Layne Flack over Isai Scheinberg.

https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1546299776408227841

With all due respect and not wanting to speak ill of the deceased, Flack as a HOF'er seems a little shaky to me. He was clearly a tournament focused player, but only had 15 six-figure tournament results in his entire career, of which 11 came in a five year period from 1999-2004. If we look at the HOF criteria:

A gambler must have played poker against acknowledged top competition -> inasmuch as playing the WSOP/WPT counts as playing against top competition, I guess fine though this basically means anyone can qualify on this basis. I don't ever recall hearing any stories of his cash game prowess or playing in Bobby's room.

Played for high stakes -> only two of his 6 figure cashes came in 10K events. He certainly wasn't a fixture in the SHR circuit.

Played consistently well, gained the respect of peers -> Despite being around since pre-boom, he's only 604th in all time cashes per HendonMob and 280th on the money list. He certainly doesn't qualify as consistent - he was extremely streaky. His choice to continue associating with Russ Hamilton post-UB wasn't a good look in terms of gaining respect IMO, though I'll acknowledge he was seemingly well liked among top players.

And stood the test of time -> as mentioned above, he had a decent five year peak, then very little of note.

His HOF case is frankly very weak, and when compared to arguably the most important person in this history of poker, it's a complete travesty.

Has any ever been inducted to the Poker HOF merely for their contributions or achievement in -online- poker?

Perhaps we should just confine this HOF to live poker and create another HOF for online poker to end this tired argument about Sheinberg once and for all.

The poker HOF, like most HOFs (particularly the rock and roll HOF), will inevitably just get worse and worse as each year they need to induct a class and eventually everybody gets in.

You don't need a hall to be famous OP

Rock and roll hall of fame inducted 11 people last year. The poker hall of fame only inducts one per year. It won't be saturated. I can still think of at least 10 people that belong.

He was though, because at the time of his peak, the WSOP and WPT were the SHR circuit.

Back then, a $10k was a huge deal. A $3.5k would've been one of the bigger events of the year.

Flack binked six bracelets in a narrow time period and was one of the biggest MTT crushers at the turn of the millennium.

Can't speak to the cash games because I don't know much about it, but clearly his peers felt he was deserving, since old school players comprise most of the voters.

With a limit of one inductee per year, gonna be a long time before everyone gets in. I believe for quite a while they can find at least one deserving additional person each year without serious dilution.

As to there being a live and online HOF, keep in mind that there is a major wave of online players who will be qualifying soon. I suspect that when that happens, dilution will become even less a issue for quite some time.

Note, I am not saying the selections every year are good and don't dilute the HOF. Only saying that a lack of deserving inductees is not yet an issue.

Also looking that his results came in a streak does not mean his play was streaky. We all know you can play perfect and still not win, especially in tournaments. (Just as PH.)

As to stood the test of time, that I basically only have ever played cash and pre-boom, don't remember a tournament I watched on television, that I know instantly who he is indicates to me he did stand the test of time.

So imo all the boxes seem checked to me. Now was he the best eligible non-current member? Was he even the best on the list this year? Those I will not attempt to answer or even share my opinions.

He seems to meet all the specified criteria

That might be true. But it's equally possible that you can play badly and win several bracelets in short succession. To make the Hall of Fame, we shouldn't have to justify it by saying "well maybe he just ran bad for 15 years straight and those first five years against small fields before poker theory really got going is the true indicator of his ability"

Let's also check that success at high stakes. If we grant 10K as "high stakes", he has five cashes in WSOP events with buyins of 10K in 20 years. Of his 6 bracelets, the buyins/field sizes were:

$1500/320
$1500/220
$2500/135
$1500/528
$2000/449
$3000/187

Those are field sizes where you can run hot for a couple of days and win. If we accept your $3.5K as "high stakes", he never won a bracelet at that buyin.

Put this another way - for someone to stand the test of time, they should be someone you're at least a little afraid of when they join your table. I don't think anyone was particularly scared to see Layne Flack at any point in the past decade.

He's an interesting character in the history of poker, but tops out at best as a "Hall of Pretty Good".

Agree with OP overall. Not that Flack wasn't a great player nor a future inductee, but I had him low on my list compared to the others on the 2022 list. I think the posthumous thing always helps with Halls of Fame in general, and it seemed to here.


Agree with this. So long as the Poker Hall keeps it at one per year, there will be quite a backlog for a while. How long is hard to say, though – as the game gets tougher overall, the chances of someone combining success and longevity diminishes.

Great point, and it's funny how jaded I've become of this fact, even as a fan.

When I came back from shooting my first WPT event more than a decade ago, a couple of my non-poker friends asked what the buy-in was. They knew of the WSOP Main Event (a lot of people still think the Main is the WSOP) and its $10K buy-in, so they just assumed the one I worked had to be considerably smaller. In fact, it was the same, down from $15K from the previous few years.

Their jaws dropped at the figure, while to me, the concept of a $10K buy-in was pretty ho-hum (even though I myself can't afford it). Yet in the majority of the first 25 years of the WSOP, the Main was the lone $10K event.

Note I did not make the statement that $3.5K was high stakes. But I will agree that in tournaments over the time Layne was at his (apparent) best, it was high stakes for tournament poker.

Over roughly the same period of time, he had 13 $100K+ cashes in about 15 or so years (maybe less).

As to just running hot, sure he could have just run hot but he had to do it 6 times to win in WSOP events. And you are ignoring some about 10 other times he 'just ran hot' to bink a 6 digit payday.

Is he the GOAT? Not even close. Was he the best choice this year? I don't even know the full list. But simply looking at the specified criteria, IMO, he checks the boxes. So he, again IMO, gets on the list for consideration. Now people who know far better than I, selected him as the inductee off that list. I assume they agreed he should be on the list.

I don't know or even care if Flack belongs in the HOF.

What I do know is he understood poker was a soft hustle.
I only played with him a few times, but he was on of the best I've ever seen at making people comfortable at the table and that everyone enjoyed themselves. I played with him where he was dead sober and hammered and he still had it either way. A lot of just is natural - he was extremely quit witted- so it's not like everyone can be that good at it-but more pros should seek to emulate this about him.

Anybody with 6 bracelets will be in the HOF regardless of other merits.

6+ bracelet winners not in the HOF:
Men Nguyen
Chris Ferguson
Jeff Lisandro
Brian Hastings
Ted Forrest
Jay Heimowitz

How Flack can get in over Forrest is a mystery to me.

The easiest solution to the Poker HOF debate is to just mass induct anyone and everyone of notability who appeared frequently on WSOP or WPT from 2003 to 2009. Provided you aren't a scumbag, isn't that what will inevitably happen anyways?

A couple of the people you've mentioned above have disgraced themselves in one way or another, but unfortunately, you can not take away their poker accomplishments on the felt...

Not to mention, there's plenty of questionable characters in the Poker HOF.... go back to guy inducted in 1992... he had some issues if the rumors were true...and as much Stu Ungar (HOF 2001) is poker folklore, he was known to spit at dealers -- if those stories are indeed true. (I won't even go into the drug addiction issues).

but at the end of the day, I would be interested in poker players taking a poll on whether or not they really care about the Poker HOF. I personally don't.

Men and Ferguson are scumbags or at the very least perceived scumbags. Dont know enough about Hiemowitz without looking him up to give an informed opinion. Me personally Id have Lisandro and Forrest for sure in before Flack and maybe Hasting too.

Thats the main thing these tanking robots of today dont understand. Its so much easier to get the newbie or whale to keep losing if they are having a good time at the table. Even the 2/5 game at my local casino has changed over the years. Used to be joking and cutting up all night now half the time you have 4-7 players that wont even say hardly say a word.

I think Flack was a great player/personality who deserves to be honoured like this.

However a "Poker Hall of Fame" without Isai in it is just not legitimate, there is no more deserving person on the planet.

Hastings in only 34 and thus not close to being eligible for the HOF.

Didn’t Ted Forrest back layne for a long time as well while he was playing the big mix games?

LOL, the R&R Hall wanted to induct Dolly Parton this year. She thanked them, but thank God she was smart enough to decline.

The real blunder is Galen Hall criminally overlooked yet again...

How can Ted Forrest not be in.

It appears he’s only 36, and thus not eligible.

I mean, you can pretty much tell the story of poker without Layne Flack, unless you feel like him being caught playing Golf with Russ Hamilton in 2009 and acting like a clown while shitfaced at the 2008 HORSE final table are stories that really need to be told.

So no, he doesn't really belong in the hall of fame. But I think we are way past the point of taking HOfs seriously anymore.