Internet Pokers Wall of Fame Inducts Phil Galfond, Shaun Deeb, and Neteller!
Congrats to Neteller for making it into the Internet Pokers Hall of Fame
Prior to last year's Poker Hall of Fame inductees were named (John Juanda and Jennifer Harman), 2+2 pokercasters Adam Schwartz and Terrence Chan shared their opinion that PokerStars founder, Isai Scheinberg ought to be included among the hopefuls due to his undoubtedly huge effect on the popularity of Poker worldwide. These musings sparked some interest among the online community, and in late August, Schwartz announced that he and Terrence would be starting their own "Internet Pokers Wall of Fame". Five months in and they have now added their 9th, 10th, and 11th inductees - Phil Galfond, Shaun Deeb, and Neteller!
Phil Galfond always looked like a shoe-in for the IPWOF given his huge influence in the game, especially PLO, the respect he has amongst his peers, and his direct involvement in some of the best poker training sites in the business.
Galfond was one of the first players to top $10m in highstakes winnings with his OMGClayAiken account at Full Tilt Poker back in May 2013 (although he subsequently hit a $3.5m downswing prior to Full Tilt dropping their high stakes tables), and he is also a seven figure winner at PokerStars. As owner of Run It Once, he is responsible for some of the best online video training ever produced and has a dream team of players working alongside him. As well as all that he's also no slouch at live tournaments with 2 WSOP bracelets to his name and over $2.3m in live tourney winnings despite only being a very occasional participant at the live felt.
Another name we're not surprised to see make the list in 10th place is Shaun Deeb. A prolific online MTT winner with over $6.2m in winnings and a record (along with Calvin Anderson) 8 COOP titles (5 WCOOP, 3 SCOOP), Deeb has been winning online since most of todays i-poker generation were in junior highschool, and with over $2m in live tourney winnings he's also proven himself away from the computer screen.
The 11th inductee is a slightly different, yet no less deserving entry, the payment processor Neteller. Neteller gets its place on the IPWOF, according to Adam Schwartz, because, "For years, Neteller was the oil that kept the great online poker machine running." For a time Neteller processed payments for 80% of the world's gambling websites until it all came crashing down in 2007 when, "The founders were arrested, player accounts were frozen, and 65% of Neteller's business was eliminated overnight as the US Department of Justice dropped the hammer."
Luckily the players accounts were eventually refunded and Neteller left the US market. Neteller is still very active outside the US, and with the regulation of poker in some states they have re-entered the US market, but it's for their mid-noughties glory days that Neteller make the list.
See the full thread and all current inductees of the IPWOF here