The top 5 most polarising poker players
You either love them or hate them, we rank the five players that divide opinion more than anyone else.
William Kassouf
He may have been a complete unknown a month ago and his record is nothing compared to anyone else on this list, but William Kassouf has split the poker world in ways which we have not seen for years.
Some love his animated antics at the table and more like the fact that he has managed to get under his opponents' skin. Others find his non-stop talking annoying and even more have a problem with the fact that he tanks so much.
What has defined Kassouf more than anything else has been the reaction to him from the other players in the Main Event. Those who cheer for him generally are doing so because they take issue with the way the likes of Griffin Benger, Cliff Josephy, Jared Bleznick and Gordon Vayo ganged up on him.
In that respect it is perhaps less about whether you like Kassouf and more whether you disliked how he was treated by his tablemates that has split the poker world.
Gus Hansen
This might be an unusual pick considering everyone else on the list shares outspokenness as the main reason they divide opinion. We poker players love to criticise the play of others and debate whether professional players, who objectively speaking are among the best in the world, are fish or not.
He is actually a reserved character in his personality, but Gus Hansen divides opinion in poker on whether he is actually a good poker player or not.
To some he is a world class backgammon player, prop bet athlete and poker pro. With three WPT and one WSOP title, plus over $10 million in live winnings. Others will always define him as the biggest online cash game loser in history with over $20 million in online losses.
Even before his online losses were common knowledge, his erratic gambling stye was heralded as genius from some players and degenerate from others, as this early clip of him calling with ten high reminds us:
Tony G
I was tempted to include Mike Matusow in this list but everything he does Tony G has done, and louder.
He may be missed in poker these days given he now works in politics, but even when he was here Tony was a player you loved to hate. The way he would verbally berate his opponents was horrifying and mesmerising in equal measure. He would sometimes go so far that it was on the cusp of being against the rules, or at least the spirit of the game.
His antics were always comedy gold and he was one of the true characters of the game. You would always watch when Tony was playing no matter what you thought of him. But he would breach etiquette so often he was also sending out a bad message about what poker was like.
Even if you really liked the guy, you probably wouldn’t want to share a table with him.
Phil Hellmuth
The Poker Brat is every bit as entertaining and verbally aggressive as Tony G, but there are other things that make him so polarising.
His well documented temper tantrums and ego being one of them. Unlike Tony G, everyone wants to play against Phil Hellmuth because they have seen how easily (and amusingly) he can go on tilt. Some think this is the height of entertainment, some think it’s an act, some find it annoying and others think it sends a bad message.
Like Gus, he also splits opinion on whether he is actually any good. Most cash game players lick their lips when he is at the table and he has never won a major event outside of the WSOP. But at the WSOP he is the greatest, with 14 bracelets including a Main Event title.
More seriously opinion is split on Hellmuth as an ambassador. He does some crazy publicity stunts, rubs shoulders with celebrities and works very hard promoting the game in the mainstream media. Some players, however, will never forgive his long time endorsement of Ultimate Bet, the infamous site embroiled in the SuperUser cheating scandal.
Daniel Negreanu
Most likely the player who will blow up the comments section of this piece and any other we write is KidPoker. Daniel Negreanu is the most opinionated player in the game and has been positioned as something of a ‘People’s Champion’.
He gets involved in almost every major debate, whether it’s how the media should report at the WSOP, Black Friday and the Full Tilt scandal, Howard Lederer and Annie Duke, the Poker Hall of Fame, rulings, Erick Lindgren's gambling debts, whether he can beat online high stakes, the changes Amaya has made to PokerStars and so much more. Anyone who has been around poker a long time will have found themselves nodding their head with him at times and shaking it in refusal at others.
With six WSOP bracelets, two WPT titles and the all-time money number one spot, his ability should not be in doubt (but people will always debate it). But as the most outspoken person in poker he will always be part of whatever the latest debate is, with fans and detractors in equal measure.
Who do you love and who do you hate? Let us know in the comments:
