Poker is a game that has seen its profile grow a lot during the internet era, due to increasing coverage of the games and tournaments within the media.
Many of the most exciting and glamorous tournaments are broadcast on television channels and streamed online. That has led to more people becoming fans and looking for places to play poker games for real money.
People are being inspired by the very best poker players. These guys do not just make a living from the game; they walk away with thousands – sometimes even millions – of dollars at the end of high stakes battles.
They are also winning bracelets at prestige tournaments like the World Series of Poker. So who are they?
Sit back and read about the biggest poker players in the world today.
Daniel Negreanu
If you were to ask a lot of poker fans who they consider to be the GOAT, they would pick Negreanu. This Canadian player has won numerous accolades, including six bracelets at the World Series of Poker, two Player of the Year titles at that event, World Poker Tour Player of the Year and a place in the Poker Hall of Fame.
He has also won more than $50 million throughout his career, making him one of the top 10 all-time earners. There have been so many spectacular moments in his career, but curiously his biggest ever result was as a runner-up.
At the 2014 World Series of Poker Big One for One Drop, he lost out to Antonio Esfandiari, but still walked away with a cool $8.3 million. Negreanu is nicknamed ‘Kid Poker’ because he started playing professionally in Las Vegas at a very young age.
He is now an established figure who is signed to PokerStars and has a sponsorship deal with GGPoker. He has also appeared in movies, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the television show Tilt.
Justin Bonomo
With career earnings of more than $61 million, Bonomo is considered one of the finest players of all time. He has the sort of stamina and skill that leads people to argue that top-level poker should be considered a sport.
Bonomo started making a name for himself very early on. At just 16 he entered Paradise Poker with a deposit of $500 and walked away with $10,000.
What really elevated him to elite status though was his amazing 2018 sequence of wins. These included the Super High Roller Ball China, where he won $4.8 million, and a $5 million win at the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl.
In total, this period brought him earnings of more than $25 million in just the one year and shot him to the top of the all-time career winnings list. He has three World Series of Poker bracelets, although it took him until that amazing year of 2018 to get his first win – in the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdem Championship.
Outside of poker he is known to be interested in life extension, having donated more than $13,000 towards research into this. He is also a believer in polyamory and lives in Las Vegas.
Bryn Kenney
New Yorker Bryn Kenney must be included on any list of the best players around right now. He has won over $57 million at the poker tables during the course of his career up to now.
The 32-year-old actually began as a competitive Magic: The Gathering player before making the switch to pro poker. It took him seven years from that point to get one of the coveted World Series of Poker bracelets, with victory in the 10-Game Mix Six Handed event in 2014.
Kenney has produced many stunning wins since then and 2019 saw him win three pots worth more than $1 million in the space of months. He then topped that off with a $20.5 million win in the Triton Million.
Daniel Cates
Nicknamed the ‘Jungleman’, Cates turned professional as a poker player after abandoning his college studies. He started out entering online tournaments and was hugely successful, with $11 million in winnings to his name by the end of 2011.
One of the most memorable moments in his career came in 2010 when he faced off against Tom Dwan in cash games for high stakes. They had played 20,000 hands and Cates was up $1.1 million when Dwan opted to abandon the challenge. He is rumoured to still be paying Cates back today.
Where Cates really excels is in No Limit Texas Holdem and he has a legitimate claim to be the finest around at that version of poker. He has won two bracelets at the World Series of Poker and two World Poker Tour titles.
These are some of the players who are building awareness of poker.