Victoria's Secret

I was sweating my baby daughter Victoria while she was playing in a big cash game of Go Fish, when some overachieving 2-year-old-girl asked me, "Who's the best Go Fish player in the world?" I asked her whether she meant ring game or tournament Go Fish. She replied, "I want to know who's the best at both." I asked her whether she meant limit Go Fish or no-limit Go Fish. She demanded, "I want to know who's the best all-around Go Fish player!" I finally admitted that I didn't know, but as a consolation, I told her that I know who's the best poker player in the world! She exclaimed, "Tell me, tell me, tell me, who's the best poker player in the world?" Since winning the World Series of Poker a couple of years ago, many people have asked me this question in one form or another. There are many great players, and at this point, probably hundreds of players are capable of winning a major poker tournament.

Since winning the WSOP, I have informally polled many poker players in regard to whom they think is the best. An extraordinary number of people who have played with many of the most highly regarded poker players have told me that Stu Ungar (who passed away a few years ago) was hands down the greatest poker player they ever played with. OK, that may be true, but who's the best player today? In my queries, many familiar names came up, but there was no consensus.

Poker's a serious business for some, a chance for some fame on TV for others, and wonderful recreation for others like me. Don't get me wrong, I play to win, and it was fun to be on TV, but it's still a recreational activity for me. OK, if poker's a serious business, let's get down to business and identify the best player. If we turn to sports, we can look for analogies to records and statistics, for wins, losses, batting, pitching, scoring, saves, foul shots, yardage, official rankings, and amount of money earned. Most of those stats don't carry over very well to poker players. For official rankings, I think the Player of the Year Standings by Card Player is an excellent system for identifying the most successful tournament players for the year. I think it's very impressive to see some of the same names near the top of the list from year to year. However, the Card Player standings don't account for ring-game players, and also don't account for the "P" and "R" words. Amount of money earned is a good measure, but it has to be in the context of a time period as well as the "P" and "R" words.

That's right, the "P" and "R" words – profit and risk. If you're a professional poker player, you're basically an independent businessperson who's running a small but hopefully highly profitable business. You should be looking to maximize your profits while minimizing your risks. Every business has limited resources, and has to allocate them to opportunities with the highest profit potential considering the potential risks. It's the same thing for a professional poker player, except that your "office" is a cardroom, and you conduct your "meetings" at the poker table. Every day that you go to the office, you should be asking yourself the following questions: Should I be playing hold'em, Omaha, stud, a rotation game, limit, pot-limit, no-limit, a ring game, a tournament? What stakes? Is this a day and time when I expect profitable opportunities? Am I going to the best office? Am I in the best city? Who are the players at every table? What's the tournament structure and the tournament field composition? Am I prepared to play my best game? Do I need to go home and brush up on some hot new game? Is my bankroll adequate for a good-looking situation, and in which "meetings" are my time and capital best invested?

The best poker player in the world is probably, though not necessarily, a professional poker player. Again, if you're a professional, it's a business. The goal of any business, including sports, is to maximize profits while minimizing risk. How much money do you make per hour, per day, per week, per month, per year, and in your lifetime? How much risk did you take per hour, per day, per week, per month, per year, and in your lifetime? OK, at the end of each session, you know your exact profit or loss. How much variance did you have in your ups and downs? What's your return on investment? To find out who's the best, we just have to assemble these numbers for every poker player who thinks he's the best and rank them.

Recently, thousands of poker players (mostly professionals) participated in an unprecedented research project to identify the best poker player in the world. All of these players submitted their lifetime playing records to independent auditors from the accounting firm of Hoyle, Hickok, Moss, Dandalos, McCorquodale, Wyman, Wynn, and Associates. The auditors have done a great job of sorting out a remarkable collection of playing records that were recorded on the backs of everything, including scraps of newspaper, T-shirts, napkins, pizza boxes, racetrack tickets, phone bills, and so on. This endeavor required a monumental task of applying state-of-the-art data analysis from the best business schools in America.

Here are the final results of the hard work of many dedicated people. All of the poker players involved in this project have been notified of their OPPR (Official Poker Player Ranking). I think a few people were surprised at how well they did. OK, here it is, the best poker player in the world is [censored]. Oops, I just remembered that due to the confidential nature of the financial statements submitted by all the poker players, I'm not authorized to reveal who's the best poker player in the world. The important thing is that he knows who he is, and that's what counts – that and all of his well-earned poker profits in the bank. Congratulations to number one!

I did tell one person, Victoria – but she doesn't talk yet. I guess it's our secret.

Editor's note: Robert is the 2002 World Series of Poker champion and the instructor on the "WiseGuys on Texas Hold'em" videos, starring some famous actors from the Sopranos. The videos are very informative, as well as entertaining, and are available at wiseguyson.com.