The list of inductees into the WSOP Hall of Fame is a lengthy one with 37 having been elected to membership.  Interestingly enough, some of the original inductees never played in the WSOP Tournament.  Here is the list of current members, nicknames included, and the year in which they were inducted into the Hall:

1979 – Nick “the Greek” Dandolos, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, Edmund Hoyle, Felton “Corky” McCorquodale, Johnny Moss – “the Grand Old Man of Poker”, Red Winn, and Sid Wyman

1980 – T “Blondie” Forbes

1981 – Bill Boyd

1982 – Tom Abdo

1983 – Joe Bernstein

1984 – Murph Harrold

1985 – Red Hodges

1986 – Henry Green

1987- Walter Clyde “Puggy” Pearson

1988 – Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson and Jack “Treetop” Straus

1989 – Fred “Sarge” Ferris

Of the above people on the list, Doyle Brunson (1988 inductee) had a total of $2,830,302 in winnings and was the biggest winner of this first group of WSOP Hall of Fame members.  It should be obvious why Edmund Hoyle was one of the inductees as he authored “According to Hoyle.”

However, many people question the validity of “Wild Bill” Hickok being in the initial group of 1979 inductees.  Hickok, who lived from 1837 to 1876, was inducted based on the fact that he was revered as the greatest poker player of his day.  On an interesting side note, Hickok is one of only three poker players to die while playing the game, having been shot in the back.  He was holding two pair – Aces and 8’s – which today is always referred to as a “dead man’s” hand.

A fat man with a cigar in his mouth and a cowboy hat on his head is no longer the usual poker player stereotype. A new breed has emerged: young, hip, athletic, attractive and some female are the new characteristics of the poker player. Annie Duke leads the way in setting this standard and inspiring an increasing number of women to participate in online poker games.

It all started at the kitchen table for Annie. She hails from a family of New Hampshire intellectuals. While her brother Howard Lederer, popularly known as “The Professor”, went on to become a professional poker and chess player, Annie chose to pursue her education at the Pennsylvania University by studying cognitive psychology. She dropped out just a year before her PhD and moved to Montana after getting married.

It was in Montana where she started playing poker to give financial support to her family. Her brother pushed her into taking part in the World Series where in her first appearance she came in 13th. She then decided to move to Vegas with her family and take up poker professionally.

Annie stays away from women-only tournaments for she feels that poker is amongst the few games where women can play men on an entirely equal level. She has a World Series bracelet to her name and $3,500, 000 and above in tournament prizes since the 90’s.

She stood 10th in the 2000 WSOP main event. She always places her family before her career. Apart from poker she has successfully branched out into consulting, teaching and writing. She enjoys great respect amongst the women players.

Many poker players reach a point in their career where long games and constant travel start to take their toll. Bernard Lee is one of the few players who have not allowed the game to take over his life.

Born in New York in 1970, he went to Harvard to study and then went on to acquire his MBA degree from Babson College.

He further proceeded to get a job as a senior manager with a Fortune 500 firm. It wasn’t until he was married and with two kids that, at the age of 35, he found time for playing poker seriously.

People started recognizing Lee after he stood 13th in the WSOP Main Event in 2005. He got a lot of attention because a photo clip of him kissing his family did heavy rounds in the media.

As soon as he returned to his Boston home, he was offered a job by the Boston Herald writing poker columns. He has retained that job ever since and his column is very popular. In addition to writing, he also hosts a radio show which is titled with his name. It’s a call-in show where he discusses news and strategy from the gaming world.

All this action in the field of media has not affected Lee’s game. He won the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em competition at the WPT World finals in 2006, and in 2007 he won the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. He has amassed a total of $1.2million plus in wins.

Berry Johnston is amongst the most mysterious of all those who have won the Gold Bracelet in the World Series of Poker.

He was born in 1935 in Oklahoma. He stepped into poker professionally at around 35 years of age. Johnston was seen playing the highest of stakes with the likes of Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson. But it was only in the 1980s that he made a solid impact on the poker world.

In 1982 he finished third at the World Series in the $10,000 Championship Event and has since been considered to be amongst the best players to participate in this prestigious event.

In 1983 he won the first of his five WSOP bracelets. In 1986 he was declared world champion after beating Jesse Alto and Gary Berland.

His World Series games are the highlight of his career. Berry is at an equal standing with Chris Ferguson as the third highest earner in the history of poker. Men Nguyen and Hellmuth are the only people to have earned more. Berry Johnston has amassed over $3.2 million in his lifetime.

Johnston represents Full Tilt in online poker competitions. He is also the ambassador for the Cherokee Casino chain based in Oklahoma. He plays for them against the best of the mid-south players.

His greatest achievement was in 2004 when he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.  He is considered by his contemporaries as a gentleman and a deeply religious man who is devoted to his family.

The WSOP in 2006 was a historical event. The event saw 8,733 players, the highest number of players ever in a single event, and WSOP bracelets were won in the preliminary events by Jeff Madsen and Bill Chen.

Bill found very little time to play poker earlier on in his life. He was busy finishing his studies at the Berkeley Institute of the California University. He acquired his PhD in Mathematics in 1999. This started his career in the field of software design and quantitative analysis, but his desire to gain success in poker kept on burning inside him.

Bill came up with the “Chen Formula” in 2000. It helps, through simple arithmetic, to gauge a quick analysis of your pre flop hand’s strength. This, along with his ever-growing passion for poker, helped him reach the heights of the poker world.

Initially Bill had little success on the California circuit. However, he eventually demonstrated his expertise in the game and had a big win in 2000 at the ‘Legends of Poker’ event held in Los Angeles’s Bicycle Casino. In Vegas on the 4th of July, he defeated 415 players to win the $3,000 Limit Hold’em event. Eleven days later he beat 740 players in the $2,500 No Limit Six-Handed tournament. That is where he won his second bracelet.

Bill is considered to be the best mathematical mind in the game and has the respect of all his opponents.

Big cash prizes and online gambling are very common today. The weekend of 11th and 12th of October 2008 was very busy for all the established online poker sites. This was due to the guaranteed £750,000 PokerStars’ Sunday Million.  In the previous weekend, the event attracted 7,307 players at a starting bid of £100 plus £8 each. This goes to show that the event generated nearly £20,000. The guaranteed £375,000 Sunday Warm-Up and the guaranteed £150,000 Second Chance is also available weekly on PokerStars.

Around 1,080 participants stood eligible for prizes in the Sunday Million. The highest prize of £92,250 was won by govshark2. He defeated princio to win this award. The runner-up took home £62,975. 3rd place was reached by trangers15 who amassed £42,000. The final table saw BrOke24/7 in 4th place, DueceBuster finishing 5th, BOKINHA in the 6th, Y2JKID in the 7th place and the 8th and 9th positions were reached by MyGambit and Jazz604, respectively.

In the Sunday Warm-Up event held on PokerStars Pokky Star won the first prize of £50,625 by defeating wdrzich who took back £35,625. The final table saw ael1979 in the 3rd place, mozitasin the 4th, wildman22222 in the 5th, Pappe Ruk in the sixth, Puniponken in the 7th and the 8th and 9th positions were reached by bot432931 and IBLUFFULOL, respectively.

PokerStars offers the Sunday Second Chance as the last opportunity for players to make money over the weekend. This weekend’s Second Chance had ozenc emerging as the winner. He won £27,375. in the second place there was Gvillebill, 3rd place was won by pocktnizzles, xxjondxx came 4th, LexLuthor85 finished fifth, POker DOh came 6th, makavelyces finished 7th and the 8th and 9th positions were awarded to Topvorm and yrcanos respectively.

An MIT and Harvard Law School graduate, Andy Bloch, popularly known as “The Rock,” has managed to earn $3,700,000 and more from professionally playing poker. It has made him very popular amongst his white-collar college batch mates.

It is said that Bloch was born with a set of cards, yet he only took up poker seriously after he finished MIT. During that time he was member of “The Amphibians”, a blackjack club in MIT. There he is said to have made over $100,000 in a single session. With an improvement in his skill through continued playing, he started using the money he won along with what he earned from odd jobs to pay for his studies at the Harvard Law School. After he finished his law school studies he decided to play poker full time.

He has finished amongst the top in several WSOP tournaments, including the famous H.O.R.S.E. tournament held in 2006 and the PotLimit Hold’em World Championship in 2008. In addition to playing poker, he is also a critically acclaimed blackjack player. He is a part of Team Full Tilt and also the author of a DVD and a book. Bloch donates all his Full Tilt earnings to charities, a fact that few people know about him.

Even though rumour has it that Bloch is looking for a law oriented job, it seems highly unlikely that he will quit such a successful poker career. He is man of many facets: a poet, a lawyer-engineer and a great poker player.

Here are a few more titbits about famous living poker experts to inspire and challenge the rest of us:

Daniel Negreanu (born 1974, Toronto, Ontario, Canada)—Holds 4 WSOP bracelets. Twice winner, WPT. 2004 WSOP Player of the Year. 2005 WPT Player of the Year. Named 2006 Favourite Player of the Year by Card Player Magazine. Featured in the 2006 video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu, in which he describes his strategies and gives pointers for winning high-stakes competitions. He has written more than a hundred articles and contributions to books about excelling in poker. Further, Daniel has also been running ‘Full Contact Poker’, his own Web site, for three years now. He also served as commentator at many live and televised poker events. Total tournament winnings: over £5,400,000. Ranks 2nd, All-Time Money List.

Donnacha ‘The Don’ O’Dea (born 1948, Ireland)—First member, European Poker Players HOF. Winner, 2004 Poker Million. Winner, WSOP bracelet in 1998 Pot Limit Omaha. Frequent final table participant at WSOP Main Events. Live tournament winnings total: £500,000 as of 2008. A 1968 Olympian, he competed as a swimmer for Ireland. First Irishman to swim 100m in less than 1 minute. He is the father of another famous online poker player, Eoghan O’Dea.

Andreas Hoivold (born 1971, Kristiansand, Norway)—Turned pro only in 2005 yet placed 3rd just 7 months later in Poker Million V. Cashed 3 times in the WSOP, earning about £9,000. ETP winner in Dortmund, netting £334,000.

Poker is undeniably a monetarily rewarding card game, but those who know the game intimately have a good idea of the stress that players go through. So much so that many circles prefer to call it a sport and more than a game. Thus it’s always a treat to take a glimpse into the exploits of the shining lights that have gained fame and fortune by it.

These are some of the living stars:

Erik Seidel (born 1959, New York City)—Winner of eight bracelets, World Series of Poker. 2008 Winner, WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic. Runner-up finishes, the Aussie Millions 2007 and 2008. Total winnings from tournaments have exceeded $9,200,000 as of 2008. Interestingly, Seidel originally played tournament backgammon for eight years. He helped design the online poker game Full Tilt Poker.

Phillip Hellmuth Jr. (born 1964, Madison, Wisconsin)—Holds 11 bracelets, World Series of Poker. Main event winner, World Series of Poker 1989, and still holds the distinction of being the youngest-ever player to do so at 24 years old. Member, Poker Hall of Fame. Ranks 4th in the poker All-Time Money List. Total tournament winnings: more than $10,600,000 as of 2008. He has authored numerous books and articles on poker and acted as commentator at many online poker shows.

James Mackey (born 1986, Kansas City, Missouri)—Winner, 2007 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) organized by PokerStars. At 21, youngest-ever bracelet winner in a 2007 WSOP event. Runnerup, 2008 WSOP. Tournament winnings: over $1,200.000 as of 2008. He began playing online poker only in 2005 with a $75 online account, from which he made $20,000.

1. John Juanda – An MBA from Seattle University, Juanda has shuffled between many careers. A member of “Team Full Tilt” at Full Tilt Poker, Juanda has made it to 6 World Poker Tour final tables but has not been lucky enough to capture a title as of yet. As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $9,300,000.

2. Mike Matusow – Also known by the name of Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, is famous for creating storms at the poker tables. An interesting fact about Mike is that he has served time in jail for possessing drugs. He is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and the winner of the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. His winnings up to the year 2008 amount to approximately $6,800,000.

3. Phil Gordon – This computer science graduate catapulted himself to fame by finishing 4th in the WSOP tournament in 2001. It won him around $400,000 in prize money. He is not only a professional poker player but also an author. To date, Gordon’s total live tournament winnings exceed $1,700,000.

4. Phil Ivey – Phil has won five World Series of Poker bracelets and has a World Poker Tour title, making it to the final table for a record eight times. He is also the youngest poker player to accomplish the professional status.

5. Phil Hellmuth- This Ultimate Bet player is best known for holding a record eleven World Series of Poker bracelets and for winning the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker. Ever since winning his first WSOP bracelet at the young age of 24, he has been tasting success most of the times he has played the game. He is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.