Phil Hellmuth (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player. He is best known for holding a record 11 World Series of Poker bracelets, for winning the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and for his temperamental, "poker brat" personality. He is also a member of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame.

Phillip Jerome Hellmuth, Jr. was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for three years before dropping out to play poker full time. He now lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife Katherine Sanborn (a psychiatrist at Stanford University) and their two sons Philip III and Nicholas.

As of 2011, his total live tournament winnings exceed $13,000,000. He is ranked fourth on the All Time Money List, behind Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey. As a poker player, Hellmuth is known for taking his seat in tournaments hours after they begin.

In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads up play; his record has since been broken twice, when Peter Eastgate won in 2008 and Joe Cada won in 2009. Hellmuth holds the records for most WSOP cashes (85) and most WSOP final tables (45), overtaking T. J. Cloutier.

Daniel Negreanu (pronounced /nɨˈɡrɑːnoʊ/; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player of Romanian origin. He has won four World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour Championship titles. He is currently ranked second in the all-time career earnings list and is the star of poker game show Million Dollar Challenge. He plays a big part in the Pokerstars.net Big Game.

Negreanu was born in Toronto, Ontario. In 1967, his parents, Annie and Constantin, emigrated from Communist Romania, hoping to start a new life in the United States. Instead, they ended up settling in Toronto, where Constantin worked as an electrician and sold confectionery. Daniel was born five years after his brother, and even at an early age was extremely ambitious. "From the age of four, I thought I’d be rich. I told my mom I’d build a house out of Popsicle sticks, and move to Cafornia (sic),” Daniel recalls in a 2009 interview.

Daniel Negreanu attended Pineway public middle school in North York, where the principal complained to his mother about Daniel's "poor manners or behavior" and threatened to expel him for "ignoring the school rules." While nursing dreams of a career as a professional snooker player, the now 15-year-old Daniel learned how to play poker. By 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, sports betting, and playing cards. When he was several credits short of graduation Daniel dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at the local charity casinos, usually at Casino Country and Fundtime Games, and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, Daniel met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building up his bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, "The Strip" got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.

Phillip Dennis "Phil" Ivey Jr. (born February 1, 1976) is an American professional poker player who has won eight World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey is regarded by numerous poker observers and contemporaries as the best all-around player in the world today.

Ivey first began to develop his poker skills by playing against co-workers at a New Brunswick, New Jersey telemarketing firm in the late 1990s. One of his nicknames, "No Home Jerome", stems from the ID card he secured to practice in Atlantic City, New Jersey in his teenage years. His other nickname is 'the Tiger Woods of Poker'.

As of 2012^[update], his total live tournament winnings exceed $16,000,000. $5,294,840 of his total winnings have come from cashes at the WSOP. He is currently ranked 2nd on the all time money list behind Erik Seidel.

Ivey's tournament accomplishments include winning three bracelets at the 2002 World Series of Poker, tying Phil Hellmuth Jr, Ted Forrest, and Puggy Pearson for most tournament wins in a single year (Jeff Lisandro has also since tied the record). Ivey also has bracelets in Pot Limit Omaha from 2000 and 2005. In 2000, he was the first person to defeat Amarillo Slim heads-up at a WSOP final table. In addition to his eight World Series bracelets, Ivey has had great success in the WSOP Main Event. He placed in the top 25 four times between the 2002 World Series of Poker and the 2009 World Series of Poker. Ivey finished 23rd in 2002, 10th in 2003, 20th in 2005 and 7th in 2009.

Thomas Dwan Jr. (born July 30, 1986) is an American professional poker player who regularly plays online in the highest-stakes No-Limit Texas hold 'em and Pot-Limit Omaha games, primarily on Full Tilt Poker, where he plays under the screen name "durrrr". In early November 2009, Dwan became a member of Team Full Tilt.

Dwan has won prize money in live poker tournaments and has appeared on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the fourth, fifth, sixth & seventh seasons of Poker After Dark, the third and fourth seasons of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game, and the fifth and sixth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker. He attended Boston University before dropping out to pursue poker full-time.

In March 2004 at the age of 17, Dwan began playing online poker at Paradise Poker with $50 his father had given him for his 17th birthday. He believed the alias "durrrr" would put players on tilt if they'd lose to him. Dwan initially focused on $6 sit-and-go tournaments and ended up losing $35. With his last $15, he continued to focus on these sit-and-gos until he was able to turn a profit. After finding he could beat these games, he turned to cash games, where he built his bankroll starting at low stakes and slowly climbing his way up, eventually reaching the largest games found online. After beating multiplayer cash games, Dwan switched his focus to playing heads-up No-Limit hold 'em against other professionals, such as Frederick Halling at the $10/$20 stakes level. He challenged Prahlad Friedman at $25/$50 stakes but kept losing to him for several months, forcing him to drop to lower stakes before coming back again and again until he was able to beat Friedman.

Antonio Esfandiari (born Amir Esfandiari, December 8, 1978 in Tehran, Iran) is a professional poker player, known for his elaborate chip tricks.

When he was 9 years old his family moved to San Jose, California. He graduated from Del Mar High School in 1997.

At the age of 19, he changed his name to Antonio, which was adopted from living in a Mexican American community in San Jose, and became a professional magician. While he was performing magic, he was invited to a game of Texas Hold 'em and started to play poker. He has a younger brother, Pasha, who also plays poker.

In 2004, he won close to $1.4 million and his first World Poker Tour title at the L.A. Poker Classic. He won his first World Series of Poker bracelet a few months later in pot-limit Texas Hold 'em.

Esfandiari appeared in the second and third seasons of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. After finishing last the previous year, Antonio was able to redeem himself with a second place finish the third season. He was also in each season of GSN series High Stakes Poker and each season of NBC's Poker After Dark.