Top Nominees for 2010 Poker Hall of Fame Announced

The top ten nominations for the Poker Hall of Fame’s 2010 class have been announced. Still one more step before the final vote occurs, though.

The Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council -- which I assume is comprised of various Harrah’s/WSOP folks -- will now determine which candidates are eligible to be voted upon for the Hall. That’s when the final vote will happen, probably within the next couple of weeks.

The top ten most nominated are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Chris Ferguson
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Harman-Traniello
Dan Harrington
Phil Ivey
Linda Johnson
Tom McEvoy
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Erik Seidel

Not too surprising to see the top ten closely resemble last year’s top ten. Seven of the 10 names are the same. There’s no Mike Sexton (of course), Men Nguyen, or Tom Dwan this time among the top 10. The three new names are Chris Ferguson, Linda Johnson, and Jennifer Harman-Traniello.

I noted last week how there were apparently a lot more nominations this year than there were in 2009. When the top 10 most nominated were announced last year, we heard that a total of 41 had been nominated (among them Ferguson and Harman-Traniello, but not Johnson).

In mid-August it was widely reported that 181 individuals had already been nominated for the class of 2010 with a couple of weeks still remaining for nominations to be cast. It turns out that number was a bit higher than the actual figure -- apparently in the end there were only 102 “valid unique names” submitted as nominees, with 44 of those receiving multiple nominations.

Last year the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council removed Tom Dwan’s name from the final ballot, citing the fact that he was still a few weeks away from his 23rd birthday as enough argument that he’d yet to have “stood the test of time” (one of the listed criteria for admission into the Hall of Fame). The final ballot contained nine names, then, from which Mike Sexton was the only one chosen to be inducted.

Not really seeing any obvious reasons for the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council to remove any of the top 10 from the ballot this time around. In fact, they may end up adding a name or two -- we’ll see. In any event, the 33 voters will have some difficult choices to make, I think, when trying to distinguish between the candidacies of these 10.

There are 16 living members of the Poker Hall of Fame who get to vote, plus 17 more members of the poker media who will also cast ballots (including your very humble gumshoe). My understanding is we’ll be able to vote for as many folks as we wish this time, and in the end the top two vote-getters will get in, provided they are named on at least 50% of the ballots.

I have some ideas about these 10, but will wait until the final ballot comes out before I consider this task in earnest. Meanwhile, what do you think of these 10? Any of them especially stand out as likely to be voted in this time around? (Or likely not to?)