In an intriguing article from PokerNews journalist Donnie Peters, it appears that several poker records could be threatened during the 2015 tournament poker year.
According to Peters, a discussion came up during a poker tournament in 2011 that featured Poker Hall of Fame member Erik Seidel. Seidel apparently asked the table who was the only player in the history of poker that had earned over $1 million for five consecutive years from tournament play. After the table was stumped, Seidel informed his tablemates of a player that many would not have thought of as the answer: Erick Lindgren.
A quick check of the always reliable Hendon Mob database does in fact demonstrate that Seidel was correct. From 2004-2008, Lindgren was a terror on the tournament poker circuit, averaging $1,273,815 per year during that five-year span (Lindgren, all totaled, has over $10 million in career earnings from tournament poker). As pointed out by Peters, there have been a couple of challenges to Lindgren’s record, but they have fallen just short of his mark.
From 2008-2011, Jason Mercier was able to put together a streak of four consecutive years of million-dollar seasons. In 2012, however, Mercier had an “off year” that only saw him earn around $500K for the year. As Mercier’s streak was cut off, the United Kingdom’s Sam Trickett started a streak of his own. From 2010-2013, Trickett put together his own four-year streak (highlighted by his runner-up finish to Antonio Esfandiari at the 2012 World Series of Poker’s “Big One for One Drop”) but, in 2014, failed to crack the million-dollar plateau in “only” winning $665,911.
Why does Peters bring these instances up? Because of the fact that four players have the opportunity to tie Lindgren for the record this year. Peters reports that Daniel Negreanu, Brian Rast, Philipp Gruissem and David ‘Doc’ Sands are the four players who have all put together their own four-year streaks of million-dollar seasons and, if they were to put together one more in 2015, would tie Lindgren’s mark.
Peters predicts that, because of the amount of high dollar buy-ins that are available to tournament players nowadays (Peters typifies these tournaments as $25,000 or more buy-ins), that two of those four players should be able to tie Lindgren. “Negreanu should be a near lock to earn over seven figures and the other three have a pretty equal shot at joining him,” Peters writes. When push comes to shove, however, Peters believes that only two of the four will be able to achieve that milestone and he puts his money on Negreanu and Gruissem.
We here at Poker News Daily will take Peters’ prediction a bit further. Because of the spate of High Roller events that populate the tournament circuit, all four of these players should be able to eclipse the million-dollar mark in 2015. As difficult as tournament poker is, these four men are known for going anywhere in the world to get into a good game and, as such, the million-dollar mark should be fairly easy for all of them to book this year.
In addition to Lindgren’s milestone mentioned by Peters, he also reveals that there is another mark that may be tied this tournament season. Over the past decade, only two men – Scott Seiver and Trickett – have put together back-to-back seasons of over $4 million in earnings (Seiver in 2013 and 2014, Trickett in 2011 and 2012). Seiver has the arduous task of trying to break that tie with Trickett to become the only player to earn $4 million in three consecutive seasons and he’s already off to a good start; within the first few weeks of 2015, Seiver earned $641,620 from his work at the European Poker Tour’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure’s High Roller events.
Should Seiver come up short in his drive for another $4 million season, Peters points out that the $4 million ranks could become quite crowded. Last year Dan Colman, World Champion Martin Jacobson, Felix Stephensen, Christoph Vogelsang, Tom Marchese, Mike McDonald and Negreanu all earned over $4 million from tournament poker. By duplicating their efforts (and, if they are fortunate, receiving the same results) in 2015, these players would all join Seiver and Trickett as players that have had back-to-back seasons of $4 million in tournament earnings.
It’s always interesting to take a look at these statistics when you enter into a new tournament poker calendar year. Kudos to PokerNews and Peters for presenting one of those “nuggets of information” that you might not know otherwise.
Is there a way to get a fairly accurate number on how much players are making in tournament play, including online? I ask because I subscribe to Johnathan Little’s coaching site, and quite a few of his videos include hands from online tournaments where he cashed for six figures. I would love to see a totaltournamentcashes.com.
That said, it’s still not a real numbedr. It really bugs me when the TV commentator says something like, “It’s all over, and John Doe is now a millionaire!”–when the commentator knows very well that 50% of that cash will go to backers. So I guess we need liveandonlineProfit.com.
Hello Clif,
You bring up some good points there. It would go a long way to actually showing how difficult it is to be a “tournament poker professional” if there was an accurate site that shows how much players put out in buy-ins versus what their return is for cashing. Unfortunately, there is the problem…the accuracy issue. Since tournaments don’t usually have a list of players who bought in, that information is hard to get.
As to the “millionaire” comment, the average poker television viewer probably doesn’t realize the level of backing that is found in tournament poker. Thus, that is why the announcers rarely recognize it. While it does have a significant impact on what the player actually is taking home, the general public is oblivious to such situations.
Thanks for reading!
EB