1. Watching him act like a spoiled child is more entertaining than most Vegas shows.

2. He is the best tournament no-limit hold’em player in the world.

3. He is so full of himself that he can be delusional to how others see him.

4. He makes funny commercials where he acts poorly and looks stupid.

5. He crashed a $150,000 NASCAR vehicle during the taping of a commercial.

6. He shows up late at tournaments so he can make an entrance and everyone knows he’s there.

7. His Mommy and Daddy travel to his tournaments so he can complain to them after losing a hand.

8. He is charitable to needy organizations with some of his money and time.

9. He strives to be a good father and husband to his family.

10. He can only beat you at no-limit hold’em; he’s not very good at other forms of poker.

Men “The Master” Nguyen has that title because he teaches players how to play the game at a world class level, in exchange for a portion of their winnings. It’s widely believed that Men has coached more players than any other big name pro. Many of today’s top tournament players are his students, including the likes of David Pham and Minh Nguyen.

His accomplishments at the poker table are staggering. He has six WSOP bracelets, more cashes than anyone wants to count, and over $8.4 million in tournament winnings. He won the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Award in 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2005, and he competes for that title every year. He’s currently ninth in the standings for 2008.

Men donates large sums of money to needy Vietnamese people. He has built schools and funded orphanages with tournament winnings, always trying to give back to the game.

There are lots of charitable poker players who donate a portion of their winnings to needy organizations. Some will take it a step further and use their fame to organize fund raisers that make lots of money for a charity. Annie Duke has her tournament that raises awareness for the plight in Darfur. Phil Ivey has his Budding Ivey foundation, which assists the Salvation Army. Phil Gordon has been running his “Bad Beat on Cancer” tournament since 2005.

But the king of poker charity is the “Robin Hood of Poker” Barry Greenstein. He donates all his tournament winnings to charities, primarily children’s organizations, and has done so for years. His tournament winnings exceed $6.4 million. Barry’s lead in this department has spawned countless other players to do some good with their winnings, and the world is a better place for it. It’s become a regular practice on the pro circuits now.

1.  John Turner (shown in photo) is considered the top online player of all time. With online earnings of over $1.6M, he cashes in multi-table tournaments almost 18% of the time. He goes by “pearljammed”.

2. Alex Kamberis or “AJKHoosier1″ has 707 cashes under his belt, for a win rate of 16.6%. He has earned over a million dollars online, with his biggest cash being $57,475.

3. Chris Moorman comes in third on this list with $694,000 in online earnings. He has 465 cashes for a 16.37% cash-out rate. He goes by “moorman1″ or “onemoortime”.

4. Tim West is another online player with a ton of cashes. He has 806 cashes, for a rate of 15.8%. He biggest cash was over $50,000. His username is “tmay420″, or a close variation of the same.

5. Shaun Deeb goes by “shaundeeb” or “tedsfishfry”, and he has earned just shy of a million dollars.

Michael Binger is a 31-year-old poker pro from North Carolina who has taken the poker world by storm. In just two and a half years he has 30 cashes, for a total of $5,595,000. In 2007 he tied a WSOP second place record of eight cashes. He followed up that amazing run this year by cashing another four times, for over $160,000. But his big finish was in 2006 where he ended up third in the main event, winning over $4 million. Those are amazing stats in today’s poker world, especially for a guy who only started playing in 2001.

Until recently all of his cashes were in no limit holdem. Lately he’s cashed in pot limit Omaha and deuce to seven lowball, and HORSE. It’s no surprise that he’s able to master so many variants of the game; he has a PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford University.

Poker legend Doyle Brunson has a good shot at winning “The Real Deal”.

The Real Deal, the new show that is about to debut at the Venetian, will have a lineup of poker pros trying to beat a field of amateurs for cash and prizes. One of these pros will last longer than the others, so you know that some prop action will be sure to follow. Some of these pros are well established, while others are mainly “T.V.” poker players with limited success in the real poker world.

The favorites in this group would be Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Eli Elezra, Jennifer Harman, Doyle Brunson, and Scotty Nguyen. They should get the lowest odds at maybe around 3/1. Todd Brunson should be around 4/1, while Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, and Gavin Smith should be getting around 5/1. I’m no bookmaker, but that’s how I would start. Any one of them could win the event, especially considering the amateur content that’s involved.

There are a lot of shining stars that play poker, but the brightest would have to be Daniel Negreanu. He seems to be everywhere there’s a poker game and a camera, constantly promoting himself and whatever he may be connected to at the time. His poker success speaks for itself, with over $10M in tournament earnings, including four WSOP bracelets and two WPT championships.

Daniel also does poker commentary on numerous shows, as well as being one of the regulars on the popular High Stakes Poker. He was Poker Player of the Year in 2004, and can be found playing in Bobby’s room at the biggest cash games in the world.

Daniel also teaches the game with numerous articles in CardPlayer Magazine over the years, and has a blog/vlog updated every few days. He also has a very well written poker book out called Power Holdem Strategy.

US presidential candidate Barack Obama is actually fairly skilled poker player.

If you love poker there’s something that you can do to help the game. It’s no secret that the Republican government has no interest in allowing its citizens to play poker. And John McCain, despite online gaming company donations, has already expressed it would be a low priority for his government to either outlaw online gaming or repeal the existing UIGEA.

If you vote for Barack Obama this year you’ll be giving Americans a chance to enjoy all the online gaming options. The Democratic government will surely treat this law as the civil rights infringement that it is, and repeal it over the next two tears. Obama has said publicly that one of his hidden talents is playing poker.

So a Democratic vote is a vote for poker. And it’s also a vote for your personal freedom, something that hasn’t been so easy to find in America for eight years.

Is it possible for Scotty Nguyen to win the main event? It’s certainly possible, but not very probable. The chances of winning both the $50,000 HORSE event and the $10,000 main event are pretty slim. After beating 180 of the best players in the world, he then has to beat over 6800 others to win the main event.

Scotty certainly has the talent to do it. He won it before, and finished 11th last year. He’s one of the best no limit holdem tournament players in the world. If I were a betting man I would be willing to give Scotty some real good odds against him winning it this year.

I would like to see him do it. He’s a great representative of the game and very entertaining to watch. It would be good for poker to have a known professional win the main event; it’s been so long.

Mike Matusow has made two final tables at this year’s World Series of Poker. His first final table in the No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball event #18 was his third bracelet win. He won $537,857 at that event. Then he followed it up with a fifth-place finish in the Omaha Hi/Low World Championship 8 or Better. That one pocketed him another $138,063, putting his total to over $670,000 for the 2008 WSOP.

He has continued to show that he is one of the best tournament poker players in the world. His versatility in poker variations showed once again with his first bracelet in Deuce to Seven Lowball. His other bracelets were in Omaha 8 or better and No Limit Holdem. The two final table appearances put him on the leaderboard for top player in the WSOP. Maybe he’ll be able go deep into the main event again.