat just completed another deep run in the event with the numbers 10x and 100x some of the fields played before.
6. Juan Carlos Mortenson. Start the question marks now. Add in his WPT Championship title and Mortenson is the only person to accomplish both.
7. Scotty Nguyen. The Poker Prince almost duplicated Mortenson’s feat this year, and thrived in the No Limit Hold ‘Em portion of the Horse Event to take that title down too. Add in another deep run in a mammonth field and you have to give the poker prince credit.
8. Puggy Pearson. He took second in year two and three of the Main Event and took first in year four. Granted the fields were 6,8, and 13 but thats an impressive run.
9. Dan Harrington. 1995 Winner and also ran in the Moneymaker year (2003), AND in the following year with a MASSIVE field Harrington has succeeded where others haven’t.
10. Peter Eastgate. 2008 he became the youngest champion ever. Forget that he got slapped by the deck, most champions did too, he managed to show a calmness in the middle of the biggest moment he’d ever face. The last youngest champion (Hellmuth) ever went on to a stellar career, and said nobody would surpass his record because the spectacle would be too big. Well, it wasn’t for Eastgate, so while it’s like crowning a baby, we have faith he’ll be making poker headlines for a long time.
