Who are the best Poker tournament players in the world? The year 2000 onwards is when the WSOP really took off in terms of player numbers. And the WSOP is pretty much the premier poker tournament series so :-

Looking at WSOP tournaments 2000 until 2006 as a sample, giving 3 pts for a win, 2 for a second and 1 for a third.....would lead to :-

1) Chris "Jesus" Ferguson ... 23pts
1) Phil Ivey ... 23 pts
1) Phil Hellmuth ... 23 points, (5 wins)
4) Johnny Chan ... 20 points, (5 wins)
5) Allen Cunningham ... 19 pts (5 wins, 2 seconds)
5) Men The Master ... 17 pts
7) Layne Flack ... 16 pts (4 wins, 1 second)
8) Eric Seidel ... 15 pts (4 wins)

These feels like a pretty fair assessment for the time period.

If we look at the entire history of the WSOP, 1970 up until early 2021, and just look at ITM (in the money) finishes, then the highest 4 are Daniel Negreanu (with 166 ITMs), Phil Hellmuth (with 164 ITMs), Chris Ferguson (with 161 ITMs), and Erik Seidel (with 129 ITMs)

And if we look at the highest bracelets holders, out of those who have won at least 3 bracelets since 2000, we have:

Phil Hellmuth (15 in total), Phil Ivey (10 in total), Johnny Chan (10 in total), Erik Seidel (8 in total), Men Nguyen (7 in total), Chris Fergusen (6 in total), Daniel Negreanu (6 in total), Jon Hennigan (6 in total), Jeff Lissandro (6 in total), Ted Forrest (6 in total), Layne Flack (6 in total)

So on reflection I would say the top 5 live poker tournament players are:

(Alphabetical order, of surnames)

Chris Ferguson
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Erik Seidel

Not far out of those top 5, I would suggest Michael Mizarchi (5 bracelets in the 2010s, including Players Championship), Johnny Chan (10 bracelets in total, including 5 after year 2000), and Jeff Lisandro (3 bracelets in a year in 2009...and 6 in total). Johnny Chan would probably make the top 5 if he played more tournaments.... Erik Seidel was just given the nod ahead of him, based on some huge tournament wins, and high ITM.