Poker Hall of Fame Inducts Rast Amidst Calls for HOF Changes
The World Series of Poker owns the rights to the Poker Hall of Fame, the way that the poker community has honored the greatest in the game. It has been a way to pay respect to those in poker who created it, molded it, fought for it, changed it, set records in it, bettered it, and carried it through the years.
Those inducted into the Hall of Fame receive votes from the poker public and then from living HOF members, ensuring that those being honored are supported by a range of people in the community.
This year, that person that most people supported was Brian Rast.
Guidelines and Voting
In recent years, the voting process has been simplified and takes place during the summer World Series of Poker. First, there is a public nomination period during which the public at large can nominate anyone for Poker Hall of Fame honors. While that might make for a fun way to nominate your mother, the only nominations seriously considered are the ones that meet the following requirements:
-Must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
-Must have played for high stakes
-Must be a minimum of 40 years old at the time of nomination
-Must have played consistently well, gaining the respect of his/her peers
-Must have stood the test of time
If the person nominated is not a player but a member of the poker industry in some way, they can forgo those requirements and meet this one:
-Must have contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.
When that nomination window closes, the nominees are tallied, and the ten who meet the criteria and receive the most votes will be announced as the finalists.
From there, each living member of the Poker Hall of Fame receives a ballot and ten votes. They can allocate those votes as they choose – all for one nominee, one for each, or some combination thereof that will express their wishes.
Finally, those votes are tallied, and one person (or inseparable team) is announced as that year’s inductee.
Rast Honored in 2023
The ten nominees that emerged from the public nomination process this year were:
-Josh Arieh
-Jeremy Ausmus
-Ted Forrest
-Kathy Liebert
-Mike Matusow
-Lon McEachern and Norman Chad
-Brian Rast
-Matt Savage
-Isai Scheinberg
-Bill Smith
It’s important to note that the broadcasting duo of McEachern and Chad have been nominated in the two prior years, Scheinberg in the past three, Savage in seven previous years and Matusow in eight.
The living members of the Hall of Fame cast their votes, and the top vote-getter was Brian Rast. The WSOP announced this and inducted Rast into the HOF just prior to the July 13 start of the $1,979 buy-in Poker Hall of Fame Bounty tournament that was a part of the WSOP schedule.
WSOP Vice President Jack Effel noted, “With a nearly 20-year-long career riddled with record-breaking wins and historic runs, Brian Rast is one of the best poker players we’ve ever seen. With the 2023 WSOP breaking records left and right, it only makes sense to put a record-setter himself amongst some of the greatest of all time. We are honored to induct Brian Rast into the Poker Hall of Fame and look forward to his successes to come.”
“With a nearly 20-year-long career riddled with record-breaking wins and historic runs, Brian Rast is one of the best poker players we’ve ever seen” – WSOP Vice President Jack Effel pic.twitter.com/lVY2Si04IX
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 13, 2023
The history of which Effel spoke includes his third winning of the WSOP Poker Players Championship just this year. That made the sixth career bracelet win for Rast, and along with numerous high-stakes tournament titles, it adds up to more than $25M in lifetime live tournament earnings.
Annual Inductions
When the Hall of Fame first launched, the people running it inducted several people as the base of the elite group: Nick Dandolos, Wild Bill Hickok, Ed Hoyle, Corky McCorquodale, Johnny Moss, Red Winn, and Sid Wyman.
From that point, the HOF usually inducted one new member each year through the 1980s and 1990s, with the exception of 1988 when Doyle Brunson and Jack Straus each received the honor. The HOF then skipped 1998 through 2000 but resumed inductions in varying numbers in 2001, though the norm became two per year:
-2002: Lyle Berman and Johnny Chan
-2003: Bobby Baldwin
-2004: Berry Johnston
-2005: Jack Binion and Crandell Addington
-2006: Billy Baxter and TJ Cloutier
-2007: Barbara Enright and Phil Hellmuth
-2008: Henry Orenstein and Dewey Tomko
-2009: Mike Sexton
-2010: Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel
-2011: Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson
-2012: Eric Drache and Sailor Roberts
-2013: Tom McEvoy and Scotty Nguyen
-2014: Jack McClelland and Daniel Negreanu
-2015: Jennifer Harman and John Juanda
-2016: Todd Brunson and Carlos Mortensen
-2017: Phil Ivey and David Ulliott
-2018: John Hennigan and Mori Eskandani
-2019: Chris Moneymaker and David Oppenheim
It then changed with the pandemic. Huck Seed received the honor in 2020, and the WSOP then vowed only one new member each year going forward. Eli Elezra took that honor in 2021 and Layne Flack in 2022.
Changes Needed
There are problems with the new goal of inducting only one person per year into the Hall of Fame.
One is that the person being elected for membership each year is most likely to receive votes because they are front of mind. For example, Layne Flack was inducted in 2022, posthumously because the poker world was still mourning his untimely death. This year, Brian Rast made the cut just after he won his third PPC title. This isn’t to say that Flack and Rast didn’t deserve their spots in the HOF, only that they may have become members before others with more qualifications because of timing.
How about a radical one: If a person passes, he or she becomes ineligble during a three-year cooling-off period to limit all the virtue signaling that translates into HOF votes.
— Haley "Aunt Eefah" Hintze *️⃣ (@Haley_Hintze) July 14, 2023
Another problem is that the voting requires a comparison of apples to oranges. Matt Savage, Isai Scheinberg, and the team of Lon McEachern and Norman Chad are nominated for their achievements in and contributions to the game as non-players (though they all play to some extent). The others are considered for induction as players.
Finally, the induction of only one person per year is leaving a backup of players and contributors to the industry that should probably have been recognized already. Public voting puts Savage, Scheinberg, and Mike Matusow up as nominees year after year. But the living HOF members have yet to vote them in. That is a big disconnect between the poker community’s votes and the HOF members’ choices.
Each year, the public takes less interest in the HOF as they know that many of the people most deserving over time will not win.
To keep the Poker Hall of Fame relevant, it needs to do some cleanup and implement some changes to the process. The time to do that is in 2024 when preparing for the 55th Annual World Series of Poker.
Agree that HoF should go back to 2 per year. Due to poker boom's influence, many coming of age for eligibility are deserving. Going to 1 per year was a reaction to the past, but not the right plan for the future.
And thank you sir for the kind words.. https://t.co/81JN1CX3yl pic.twitter.com/r6gJw4s3Nr— Brian Rast (@tsarrast) June 14, 2023
*Feature photo credit: PokerNews for WSOP
