Most Important Person In Poker?

I wonder if his name was Chris Smith, would he still be on your list?

He would but calling himself Moneymaker made his win even better. Of course if he used his real name, Smith, which is so common, he would have come across as an even bigger "everyman" and that may have made him even more popular than the Moneymaker.

I doubt it's Moneymaker. We had already seen a giant increase in our book sales before he won the 2003 Mian Event at the WSOP. However, the WPT TV shows started at the end of April that same year so this implies that eithe Steve Lipscomb or Henry Orenstein were more important.

Jack Binion also needs major consideration. He's the one who was pushing poker, this goes back to the early 1970s, and the WSOP was growing every year way before the 2003 breakthrough.

I doubt that Randy Blumer should be considered. While Planet Poker was the first Internet poker site, it was never that big and I suspect if he didn't get it going someone else would have. This shouldn't take anything away from him, but I don't think he was as important as the other people on this list.

You may also want to consider Greg Raymer who won the WSOP in 2004 and got tremendous publicity. When Moneymake won the previous year, it had no impact on our book sales, they were already booming. But when Raymer won, our substantial book sales immediately showed a large increase.

Another person to add to this list is Dan Harrington. When the first Harrington book, written by Dan and Bill Robertie, came out in Dec. 2004 (followed by the second volume in June 2005), it created a sensation, sold a huge amount of copies, and dramatically impacted how people played poker, both in tournaments and in cash games.

Also, and I don't mean to sound self-centered, I think everything Two Plus Two is perhaps as important, or more so, than anyone on this list. And that includes not only our family of books but this website as well. Of course, when I say Two Plus Two, it included many more people than just David Sklansky and myself.

Mason

Thanks Mason. Yes Dan Harrington for sure. His books are classics. I had no idea Raymer had such a huge impact.

When Raymer won in 2004, he was on the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine, which at that time was a huge publication.

Mason

If 2+2 is mentioned then pokerstrategy also has to be named. In general Online Poker had a huge impact, therefore Isiah Scheinberg (founder of PokerStars) should be a name on the list, too.

I think for the popularity of the game with the start of all the televised stuff in the mid 2000s, Negreanu, Ivey, Antonius, Gus Hansen and more had a huge impact for the growth of the game as well.

I agree with Isiah Scheinberg and should have mentioned him.

Mason

Phil Hellmuth for being an inspiration and our spiritual leader as poker players

YES!!!

not sure about all poker but for online poker my vote goes to Isai Scheinberg

Phil Hellmuth.

The best there ever was, the best there ever will be. Glad some others finally mentioned him in the last couple posts.

Of the names in OP, i think Jack Binion easily.

Scheinberg is certainly up there though.

airball

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mike Sexton.

I would make the argument that the Tournament of Champions VHS tape was the pilot for what we now know as the World Poker Tour.

Someone was bound to make a "Hole cam" sooner or later but to have the ability to organize a tournament like this outside of the WSOP seems pretty remarkable to me. Seems like he had everyone's respect way before the Travel channel poker boom.

/thread

i'd say definitely not him or the planet poker people.
I mean how much did poker really grow overall from when he started wsop for the next 30 years? compare that to how it absolutely explode in 2003 or so.

Besides Robbi Lew? 😃

Great question. In the history of poker or currently? Some good suspects: Brunson, Moss, Benny Binion, Maverick, Mark Twain, a handful of US President's starting with George Washington (significant in the reputation of the game), Stu Ungar, Rounders writers, Wild Bill Hickok, Edmund Hoyle, Bill Boyd, Linda Johnson, Moneymaker, Ivey.

I'll put out my suggestions. My criteria is basically who changed the game by taking the game more mainstream, thus exposing it to vast numbers of players:

1) Amarillo Slim - first to take poker sort of mainstream; he appeared on the talkshows, had all the funny stories, presented gambling as this funny kind of shady but in a good way world

2) Benny & Jack Binion - building the WSOP into the brand that it became. It couldn't have been any kind of real money making venture for many of the early years. This became the "it's normal to have this on your list of dreams" for the average person.

3) Koppleman and Levian - writers of Rounders. This was the first spark in getting the college crowd interested in poker

4) Mike Sexton - he believed poker could be a real mainstream thing, and tried repeated ventures until he hit upon the WPT. He also played a real part in the broadcasts as the announcer. There were a lot of other people involved in WPT (Lipscomb, Berman) but it always seemed clear to me that Sexton was the guy who made it happen.

5) Moneymaker - not much more needs to be said on this. Maybe it was a confluence of perfect storm events but he was the face of it. The name, the personality, and the connection to online poker. The boom was coming, but he was a force multiplier in both getting it started and growing it faster.

6) Ruth Parasol - founder of Party Poker in the early 2000s. For all the poker expertise that came in via FTP and all the technical and business acumen from PokerStars, Party brought the marketing muscle that gave so many people their first introduction to online poker. Her learnings from the online porn world provided the blueprint for online sites to market, use affiliates, rewards, everything.

7) Isai Scheinberg - took up the mantle when Party exited the USA (though you could argue the gap was already narrowing considerably) and gave people the excellent and safe experience they needed to move from "you really gave your credit card number to some poker site?" to "I play on PokerStars". Also took a major lead in regulatory progress outside the USA in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and others.

Some people who didn't make my list:

Henry Orenstein - the lipstick camera was a big thing, but it's a flash of an idea, not something with sustained evolution.

Any individual poker player (Hellmuth, Ivey, Negreanu) - there's some name recognition and promotion, but all of it kind of gets really driven by the platform the people above gave them

The twoplustwo squad - probably the closest to making the list; there was a time when twoplustwo was ranked (IIRC) in the top 50 or 100 most visited websites on the internet. Still feel like it might have just been a little too niche.

Training sites - tbh I think they've been more destructive for poker than helpful. I understand why they exist, there's no way they would not exist, but they've hastened the downfall of online poker massively

This is underrated comment for sure haha. Rounders had a huge impact for poker for sure, more than people realize.

Doug Polk

I see your point but a lot of the growth was driven by technological innovation and even economic prosperity. Binion still gets a lot of credit for establishing a good core product and also the prestige of high-stakes.

Hate to say it. Doug Polk.

Cause of the emails upswing sends, cause of his YouTube and cause of their card room

paisting?