Most versatile poker players in the world

Poker fans often ask the question - "who is the best poker player in the world?" The answer to this question is difficult (maybe even be impossible to answer), but we will take on the seemingly impossible task.

We have created a list of the best tournament players in the world in terms of versatility. Each of them have won prestigious tournaments, not only in No-Limit Hold'em, but also in other poker variants, proving their versatility. In addition, none of these players are just "Internet wizards", but they have also proven themselves in live, face-to-face competition by winning a WSOP tournament.

We cannot guarantee that the top ranked players are the best/the most talented poker players in the world because of variance, but we are confident they are in the conversation.

Classification shall take into account the following conditions:
▶ A player had to win at least five tournaments (in total) at the three biggest poker festivals during his or her career: World Series of Poker (including WSOP Europe and WSOP Asia-Pacific), PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). We picked these because they have the most non-Hold'em games in their schedules.
▶ The last title had to be won in 2014 at the latest
▶ At least one title must be won in a No-Limit Hold'em event (sorry, John Hennigan and Jeff Lisandro)
▶ The player must have titles won in at least three significantly different variants (for example Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Fixed-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo), or NLHE and mixed-game tournaments (for example: Omaha Hi/Lo&Stud Hi/Lo; S.H.O.E. or 8-Game Mix)
▶ At least one win must be achieved in a live tournament (WSOP)
▶ Last rankings's update: 15/09/2019

It's just a bit of fun, obviously we have left out or favoured aspects you may disagree with in this criteria, so don't take it too seriously, let's just enjoy the ride.

Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmuth, Viktor Blom and Denis "aDrENalin710" Strebkov all narrowly missed out being included in this list for different reasons (Doyle - retirement; Phil - titles in Hold'em and Razz only; Viktor - no live WSOP title; Denis - no NLHE title). In particular spare a thought for Stephen Chidwick who almost made the list but fell short (4 titles), but had he run a little better might have been the overall winner. Just check out his WSOP final tables near misses:

2011 - PL Hold'em - 4th
2012 - H.O.R.S.E. - 3rd
2012 - The Poker Players Championship - 6th
2013 - Omaha Hi/Lo - 6th
2013 - NLHE - 4th
2014 - 8-Game Mix - 5th
2015 - Razz - 7th
2015 - Stud Hi/Lo - 2nd edition
2016 - NL 2-7 Draw Lowball - 6th
2018 - NLHE - 6th

The fact that he is currently considered perhaps the best No Limit player in the world and wins everything under the sun will probably make him feel a little better.

Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi is a true legend of the World Series of Poker.

The American has done something incredible by winning the $50,000 Poker Players Championship tournament, three times! This tournament is considered by many professional players to be a "real world championship".

Mizrachi has a total of five WSOP bracelets:

2010 - $50,000 The Poker Player's Championship
2011 (WSOP Europe) - €10,400 No Limit Hold'em (Split Format)
2012 - $50,000 The Poker Player's Championship
2018 - $50,000 The Poker Player's Championship
2019 - $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better

João Vieira is ranked 1st on the Portugal All Time Money List - he has won over $3.5 million in live tournaments. His biggest win is $758,011 in a WSOP No-Limit Holdem tournament this year. The Portuguese player is also doing great online, so far he has won WCOOP and SCOOP tournaments in FL 2-7 Triple Draw, NLHE and H.O.R.S.E. tournaments. His last win was in WCOOP-H PLO tournament, this Friday.

WSOP - 1 title
WCOOP - 2 titles
SCOOP - 3 titles

We will skip the business career of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and focus exclusively on his poker career.

Ferguson has won 6 World Series of Poker bracelets (in games: 7-Card Stud, NLHE, 1/2 FLHE&1/2 7-Card Stud, PLO8, FLO8). This famously includes the year 2000 when "Jesus" won the WSOP Main Event.

Chris might have had more WSOP bracelets if it hadn't been for the very long break he took after Black Friday. Infamously Ferguson's return was phenomenal (and controversial) - Chris won the bracelet, scored 23 tournament cashes (breaking the WSOP record) and won the WSOP Player of The Year title.

Luke Schwartz has won six titles in prestigious tournaments over his rich career, most recently this year at the WSOP:

2012 - SCOOP-H PLO $5,200
2014 - SCOOP-H FLHE $2,100
2015 - SCOOP-H 5-Card PLO Hi/Lo $1,050+Rebuys
2015 - SCOOP-M NLHE $215
2016 - SCOOP-H NLO Hi/Lo $2,100
2019 - WSOP - $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship

Another player on our list who has won tournaments at all the festivals that we take into account:

2009 - SCOOP-H PLO $5,200
2010 - WSOP NL 2-7 Single Draw Lowball $10,000
2012 - WSOP H.O.R.S.E. $10,000
2013 - SCOOP-H 8-Game $2,100
2014 - WCOOP 8-Game $320
2018 - SCOOP-H NLHE $530

His PokerStars nickname is 'WhooooKidd', but in real life he is known as David 'Bakes' Baker. Don't mistake him with another great poker player David 'ODB' Baker!

Ted Forrest is one of several players, along with Walter "Puggy" Pearson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Jeff Lisandro and George Danzer (not without reason all these names appear in this article), who managed to win three WSOP bracelets in one year!

His WSOP titles:

1993 - Razz $1,500
1993 - Omaha Hi/Lo $1,500
1993 - 7-Card Stud $5,000
2004 - 7-Card Stud $1,500
2004 - NLHE $1,500
2014 - 7-Card Stud $,1500

Mike Watson has won his titles in many different poker formats:
NLHE, PLO, PLO8, 8-Game, Fixed-Limit 2-7 Triple Draw and a first for this list 6+ Hold'em.

SCOOP - 3 titles
WCOOP - 2 titles
WSOP - 2 titles

Next to João Vieira, probably the least known and most underestimated player on the list.

Like the Portuguese star, Michael comes from a country where poker is not as popular as it is in the countries of the other players in the ranking.

Michael hasn't had the chance to learn poker the way Americans learned, being able to participate in mixed tournaments on a daily basis and discuss poker strategy with other live players.

Gathy learned poker from PokerStrategy.com. The learning was effective. His results speak for themselves:

2012 - WSOP $1,000 No Limit Hold'em
2013 - WSOP $1,000 Turbo No Limit Hold'em
2015 - WCOOP $215 NLHE
2016 - WSOP $5,000 Six-Handed No Limit Hold'em
2018 - SCOOP-H FL $,2100 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball
2018 - SCOOP-H $2,100 NLHE
2018 - SCOOP-H $2,100 8-Game
2018 - WCOOP $1,050 NL 2-7 Single Draw

Daniel Negreanu, right next to Phil Hellmuth, is probably the most recognised poker player in the world.

The reason for this is not only his interesting personality, which we could see on the legendary High Stakes Poker TV show, social media activity and being a PokerStars ambassador for many years, but also his fantastic results.

During his career, the Canadian won one SCOOP title, one WCOOP title and six WSOP bracelets. The formats in which he managed to win was this: NLHE (Main Event WSOP Asia-Pacific), FLHE, PLHE, PLO and H.O.R.S.E.

It should be mentioned here that Daniel is the only player who has won the prestigious WSOP Player of The Year award twice (in 2004 and 2013) and is very close to winning it for the third time! Before the start of the festival WSOP Europe 2019 he is in third place in this year's classification, just behind Robert Campbell and Shaun Deeb.

The Canadian's poker successes is very long and includes 4 SCOOP titles, 3 WCOOP titles and 2 WSOP titles (one won at WSOP Europe and the other at WSOP Asia-Pacific).

The games in which Leah won are NLHE, FLHE, PLO, 7-Card Stud, Badugi, H.O.R.S.E.

Dan Kelly is another fantastic player on the list. He can compete in any poker game, and he proved it by winning 2 WSOP bracelets, 5 WCOOP titles and 2 SCOOP titles in these formats: NLHE, FLHE, Razz, H.O.R.S.E. and 8-Game Mix.

The German is the winner of four WSOP bracelets, four SCOOP titles and two WCOOP titles.
In which poker formats? The list is long:

- NLHE
- PLO
- NL 2-7 Single Draw
- Badugi
- Razz
- 7-Card Stud Hi/Lo
- 8-Game

To make sure we don't forget: Danzer won the WSOP Player of The Year award in 2014.

So much has been written about Phil Ivey that it has probably worn out a dozen poker journalist keyboards over the year.

So let's not repeat and just put a list of all Phil's WSOP titles here:

2000- $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha
2002 - $2,500 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
2002 - $2,000 S.H.O.E.
2002 - $1,500 7 Card Stud
2005 - $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
2009 - $2,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball
2009 - $2,500 Omaha Hi/Lo / 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
2010 - $3,000 H.O.R.S.E.
2013 (WSOP Asia-Pacific) - A$2,200 Mixed Event
2014 - $1,500 Eight Game Mix

... and his WCOOP title:
2010 - $25,500 Heads-Up No Limit Hold'em [High-Roller]

On Mercier's list of victories, you can find, among others, 5 WSOP titles, 2 WCOOP titles and 5 SCOOP titles.

The poker variants in which Jason managed to win: PLO, NLHE, No-Limit Draw Lowball, H.O.R.S.E., 8-Game, Fixed-Limit Badugi, No-Limit 5-Card Draw, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo

Thanks to his regular victories and finishining in the money in poker tournaments, the American won the title of SCOOP Player of the Series in 2015 and WSOP Player of The Year in 2016.

If someone can be called the "King of Spring Championship of Online Poker", it will be Calvin 'cal42688' Anderson. Playing from Mexico, the American has won 10 SCOOP tournaments (the second in this classification - Shawn Buchanan - has only 6 wins). Calvin also won 2 WCOOP tournaments and 2 WSOP tournaments.

A list of variants? Impressive:

- NLHE
- FLHE
- PLO
- PLO8
- Razz
- 7-Card Stud
- 7-Card Stud Hi/Lo
- NL 2-7 Single Draw Lowball
- H.O.R.S.E.
- 8-Game

And we finally got to the end of the list. Let's meet the "King of the Hill", a player who is perhaps the toughest opponent you can meet at a poker table, the real "End Boss".

Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb won everything he could win in his poker career. The American has won four World Series of Poker titles, five SCOOP titles, and seven WCOOP titles (the last WCOOP title he won just a few days ago).

Shaun, who not only wins tournaments but is also in the money with exceptional regularity, has won the following leaderboards:

2012 - SCOOP Player of The Series
2015 - WCOOP Player of The Series
2016 - SCOOP Player of The Series
2018 - WSOP Player of The Year (2 bracelets, 3 final tables, 15 cashes)

Shaun achieved his tournament victories in these poker formats: NLHE, PLHE, PLO, PLO Hi/Lo, 7-Card Stud, Triple Stud, 5-Card Draw, H.O.R.S.E.

As we mentioned earlier, when describing Daniel Negreanu, Shaun Deeb is close to winning the WSOP Player of The Year 2019 and is currently ranked second. If he can win the title, he will be the second, after Daniel Negreanu, player to win the title twice (for the first time Shaun won the WSOP PoY award last year).