Nick Schulman
Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in July of 2023, then again in July of 2024, but since the Poker Hall of Fame still hasn’t made any changes to its induction rules, it remains relevant and is being re-run yet again with the appropriate edits.
There’s no doubting Nick Schulman’s worthiness for the Poker Hall of Fame. The 40-year-old has a stellar poker résumé that boasts seven World Series of Poker bracelets, a World Poker Tour title, and $24 million in tournament earnings. And that doesn’t even take into consideration his contributions to the game as an announcer and commentator.
By all accounts, the New York native was a slam dunk choice for induction, with not only all the necessary credentials, but also as one of the most popular players in the game today, both with his fellow competitors and those watching at home.
Schulman officially becomes the 64th overall member, and will be able to cast a vote next year along with the 32 other living members of the Hall.
Still, it’s hard not to feel for the deserving players left on the outside looking in, and that’s a list that is far longer than just the nine other nominees who came up just short this year.
Antonius beat out the late ‘Miami’ John Cernuto, Jeremy Ausmus, Scott Seiver, Phil Galfond, Mike Matusow, Ted Forrest, Isai Scheinberg, Kathy Liebert, and Matt Savage. All of them have Hall-worthy achievements, but yet their chances at getting in grow slimmer each year as the logjam of eligible players ages into consideration and bottlenecks with a one-player-per-year restriction.
Matusow has now been nominated 11 different times, with Savage sitting on 10. Forrest has been up for induction eight times. There are many issues facing the institution, but the biggest remains the Hall’s exclusivity.
1. One Player Per Year Is Not Enough
I doubt I’ll get many who disagree with me here, except for maybe those already in. There are now 64 members of the Poker Hall of Fame (full list below), but arguably just as many players who meet, or will soon meet the criteria for induction. In fact, in the next few years there will be a large number of high-stakes crushers who will turn 40, putting my personal current count of Hall-worthy players at more than 80. (Yes, I made a list. No, I won’t publish it.)
It wasn’t always this way, of course. The Poker Hall of Fame began with an inaugural class of seven members, and although there was only one inductee per year for some time after that, the poker world was also quite small back then. In 2002, two players were inducted at the same time, and double inductees continued in the boom years from 2005 to 2019. But instead of doubling the number to four, as many wanted, the Hall instead went back to one per year.
The solution is obvious and simple… more inductees. How many? I believe three to four players per year would be a good number, with an additional inductee every year for those who fall into the category of industry contributors and influencers. (Perhaps even writers one day!) Anyone who is nominated more than five times should just automatically get inducted.
The actual number can be debated, but it just HAS to be more than one. The poker world has grown exponentially since the Hall was started back in 1979.
2. The Hall Needs A Physical Home
The World Series of Poker operates the Poker Hall of Fame and has been run by Caesars Entertainment since their purchase of the series back in 2004. They’ve since launched a special Hall of Fame event at the WSOP that features a $1,979 buy-in and bounties on all Hall members who play, and rebranded the Horseshoe card room as the Hall of Fame Poker Room, complete with player photos and some limited memorabilia.
Las Vegas is home to many interesting places and has museums honoring the history of everything from punk rock to pinball, even the mob, but poker’s Hall doesn’t really have its own physical space to call its own. And that’s surprising given the amount of actual space that Caesars has at its disposal at the Paris and Horseshoe on the Strip.
Each summer, the WSOP should dedicate a small section of the convention area to the Poker Hall of Fame and its members. Existing Hall members could loan out memorabilia, whether its photos and bracelets or other trophies and items from the past that could rotate on display for visitors.
Caesars could even tie it into their gift shop and sell t-shirts if they need to justify the square footage. (How many people would buy a hoodie with Hellmuth’s face on it?)
3. Most Voters Are Clueless
With all due respect to the public (and to the readers of Card Player), the public should have little to no say in who gets into the Poker Hall of Fame. The WSOP found this out the hard way in 2009 when they asked fans to vote on nominees and a then 22-year-old Tom Dwan was the overwhelming choice.
Today, the public gets some input with an online nomination period, but it’s minimal. According to the WSOP website, the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council gets the final say on who makes the list.
The final vote goes to the living members of the Hall, of which there are now only 33. While all of them are legends in the poker world, not all of them are as plugged into the game as they once were, and as a result, many of the post-boom players have been ignored.
There used to be an additional voting block of media members, Card Player included, but it was eliminated once the Hall went back to one inductee per year. In my admittedly biased opinion, this was a mistake. Almost every other sports hall of fame asks their industry journalists for help in the nomination and voting process, most notably the Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes annually on the Baseball Hall of Fame.
As far as I’m concerned, the more knowledgeable voters, the better. With only 33 voters, some of whom are more influential than others, there is a natural tendency for lobbying, if not outright collusion. (I won’t repeat unsubstantiated rumors, but there have been murmurs of players pushed in by friendly votes over the years.)
When a small group of friends determines who gets into the Hall every year, the Hall ends up lacking in diversity. Even if you forget the fact that the Hall only has three female members, there’s also a glaring lack of international players even though the game has grown by leaps and bounds all over the world.
4. Timing Plays Too Big A Role On Who Gets In
An age requirement was a good idea on paper, and it solved the Tom Dwan problem from 2009, but it also creates an unfortunate bias of timing when it comes to who gets selected. Since a player must be 40, naturally, all eyes go to those who are in their early 40’s. There are dozens of candidates in their 50s, 60s, and 70s to choose from, but they have largely been forgotten to history.
Keep in mind that a player who is 40 has been playing poker for only two decades, give or take when they started. While that is a long career in sports, it’s nowhere near the finish line in poker. Do we not give credit to those who have built an entire lifetime for themselves in the game? Conversely, do we punish those who started out strong as crushers, but who ultimately aged out of the high-stakes games before they could get recognized for their accomplishments?
What about those who just take their foot off the gas pedal? We’ve had a number of high rollers over the last decade become so successful that they decided to retire early or only play part time. Will they be penalized for winning too much, too soon?
Brian Rast showed incredible timing when he got into the Hall, winning his third Poker Players Championship title just days after the voting opened. Scott Seiver won three bracelets last summer, but he was only 39 at the time, so he was ineligible. He turned 40 this year, but what has he done for us lately? Schulman was the one who won a bracelet this summer.
Timing also plays a factor in other ways. Layne Flack and David ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott are obviously worthy of the Hall, but had they not passed away, they’d likely still be waiting for their turn.
The rules already state that a player must “stand the test of time” to be inducted, so there’s really no reason for an age requirement. What constitutes “standing the test of time?” That should be up to the individual voter.
If someone has put together a Hall of Fame career by the age of 35, (Adrian Mateos and Fedor Holz are only 31!) then they should be considered. On the other hand, if someone qualifies at age 70 because of sheer longevity, then they shouldn’t be disregarded, either.
Conclusion
When asked about potential changes this July, WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart offered little hope.
“We are deciding to keep it one inductee per year,” shared Stewart. “When we reach a point where the members of the hall think it’s a travesty that worthy candidates are not getting in because of only one per year, then it’s probably time to change.”
How has it not reached that point already? By the time the WSOP decides to open the gates just a little, an even bigger correction will be needed. Let’s fix an already bad problem before it becomes a disaster and the Hall loses its luster.
Julio Rodriguez is the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief for Card Player Media, having started with the company as a live tournament reporter at the 2006 WSOP. Originally from Miami, Florida, he now lives in Las Vegas with his wife and daughter.
