The Poker Hall of Fame (PHoF), established in 1979, honors the game's best players and most influential contributors. Each year either one or two nominees are inducted to join the 48 members currently enshrined in the PHoF, and this year several poker players are making a push for the late David "Devilfish" Ulliott to receive a nomination.
Public nominations for the Class of 2015 are expected to open during the 2015 World Series of Poker. For more on the PHoF, including a list of inductees and nomination criteria, click here.
"This will be about six weeks earlier than we normally do it," the WSOP's Seth Palansky told PokerNews. "The goal was to try and take advantage of the added traffic we get during WSOP to give more public awareness to public nomination process so all candidates get best chance of being considered."
Ulliott is a candidate many feel deserves to be on the shortlist of nominees. In April, the Devilfish, who had been diagnosed with terminal bowel and liver cancer earlier in the year, passed away at the age of 61. The poker veteran from Hull, United Kingdom was one of the most acclaimed and celebrated poker players of his country. He boasted tournament winnings in excess of $6.2 million (the second-biggest winner of all time in the UK behind Sam Trickett).
Ulliott also won the first-ever edition of Late Night Poker in 1999, was a poker pioneer in the UK, and won both a WSOP bracelet and World Poker Tour title. He's also had two books written about his remarkable life.
"The Devilfish is a total legend," Trickett told PokerNews. "I have to say without him poker wouldn’t be as popular as it is today, and I wouldn’t be where I am today. He is dearly missed and it would be a scandal if he missed out on the Hall of Fame."
