Sexton out-voted the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom McEvoy, Dan Harrington, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Erik Seidel.

We had a vote. We voted for Sexton and McEvoy. Why?

Sexton got our nod more for his off-the-felt contributions. He’s a great player, nobody will deny that, but Sexton was instrumental in Party Poker‘s early dominance, as well as the World Poker Tour‘s early success, and getting the original Tournament of Champions off the ground. He’s acted with class and has repped the game as a great ambassador throughout his career.

McEvoy won the WSOP Main Event in 1983 and this year’s Champions Invitational. He’s authored a bunch of influential books (many with T.J. Cloutier) and was an early champion of getting smoking banned from card room (for us, maybe his greatest contribution).

Our hardest omission from the ballot was Dan Harrington. Went back and forth on him. Pretty good chance he’ll make the cut next year.

As for everyone else, Men the Master has the bonafides and longevity, but the cloud of suspicion around his cheating allegations makes him difficult to vote for…for now.

Everyone else just needs to log a few more years, although maybe if Ivey wins the November Nine^TM next month we’ll reconsider on him. Same goes to Erik Seidel if he keeps up his awesome twittering.

Watch Sexton discussing what it would mean to him to be inducted into the HOF in the above vid.

Anyway, read more about the induction here.

Tagged as: Dan Harrington, featured, Mike Sexton, Poker Hall of Fame, Tom McEvoy

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