Poker is rapidly turning into one of the biggest games in the world. A combination of its easy availability at online casinos and coverage of the top poker tournaments has really boosted its popularity.
Many of the people who are interested in playing poker online start by watching the world’s best players competing in live tournament action. This is available on television and via internet streaming.
Watching those players can help the viewer pick up tips on basics like the different poker ranking hands and the various bets available as well as more advanced strategy. That makes it a valuable way to learn the ropes.
But which players are the ones that you should be checking out to get that sort of information?
Daniel Negreanu
This player is known on the circuit and to fans of the game as ‘Kid Poker’ but he certainly does not play like a child. He has earned a total of $39,000,000 by competing in poker tournaments, which puts him among the highest earning professional players of all time.
Much of his success has been enjoyed at two of the most prestigious tournaments: the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour. Negreanu has won two titles at the latter and picked up six bracelets so far at the former. These achievements have led to the 48-year-old Canadian being named WPT Player of the Year and securing a place in the Poker Hall of Fame.
Outside of the game, he is happily married and runs a blog on the Full Contact Poker site in which he discusses everything from gambling to politics.
Phil Hellmuth
At 59, Hellmuth is one of the oldest players still competing, but he is also considered to be one of the best. He was motivated to take up poker for a living when he made $10,000 from playing it during a stay in Las Vegas and it has certainly proven to be a smart decision.
When he was still only 24 years old he won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker. That put him in the record books as the youngest ever winner and earned him his first gold bracelet as well as a pot worth $755,000.
He has since gone on to claim an astonishing 16 further bracelets at this event, which is the most won by any single player. He also notched up a win at the Main Event in the World Series of Poker (Europe) a decade ago and has reached the final table at five events on the World Poker Tour.
The total winnings that this US player has from live tournament play are more than $29,000,000. His nickname is the ‘Poker Brat’ due to his dislike of losing and away from the game he owns a publishing company that produces poker instructional books.
Justin Bonomo
Another major poker star to hail from the US is 37-year old Justin Bonomo. By last summer, he had earned $57,283,047 from live tournament play, which made him the most successful tournament player in the history of professional poker.
Another factor that puts him amongst the top players is his title-winning record. Bonomo has won the Big One for One Drop event at the 2018 World Series of Poker and has so far claimed three bracelets at that tournament.
2018 was something of a golden year for him all round, as he won 10 high roller events in total, including the Macau and May Aria Super High Roller Bowls. These wins brought him millions of dollars and propelled him up the all-time money rankings.
Bonomo currently lives in Las Vegas, in its Panorama Towers building, alongside over 70 other professional players.
Bryn Kenney
Bryn Kenney was born in New York and became a professional poker player after previously competing in Magic: The Gathering contests. There is certainly no way that he could have got anywhere near his current $56.4 million career earnings playing that game.
His first real success came in 2007, during the East Coast Poker Championships. Then seven years after that he won his first World Series of Poker bracelet after finishing first at the 10-Game Mix Six Handed event.
Kenney’s profile rose higher two years later when he won the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure $100k Super High Roller Event. The man he defeated was the previous year’s World Series of Poker champion Joe McKeehen.
2019 was his greatest year to date though. It included earnings of $20,563,324 at the Triton Million and pushed him up among the top poker earners.
No matter the tournament, opponents or the types of chips he is playing with, Kenney can come out on top.
These are the four players that people should learn poker tips from.
