ShareA few weeks ago Doyle Brunson came across a Twitter post listing Remko Rinkema’s top 10 most talented players of all-time. This is obviously subjective to the highest degree, but Brunson gives his thoughts.
Phil Ivey and Stu Ungar at the top isn’t much of a surprise. Ivey has the respect of his peers more than anybody else over the last couple of decades, and Ungar is known as the guy who had all the talent in the world but squandered it.
Brunson thinks differently.
It’s also not much of a shock to see Brunson claiming that Chip Reese should be top of the list. Reese was a long-time friend and rival of Brunson and they knew each other’s game inside and out.
The mention of Bobby’s Room takes aim at the fact that everyone on Rinkema’s list made their name playing live tournaments or heads-up cash, except Reese and Brunson who were around decades ago and known for being great all-rounders.
The biggest problem we have with this discussion is truly knowing how hard any particular player is working on their game. Daniel Negreanu points out:
“Talent, the way I define it comes from creativity and abstract thinking. The ability to problem solve intuitively rather than be given the answers then study the correct answers for next time. The latter is simply hard work.”
Patrick Leonard points out in the original thread that Bryn Kenney doesn’t even work with anybody else, or even use modern tools, but he still shows up in the toughest games in the world and crushes. He also says that there could be online wizards who never played live poker and are unknown to the masses.
Mike McDonald makes a shout out for Dan Colman who rose from beginner to best HU SnG player in the world in less than a year, and then went on the rampage in Super High Rollers pulling in almost $30 million in total.
Sadly, we'll never know who has all the talent and wastes it, or who is just a hard worker with average ability.
