While it is fun to talk about who is best or not i don't think we would ever really know who the best is. Just looking at who is the leader in the pole I might not put Daniel Negreanu in the top ten. While I will agree he is one of the greatest players around, "and one of my favorites" how many of the greats do we not know? Many greats are not looking for fame but just happy wining cash and playing in cash games. It is possible the best players would be one most of us never heard about. Then we can look at the tournaments they play. If you just take out Bryn Kenney biggest cash he would fall to tens on the money list. His top 3 cashes removed and he falls to 18th. He plays alot of the high rollers. Justin bonomo would fall out of the top ten as well is you removed his top 3 scores. Stepen Chadwick would fall but still be in the top 10 easily, Take old timer Eric Sidel, he would still be in the top 18 if you did.
Now nobody would say Antonio Esfandiari is not a great player. Yet remove his one big win and he falls to 138th or so on the all time list as that win is something like 70% of his earning.
FYI, I did not vote on this one. I am torn between 2 players. The one is not listed. Sigh. While my heart says to pick the one player it's hard not to respect Stepen Chadwick. No I won't say who the other player is. I maybe a bit biased is why but he is on the list below.
1st United States Bryn Kenney $ 65,195,994 No Change
2nd United States Justin Bonomo $ 63,405,743 No Change
3rd England Stephen Chidwick $ 56,067,123 No Change
4th United States Jason Koon $ 55,982,108 Moved Up $ +4,763,100 (5th)
5th United States Dan Smith $ 53,972,566 Moved Up $ +8,647,350 (6th)
6th
canada Daniel Negreanu $ 52,267,651 Moved Down $ +990,025 (4th)
7th Belarus Mikita Bodyakovsky $ 51,529,366 Moved Up $ +8,307,750 (9th)
8th United States Isaac Haxton $ 47,637,774 Moved Up $ +7,667,260 (11th)
9th United States Erik Seidel $ 45,973,569 Moved Down $ +2,248,142 (8th)
10th United States David Peters $ 45,794,437 Moved Down $ +2,017,995 (7th)
11th
germany Fedor Holz $ 41,686,203 Moved Up $ +2,198,235 (13th)
12th United States Phil Ivey $ 41,673,044 Moved Down $ +913,000 (10th)
13th Spain Adrian Mateos $ 41,384,087 Moved Up $ +6,419,095 (17th)
14th United States Steve O'Dwyer $ 40,524,453 No Change
15th United States Cary Katz $ 40,073,333 Moved Down $ +273,900 (12th)
16th Canada Timothy Adams $ 38,580,851 Moved Down $ +1,171,146 (15th)
17th United States Jake Schindler $ 36,817,582 Moved Down (16th)
18th Canada Sam Greenwood $ 34,894,798 No Change
19th United States Nick Petrangelo $ 32,760,007 No Change
20th United States William Alex Foxen $ 32,209,
888 Moved Up $ +2,375,137 (21st)
21st Germany Christoph Vogelsang $ 31,882,809 Moved Up $ +3,292,900 (23rd)
22nd Canada Daniel Dvoress $ 30,309,635 Moved Up $ +5,130,946 (30th)
23rd United States Phil Hellmuth Jr $ 29,965,105 Moved Down $ +73,500 (20th)
24th United States Sean Winter $ 28,973,830 Moved Up $ +1,074,800 (25th)
25th United States Daniel Colman $ 28,925,059 Moved Down (22nd)
26th Malaysia Paul Phua $ 28,770,090 Moved Down $ +623,800 (24th)
27th United States Antonio Esfandiari $ 27,810,801 Moved Down (26th)
28th Indonesia John Juanda $ 25,746,306 No Change
29th United States Scott Seiver $ 25,606,582 Moved Down $ +19,300 (27th)
30th United States Brian Rast $ 25,430,900 Moved Down $ +228,300 (29th)