As the ‘Godfather of Poker’, Doyle Brunson certainly has rights that few other pros can boast of. For one thing, he can speak his mind about anything and everything and there will always be people who will listen. This time, the Texas Dolly has spoken up about the new Poker Hall of Fame nominees and pinpointed which ones he will vote for and which ones he consider to be undeserving.

You’re not old enough, boys

Now, as you may well know, age has always been a huge issue ever since the nominations for the Poker Hall of Fame were changed. With the fans in charge of who they wanted to see in the short list, some of the younger pros have been getting in, much to the dismay of those who still had to sift through the list and filter out the undeserving. There were problems that arose due to this rule back then, with Tom Dwan getting in despite the fact that he was barely even out of teens. Now, the problem’s the same, even though the fans have nominated people who aren’t quite that young anymore. Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu, sponsored by Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars respectively, are the two biggest winners of the game, are both just over thirty. Phil Ivey is 34 and Negreanu is 36.

The youngest to ever been inducted into the HoF was Chip Reese, who was 40 years old. Brunson apparently thinks that the two of them are still too young to be inducted, though he’s pretty sure that they’re going to find themselves in the list in the future. “It’s only a matter of time”, he says, same as with Jennifer Harman.

Brunson has also said that Linda Johnson isn’t a ‘strong candidate’. And as for willingness to get involved in the high stakes cash games, Dan Harrington isn’t up to par with his standards, neither is Tom McEvoy and Christ Ferguson. He considers Scotty Nguyen to be out of the list for a different reason, and that’s because he tarnished the game’s reputation with his drunken behavior.

His favorites

Of course, there are some of the candidates that Doyle Brunson supports. Erik Seidel is one. Burnson says Seidel meets all the requirements, and though not many people remember his cash game adventures, Brunson says he does remember them and that Seidel was in all the cash games back then. He even says that Seidel reminds him of Chip Reese. Barry Greenstein also has Brunson’s vote for having matched all the requirements.