- Phil Hellmuth
Phillip J. Hellmuth, Jr. (born July 16, 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin) is a professional poker player. He is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame and holds the record for most bracelets won at the World Series of Poker(11)
- Doyle Brunson
Doyle Brunson (born August 10, 1933 in Longworth, Fisher County, Texas) is an American poker player who has played professionally for over 50 years. He is a two-time world champion of poker and the author of several poker books. The first player to earn $1 million in poker tournaments, Brunson has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets throughout his career, tied with Johnny Chan for second all-time, one behind Phil Hellmuth's 11.
- Phil Ivey
Phil Ivey (born February 1 1976 in Riverside, California) is an American professional poker player.
- Chris Moneymaker
Christopher Bryan Moneymaker (born November 21, 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American poker player who won the main event at the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His victory is generally credited for being one of the main catalysts for the poker boom in the years following his win. Moneymaker attended Farragut High School in Farragut, Tennessee and later earned a master's degree in accounting from the University of Tennessee.
- Greg Raymer
Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, born in Minot, North Dakota and raised in Lansing, Michigan, followed a traditional path with his schooling - attending law school and becoming a licensed patent attorney. But his life took a decidedly different turn when Greg tried to use his knowledge and skills to make history. In 2004, Greg won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Championship and collected the largest purse ever paid to a winner of a poker tournament: $5 million.
- Joe Hachem
Joseph "Joe" Hachem (born 3 November 1966 in Lebanon) is a Lebanese-Australian poker player.
- Chris Ferguson
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (born Christopher Philip Ferguson April 11 1963, in Los Angeles, California) is a professional poker player. Ferguson attended UCLA where he earned a Ph.D. in computer science (focusing on virtual network algorithms) in 1999 after five years as an undergraduate and 13 years as a graduate student. His Ph.D. advisor was Leonard Kleinrock. Ferguson's parents have doctoral degrees in mathematics and his father, Thomas Ferguson, …
- Scotty Nguyen
Thuan "Scotty" Nguyen (born October 28, 1962 in Nha Trang, Vietnam) <sup> </sup> is a Vietnamese American professional poker player. Nguyen is one of the most active players in professional poker today, and from 2000 to 2004 he finished in the money in more than 100 events. He won the 1998 World Series of Poker main event and has 4 WSOP bracelets overall.
- Johnny Chan
Johnny Chan, born in Guangzhou (Canton), China in 1957, now living in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a professional poker player.
- Jamie Gold
Jamie M. Gold (born August 25 1969 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American television producer, poker tournament player, and formerly a talent agent, based in Malibu, California. He was the 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion.
- Jennifer Harman
Jennifer Harman (born November 29, 1964 in Reno, Nevada) is an American professional poker player with a reputation as a cash game player. Lately, she has also forged a name for herself in the tournament world. She won her first World Series of Poker bracelet in 2000 at the No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball Event (at a final table that also included Lyle Berman and Steve Zolotow). She had never played that game prior to the event, …
- Allen Cunningham
Allen Cunningham (born March 28 1977 to Dean and Joanne Cunningham in Riverside, California), United States, is a professional poker player. Cunningham studied civil engineering at UCLA before dropping out of school to play poker professionally. He began playing at 18 in Indian casinos. Cunningham plays online poker exclusively at Full Tilt Poker. Previously a Full Tilt sponsored pro, he became a full member of Team Full Tilt in October 2006.
- David Williams
David Anthony Williams (born June 9, 1980 in Arlington, Texas) is a professional poker and Magic: The Gathering player. He was a student at Princeton University and studied Economics at Southern Methodist University.
- Isabelle Mercier
Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier is a professional poker player. She is known for her tenacious playing style and her striking looks. Prior to turning to a poker career, she earned an undergraduate law degree from the Université de Montréal and practiced commercial law for a year. Then moved to Paris, France and earned a Masters Degree while working as the poker room manager at the Aviation Club de France, before turning to poker full-time.
- Tom McEvoy
Tom McEvoy (born November 14, 1944 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA) is a professional poker player and author. McEvoy was an accountant, but after he was laid off from his job, he took up poker full time in 1978. He first learned to play poker when he was five years old and would regularly get in trouble for playing it in grade school. McEvoy won the 1983 World Series of Poker main event, and still plays regularly today.
- Paul Wasicka
Paul Wasicka (born February 17, 1981 in Dallas, Texas) is a professional poker player, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Paul Wasicka started playing poker in 2004 when he attended an underground tournament in Denver, Colorado. He formerly worked as a bartender and restaurant manager before shifting over to poker. Wasicka finished as runner-up to Jamie Gold in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, winning over $6,000,000.
- Stu Ungar
Stuart Errol Ungar was a professional poker and gin rummy player, considered to be among the best in history at both games. He is the only three-time winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event tournament (Johnny Moss also won three WSOPs but his first win was by vote of the players, not by winning a tournament).
- Dan Harrington
Dan Harrington (born December 6, 1945 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is a professional poker player. Harrington is a former champion backgammon player, U.S. chess master (he won the 1971 Massachusetts State Chess Championship), and bankruptcy lawyer. During his time at Suffolk University, he was part of an MIT team that gained an advantage over casinos at roulette. Shortly after the MIT team disbanded he was part of different one which specialized in blackjack.
- Mark Vos
Mark Vos, also known as 'pokerbok', is a young professional poker player from Australia. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Vos permanently deferred his actuarial studies at Macquarie University, to play poker full time. Starting out online with limit hold'em in mid 2004, Vos soon turned his attention to no-limit games, and in short time, earned a reputation as being one of the world's top online poker players, …
- Ram Vaswani
Ram "Crazy Horse" Vaswani (born c. 1970 in London) is an English professional snooker player, turned professional poker player and the youngest member of The Hendon Mob. He resides in Finchley with his wife Jackie and daughter Hollie. Following a brief snooker career, Vaswani became a regular on the poker circuit, and due to his involvement in Late Night Poker, he also became one of the pioneers of poker on television.
- Berry Johnston
Berry Johnston (born c. 1935) is an American professional poker player. Johnston won the 1986 World Series of Poker main event, and placed 3rd and 5th in the 1982 and 1990 World Series, respectively. He has made at least 26 final tables at the WSOP and has finished in the money at least 52 times. He has also cashed 10 times in the WSOP Main Event, more than any other player. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2004.
- Huck Seed
Huck Seed is easy to spot in a room full of crowded players. His physique is not very easy to ignore, or to forget. He stands at an intimidating height of 6'7" (2.01 m), but what truly strikes fear into the hearts of his opponents is his stone-cold silence at the table. This lanky giant betrays little of what he feels about his cards, attacking instinctively and without mercy.
- Liz Lieu
Liz Lieu (born August 2 1974 in Vietnam) is a professional poker player. Lieu was primarily a limit Texas hold 'em cash games player for a number of years, before embracing tournament play at the 2005 World Series of Poker. When John Phan encouraged her to enter the $1500 no-limit hold'em event, she ended up in fifth place with over $168,000 in prize money.
- Carlos Mortensen
Juan Carlos Mortensen (born April 13, 1972 in Ambato, Ecuador) is a professional poker player, known for his loose play, bluffing tactics, and interesting chip-stacking style. Mortensen moved from Spain to America in the late 1990s to play poker. His biggest win was the 2001 World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, in which he won $1,500,000. He also won the World Poker Tour (WPT) Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship in 2004 for $1,000,000.
- David Grey
David Grey is an American professional poker player from Henderson, Nevada. Grey is best known as a cash-game player (celebrity opponents have included Larry Flynt and René Angélil), but he also has several notable tournament wins to his name. He has won two bracelets at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). In addition, Grey made the final table of the 2003 $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event, …
- Julian Gardner
Julian Gardner is a poker player from Manchester, England. Gardner is a second-generation professional, following in the footsteps of his father Dave. He started going to a local casino at the age of 15. By the time he was 20 he had won 10 tournaments. By 21, he had made 25 final tables. In 2000 he entered the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event for the first time. He tripled up within two hours to become the early chip leader.
- Amarillo Slim
Amarillo Slim (born Thomas Austin Preston, Jr. December 31, 1928 in Johnson, Arkansas) is a professional gambler, famous for his poker skills and proposition bets. He won the main event at the World Series of Poker in 1972.
- Tom Schneider
Tom Schneider (born December 24, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is a professional poker player from Phoenix, Arizona. Schneider was a certified public accountant and former president and chief financial officer for three Arizona companies before beginning his poker career in 2002. He is the author of the book "Oops! I Won Too Much Money: Winning Wisdom from the Boardroom to the Poker Table" which provides lessons for both poker and business.
- Sam Farha
Ihsan Farha (born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1959) is a professional poker player, based in Houston, Texas.
- Johnny Moss
Johnny Moss (May 14, 1907 - December 16, 1995)<sup>;</sup> was a professional poker player.
- Robert Varkonyi
Robert Varkonyi (born October 7, 1961 in New York) is a professional poker player. Varkonyi first started playing poker as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After his graduation in 1983 (with degrees in EECS and from the MIT Sloan School of Management), he was an investment banker in Brooklyn, New York for a number of years before beginning to play tournament poker.
- Dewey Tomko
Dewey Tomko (born December 31, 1946 in Glassport, Pennsylvania) <sup></sup> is an American former kindergarten teacher turned professional poker player, based in Winter Haven, Florida.
- Bobby Baldwin
Bobby Baldwin (born c. 1950; MGM Mirage's 2006 proxy statement, filed on 4/30/06, recorded Baldwin's age as 55) is a professional poker player and casino executive. When Baldwin won the 1978 World Series of Poker main event he became the youngest winner in its history, to be superseded by Stu Ungar in 1980 and then Phil Hellmuth in 1989. His major wins include four WSOP bracelets, all won from 1977 to 1979. In 2003 he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
- Michael Keiner
Michael "the Doc" Keiner (* b.February 8, 1959 in Wetzlar,Germany) is a German poker player best known to win a Seven-card stud WSOP bracelet in 2007. Keiner, who used to be a plastic surgeon, started playing poker in 1993. Starting 1995 he regularly played 7 card stud where he immediately became European champion. His game of choice became Omaha Pot Limit cashgames, though.
- Bob Ciaffone
Bob "The Coach" Ciaffone (born December 10 1940 in Brooklyn, New York) is the author of "Robert's Rules of Poker", and an American poker player, based in Saginaw, Michigan. Ciaffone finished third in the 1987 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 no limit Texas hold 'em main event, winning $125,000. In that same year, he finished fourth in the WSOP $2,500 pot limit Omaha hold 'em event and fifth in the WSOP $1,000 no limit Texas hold 'em event.
- Brad Daugherty
Brad Daugherty (born July 5, 1951 in Mountain Grove, Missouri) is a professional poker player. Daugherty began playing poker in 1969 on a high school trip. Following high school he worked in the construction industry, but after hearing of large prize money for tournament winnings, in 1978 he moved to Reno, Nevada. In 1987 he won his first tournament.
- Russ Hamilton
Ever since he was five years old, Russ Hamilton has been following the gambling money. Introduced to the game by his father, he was making a pretty good living by the time he was in high school playing card games and running football pools. While attending college for a degree in electrical engineering, a conversation with a professor made him realize that he was making more money at cards than he ever would in the real world, …
- Bruno Fitoussi
Bruno Fitoussi (born September 21, 1958) is a French professional poker player from Paris. Fitoussi's first televised poker outing was on the original poker show Late Night Poker. He finished 7th in his heat, which also featured Surinder Sunar, Peter "The Bandit" Evans and Donnacha O'Dea. In 2001, Fitoussi won the World Heads-Up Poker Championship, defeating Amarillo Slim in the Grand Final.
- Steve Billirakis
Steve Billirakis (born May 23 1986 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American professional poker player. Billirakis won the first tournament of the 2007 World Series of Poker winning the $5,000 World Championship Mixed Hold'em Limit/No-Limit event after beating Canadian poker player and former professional hockey player Greg Mueller heads-up. Billirakis won $536,287 and became the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history, having won the event only 11 days after his 21st birthday.
- Puggy Pearson
Walter Clyde Pearson (January 29, 1929 in Tennessee - April 12, 2006) was an American professional poker player. Pearson grew up in Tennessee in a large family with nine siblings. He got his nickname "Puggy" from a childhood accident that left him with a disfigured nose at the age of 12. He dropped out of school in the 5th grade, and at the age of 17 he joined the United States Navy, where he served three terms. Already known as one of the best pool players in the world, …