It finally had to happen. Someone had to open up that can of worms. In today’s blog post we discuss, who are the top five Michigan poker players of all time? In fact, I am going to go ahead and call it, the Michigan Poker Monster Top 5 of All-Time.
On one hand, this could be really easy. Look up the tournament rankings and see if you can tell who’s from Michigan. No one is going to top Cada there, of course. There will be those of you that might want to consider cash earnings. There’s probably no easy way to discuss this, so I guess I will start by setting down some criteria for my picks. I think people would be foolish not to include tournament earnings since those are the easiest to track. Cash winnings online are sometimes available if you know the players’ screen names. So I did as many searches on the interwebs as I could for the state of Michigan and the names that I knew were from Michigan. In the end there are only five spots at the top, and of course, not all indexes and listings show if a top player is from Michigan.
So here we go. From the research I have done online, I am entering into the Michigan Poker Monster Top 5 of All-Time: Joe Cada, Kenna James, Mike Telker, Jordan Young and Dean Hamrick. There’s probably going to be a lot of debate about how I could leave Andrew Robl out of this list. There may be other big names that I don’t know are from Michigan but could be on this list. You let me know.
Until then, here is a brief run down on the five that made my list.
Joe Cada needs no introduction. The 2009 WSOP Main Event Champ has career earnings over $8.716M. Not only does he have the highest career winnings, he is easily the best known Michigan poker player because of his TV appearances. He recently won the PCA $2K event in the Bahamas.
In a surprising second, but probably with just as many TV appearances, is Kenna James with over $3.5M in career earnings. You may wonder how this affable cowboy who now lives in Vegas and LA managed to make it to the Michigan Top 5 without a million dollar score? How about over 90 cashes in live events and numerous online wins and cashes.
Probably less known outside the poker world, but known to the Pocket Fives community and to most online tournament grinders, Mike Telker is definitely in the top 5 Michigan players with over $3.324M in career earnings. Recently coming in second to Joe Cada in the PCA $2K buy-in event, Mike Telker has been a winner over and over again in online poker. He lives in Costa Rica now, but is originally from Michigan.
Jordan Young is another monster online known to the Pocket Fives community with over $3.09M in career earnings. From Muskegon, Michigan, Jordan has been cashing and winning in the largest online poker tournaments for a long time.
Finally, in what is a very contested 5th spot, Dean Hamrick takes it with $1.626M in tournament earnings, membership in the Epic Poker League, and numerous cashes and wins online. Hailing from East Lansing, Dean is not only a super nice guy, but a beast on the felt and a great addition to the Michigan Top 5.
Just in case you were wondering, Andrew Robl is listed under the Epic Poker League standings as having $1.505M in career earnings. Everyone knows that this doesn’t account for his huge winnings in cash games both live and online. I could not ascertain any of the cash game numbers.
Another player worth mentioning is Steve Bartlett from Livonia with $1.081M in career earnings on Pocket Fives. Although probably not quite at the same level of accomplishment as the Top 5, Steve deserves some credit for being in the conversation and hopefully one day he could crack into that list.
So there you have it. I am sure there are other accomplished Michigan poker players that I don’t know about or could not find online. So let me know what you think about my picks and tell me what your picks might be and why.
