As another impressive feat, he was the 1989 world champion, beating the two-time defending champion, Johnny Chan, heads-up for the bracelet. But despite the jibes (“the Poker Brat” is one of the greatest poker players of all time), and the numbers back that statement up. But despite his bristly attitude, it’s silly to rip on his game.That doesn’t stop poker players from doing so, especially the young GTO-minded pros.
Yet even though he was never a regular on the poker tournament circuit, he’s still found great success in the events he played. Negreanu’s uncanny ability to read his opponents with incredible accuracy has undoubtedly contributed to his impressive success and well-deserved place among the best poker players of all time. He has ten WSOP bracelets and is widely regarded as one of (if not) the very best poker players of all time. Putting together a list of the best poker players of all-time is admittedly subjective.
With second-place Justin Bonomo not far behind him with over $65 million, it shows just how much top players can make when playing at the very highest stakes. Leading the all-time money list is Bryn Kenney who has won over $75 million , as of Jan 2026,. With poker earnings essentially being endless, the amount of money a poker player can make ranges from a little to a lot!
He leveraged that into a highly successful all-around poker career. He is consistently in the top ten worldwide all-time rankings on The Hendon Mob, showing nearly $39M at the end of March 2022. However, he quickly transitioned to higher stakes, even playing the 2012 Aussie Millions Poker Championship $100K Challenge, which he won for more than $1M.
Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger
Phil Hellmuth is one of the most polarizing poker players ever. It started with wins in low buy-in events on the WSOP Circuit and Heartland Poker Tour. In 1970, he invited a group of poker players to compete in what would be the first World Series of Poker (WSOP).
Daniel Negreanu (Canada): $42.2 million
It’s fair to regard these guys as the best tournament poker players of all time. Some people regard the controversial influencer Dan Bilzerian as the richest man in poker (but as https://xpokerbotai.com/ he’s not a professional poker player), we haven’t included him here. It’s a toss-up between the two Phils – Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth are the greatest poker players of all time. But he’s accomplished so much more than just winning a stack of bracelets.
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Koon won both events, cashing for more than $6.4 million in just those two tournaments alone. With 17 WSOP Bracelets — Phil Hellmuth is the poker player who has won the most WSOP Bracelets and is also the WSOP leader in cashes as well as several other significant WSOP records. Also on the list is Daniel Negreanu, featuring his record of seven WSOP Bracelets and two WPT wins, with his total live earnings being over $52 million.
The strange thing about those wins is he had always been more of a cash game specialist. What makes Negreanu so great is that he’s won big for an extended period of time, with success spanning more than 20 years. Daniel Negreanu aka Kid Poker is arguably the most popular poker player ever, and indisputably one of the best. Unfortunately, Ungar’s career and life stopped short when he died in 1998 at the age of 45. The player won the WSOP Main Event a third time in 1997, tying only Johnny Moss for most WSOP Main Event wins ever.
Future tournament wins and final tables showed his proficiency in a number of poker variants. He won his first gin tournament at the age of 10, and his poker career began in the late 1970s. Ungar learned card games at a young age, first gin rummy and then poker. He was an expert gin and poker player — one of the best in poker history. To date he has earned more than $57M, netting him a spot at the top of the all-time money list worldwide.
Ivey — on the other hand, has ten bracelets to his name, but he has shown his nerves and ability in high-stakes online cash games, making millions of dollars online. Despite having only played the occasional tournament the past five years or so, he has over $21 million in live tournament cashes. Ivey’s the only player ever who has crushed the online high-stakes cash games (the live tournaments), and dominated the highest stakes live cash games. He won 10 WSOP bracelets before he even became eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame , age 40,.
The Statname database lists Loeliger with $2.1 million in career cash games winning at stakes of 50NL and up on PokerStars. Loeliger played in the 10NL online streets back in 2013 — but he’s reached the pinnacle of high-stakes online games in the past four years. You can now watch Polk playing , and winning, live NLH at the highest of stakes on the Lodge live stream. Then known by the screen name “WCGRider” on PokerStars, Polk engaged in , and dominated, a series of heads-up poker challenges against some of the best players of that era. The 35-year-old Bonomo had a crazy run in 2018, amassing wins seemingly wherever he played. COVID-19 forced a hiatus for the high-roller tournament circuit for most of 2020, but Peters is right back to his winning ways in 2021.
Seidel is an eight-time WSOP bracelet winner who has made an impressive 35 final tables and whopping 92 cashes, including his 2nd-place finish in the 1988 Main Event behind Johnny Chan. Take a look at Smith playing the 2016 WSOP $111,111 for One Drop. Smith also did particularly well at the 2012 EPT-8 in Monte Carlo — where he won three NLHE events over a span of four days. The Englishman has spent considerable time at the top of the Global Poker Index player rankings — and broke through for his first World Series of Poker bracelet this summer at the 2019 WSOP. Stephen Chidwick is considered, even among his peers on the high roller tournament scene, to be quite possibly the best tournament poker player in the world. Poker Open, winning the player of the series award for the second straight time.
Always a fixture on the high roller circuit — as well as a threat to win any tournament, David Peters has kept a steady climb up the all-time money list throughout the last few years. A fixture on the Triton high roller tournament scene, Koon’s two biggest career cashes came in a pair of short deck events on the Triton circuit. The Triton Poker ambassador Jason Koon has had himself quite a year in 2019, adding more than $6 million in tournament winnings to his already impressive resume. Other notable popular poker players are Phil Ivey, Tony G and Benjamin Spragg. Victoria Coren Mitchell is undeniably one of the best ‘celebrity’ poker players (being the first woman to win an EPT title), while nowadays, she’s perhaps more known for her exploits into writing and presenting. He has won huge amounts of money in cash games online , via Full Tilt, and in person and is rightly seen as the best player of his generation.