There are two new members of the Poker Hall of Fame, Linda Johnson and Barry Greenstein.
Both well deserving of the honor, they managed to supersede ten other potential inductees in 2011’s HOF nominations, including Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Huckleberry Seed and John Juanda.
Maybe to some surprise, Johnson became only the second woman ever to be inducted into the HOF, alongside one of the best female players ever to grace the tournament circuit, Barbara Enright.
Enright is the only woman to ever make it to the WSOP Main Event final table, and she’s also the only woman who has ever achieved three bracelets at the World Series of Poker.
Johnson, despite mostly playing in lower-stakes buy-in tournaments, does have a WSOP bracelet in her name at the 1997 $1,500 Seven-Card Razz event, in which she secured $96,000. By doing so, she also may have sewn up a spot amongst the most elite women poker has ever witnessed.
Johnson and Greenstein have now become the 41st and 42nd members of the Poker Hall of Fame, an award in which they’re both incredibly proud to receive.
“I am extremely proud and humbled to be voted into the Poker Hall of Fame,” mentioned Johnson.
“I feel lucky to have been involved in many facets of poker over the past 35 years. Being recognized by the industry is a tremendous honor.”
Greenstein also didn’t go without commenting on how grateful he was to be considered for such an amazing distinction.
“I’m happy to be inducted into the Hall of Fame alongside my friend Linda Johnson who has been the most fervent ambassador for poker for as long as I can remember.”
Both Greenstein and Johnson are also established authors, as Greenstein continues to hand out his book Ace on the River when he busts from a major tournament. Johnson has co-written numerous novels on poker-related material, and they both represent popular poker news venues, PokerRoad and CardPlayer Magazine.
The 57-year-old Greenstein has been a terror on the tournament circuit for most of his career, earning a whopping $7,547,179 overall and possessing three WSOP bracelets. Greenstein’s biggest win to date came at the WPT Jack Binion Open, where he took home over $1.2 million for first place in 2004.
These two players were selected through a panel of 35 poker followers: 18 of them being current members of the Poker Hall of Fame and the other 17 representing experts on the topic of poker-related media.
On November 8th, at the Rio Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas, NV, the 2011 Hall of Fame ceremony will commence just before the November Nine and final table of the WSOP Main Event begin. This will take place at 4:30 p.m., in the Penn & Teller theatre.
Because of a few newly-introduced technicalities, players who were nominated last year — such as Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu — didn’t make the cut in this year’s ballot.
The committee who works on the nominated parties for the HOF dictated this year that players needed to meet a set of strict regulations in order to be considered for the honor. Amongst these criteria was an age requirement, which states that any player within the group needs to be at least 40 years of age.
Amongst the other rules were playing top competition, playing high-stakes, playing well and earning world-renowned respect, and also proving your longevity within the game.
Daniel Harrington and Erik Seidel were the players inducted into the Hall of Fame class of 2010.
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