Every year, the Poker Hall of Fame adds another name to the roster of greatness already honored. For the 2024 season, Finnish superstar Patrik Antonius got the nod, cementing his legacy in his fourth year of eligibility.
As part of the summer poker party that is the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the Hall has been around for almost as long as the WSOP itself. Established in 1979, the Hall was acquired by Caesars Entertainment along with the World Series of Poker in 2004.
While there is no physical Hall, the Hall of Fame pays tribute to the greats of the game in virtual form on the WSOP website. Recent inductees show the caliber of talent the Hall is looking for with last year’s nod going to three-time PPC winner and six-time bracelet winner Brian Rast. Layne “Back to Back” Flack, Eli Elezra, Huck Seed, Chris Moneymaker, and “Johnny World” Hennigan are just a short sampling of the other poker luminaries added to the list in recent years.
Antonius has $22 Million in Lifetime Earnings
Antonius has been a crusher at the highest levels of the game for more than two decades, with his first recorded cash on Hendon Mob coming way back in 2003 when he came 4th in the St. Maarten Open for about $3,500. Two years later he bumped that up by 10x after 12th in the 2005 PCA for $35k.
That opened the floodgates and he followed that up with a $40k score a few weeks later. Before the end of 2005, he’d bagged his first $100k score with third in EPT Barcelona and then $350k for an outright win at EPT Baden. That wasn’t his first win on the live felt — he’d scored a $65k win a few weeks earlier in the Ladbrokes Scandinavian Poker Championships, Stockholm — but it was the first of many big scores to come.
With 11 wins to his name, Antonius is somewhat rare as an inductee. Since the 2020 induction of Huck Seed, the most recent four members have 21 bracelets between them with Rast and Flack both on 6. Antonius, on the other hand, is one of the players near the top of the list of “Greatest Players with No Bracelet”.
The closest he’s come to the gold wristware was 3rd place in back in 2007 in the $10k PLO championship. He’s bagged a few other final tables at summer’s Big Show, but most of his success has come away from WSOP. With his total earnings at more than $22 million, barely $1 million of that has come in WSOP games.
He has two EPT titles to his name, as well as wins on the Triton Tour and PartyPoker Live. He also has a runner-up finish on the WPT as well as six scores on his resume of more than $1 million. The biggest of them all came in the Super High Roller Bowl China, Macau in 2018 when he bagged second for $3.15 million.
Hall of Fame Details
Established in 1979, the Poker Hall of Fame has been run by Caesar’s Entertainment since 2004 and is part of the World Series of Poker. As with Halls for other sports, the HoF is designed to honor the history of the game by highlighting people in the poker world from the past and present who have helped make the game what it is today.
The HoF adds new members every year and while the inductees are often high profile players, industry giants are also included. There are some fairly clear criteria for entry:
- A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
- Be a minimum of 40 years old at the time of nomination
- Played for high-stakes
- Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
- Stood the test of time
- Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.
The list of members includes “poker’s most influential players and other important contributors to the game” with members like 2003 Main Event champ and father of the poker boom, Chris Moneymaker (2019), Dave “DevilFish” Ulliot (2017), Jennifer Harman (2015), Linda Johnson (2011), Barbara Enright (2007), and Jack Binion (2005).
