Daniel Negreanu Inducted into Poker Hall of Fame
The Canadian professional player Daniel Negreanu, along with Jack McClelland have both been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame and become the 47th and 48th players to receive the honor. Both were nominated by the public, however the final decision was made by a 41 member panel and the induction ceremony will take place on Sunday November 9th. That ceremony takes place in the original home of the WSOP, Binion's Gambling Hall where the very first WSOP Final Table was played out back in 1970.
Negreanu headed to Las Vegas aged 22 and over the past 18 years has won pretty much everything there is to win, accumulating over $30 Million in lifetime earnings, 6 WSOP bracelets and 2 Player of the Year awards, and let's not forget that at just 40 years old there's still a whole lot more to come. Jack McClelland has a poker career that's some distance longer than that of Negreanu's and aged 63 has been playing and working in the industry for 50 years. McClelland was a tournament director for the WSOP, and has also run the Bellagio poker room, and although he's played plenty of hands he's better known for working behind the scenes and making things tick, managing some of the biggest tournaments in Vegas...not bad for someone who started out getting paid $18 a day for dealing cards.
The Poker Hall of Fame now consists of 48 members and was established in 1979 to honor those that had made an outstanding contribution to the game. As you can see by McClelland's entry, that means more than just being a great player. Other members include Stu Ungar, Mike Sexton, Scott Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson and Benny Binion. The induction ceremony of Negreanu and McClelland takes place a day before the 2014 November Nine begins. The remaining players are of course all vying for the title of WSOP 2014 Main Event Winner, and a pretty nice payday of $10 Million.