Over the course of the last half-century, poker professionals the world over have battled to establish themselves as the best player on the planet. In the 1970s, the only way to prove this was by winning at the World Series of Poker, or in the biggest cash games in Texas. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the WSOP grew. With the advent of online games, poker has grown even more, and with that growth came The Hendon Mob.
How the Wild West Turned Tame
With each passing decade, new events and a broader acceptance of poker as a skill game rather than a gambling phenomenon have brought the greatest card game on Earth up from the backstairs or bar room pursuit above the surface into a profession respected the world over as a mindsport of aspiration.
The Hendon Mob, the brainchild of Barny Boatman, Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani and Ross Boatman in the late 1990s, is a global database of poker results that has become the definitive way of measuring tournament poker success. Every ranking title is there and with online results added in, has become the de facto way to find out exactly who is at the top of the tree.
Over the past half-century, poker’s Wild West has become a civilized mindsport, as the early exuberance of a game populated by Texas men travelling the United States in pursuit of the next ‘big game’ gradually hunted down poker value in more and more serene ways. Today, poker has been played by 6% of the world’s population – and Bryn Kenney is the player who is at the top of The Hendon Mob’s All-Time Money List.
Here’s how the current top 10 stands:
| The All-Time Money List (via The Hendon Mob) Top 10 at August 2024: | |||
| Place | Player | Country | Winnings |
| 1st | Bryn Kenney | United States | $66,527,930 |
| 2nd | Justin Bonomo | United States | $64,114,597 |
| 3rd | Stephen Chidwick | England | $59,186,554 |
| 4th | Jason Koon | United States | $58,018,908 |
| 5th | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | $55,619,583 |
| 6th | Dan Smith | United States | $55,080,565 |
| 7th | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | $53,898,812 |
| 8th | Isaac Haxton | United States | $49,139,984 |
| 9th | Adrian Mateos | Spain | $48,736,108 |
| 10th | Erik Seidel | United States | $46,908,875 |
Kenney and Bonomo
Ever since Bryn Kenney won the biggest prize in poker at the 2019 Triton Million for Charity event in London, he bagged the $20,563,324 top prize and the lead on the All-Time Money List. Since then, his duel with Justin Bonomo has been the dominant narrative at the summit of poker’s tournament winners. Bonomo has dominated years, so too Kenney, but in recent years, the pair have drawn closer as each high-profile victory edges them closer to the magic $70 million mark.
Just this week, Kenney bagged another sizeable score to ease his lead at the top. Taking home $487,990 at the 2024 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in the $25,500 High Roller event, Kenney did a deal with Daniel Sepiol that meant heads-up wasn’t necessary. Kenney had an impressive 4:1 chip lead but was more than happy to sacrifice the chance to win even more in order to lock up victory.
Justin Bonomo has had a quieter 2024, cashing only seven times, with no result bigger than the $219,813 he won for coming 10th in the $100,000-entry Super High Roller event at the WSOP in Las Vegas. Bonomo, so used to winning tournaments, hasn’t won a ranking event since he took down the ninth event of the 2023 Poker Masters 11 months ago, and came second to Juan Dominguez in the €25,000 NLHE High Roller event in Monte Carlo in May of this year.
If Bonomo is out of form, could anyone else beat Kenney to the $70 million mark?
The Chasing Pack
Behind Kenney and Bonomo, British player Stephen Chidwick has proven his poker prowess in every arena the game has to offer. In fact, year after year, his fellow peers often vote him as the toughest opponent they face, so could the Kent-born superstar who now resides in Las Vegas with his young family, usurp both Bonomo and Kenney over the next few years?
As we’ve seen from recent results, Bonomo is trending below a million for winnings in 2024, so projecting forward at the current rate of return, he may take five years to reach $70 million. In the past five years, Chidwick, who currently has over $59m in winnings, has won over $11m in seven-figure scores alone. By the end of this decade, Chidwick is almost certain to have reached the $70m point of tournament earnings.
Behind the top three, Jason Koon ($58m), Mikita Badziakouski ($55.6m) and Dan Smith ($55m) all lurk. Kid Poker himself, a.k.a. Daniel Negreanu, sits just a little further back with $53.8m in live earnings, including over $1.1m he took home after winning his seventh WSOP bracelet in the $50,000-entry Poker Players Championship last summer. Others such as Isaac Haxton ($49.1m), Erik Seidel ($46.9m) and Phil Ivey ($46.3m) will be dangerous if they win the next huge buy-in event such as the million-dollar entry WSOP Paradise event in December.
With bigger and better poker events taking place each year, who’s your money on?
