Justin Bonomo made poker history again this week by winning the $100,000 No Limit Hold'em High Roller at the WPT Five Diamond Classic to eclipse $57 million in lifetime tournament winnings, passing Bryn Kenney at the top of the all-time tournament winnings list.

I just retook the #1 spot on the all-time money list!!!!

— Bonologic (@JustinBonomo) December 4, 2021

To win the tournament, Bonomo outlasted 19 entries which included Jason Koon ($667,800) and Dan Smith, two players who also find themselves among the top 10 tournament winners of all time. Bonomo is no stranger to being at the top of the All The Money List. He last held the distinction two years ago before being taken over by Kenney when he came in second with a $20.5 million prize during the 2019 Triton Million Charity event. Bonomo now holds a narrow lead against Kenney, who has $56,907,385 in live tournament winnings, but has not played live poker at his traditional pace over the last couple of years. A look at the top 10 as of December 7th:

All Time Money List (Live Tournament Winnings)

Controversy over the All-Time Money List

The Hendon Mob All-Time Money List is one of the most cited sources for live tournament success among the game's best players, aggregating the results of thousands and thousands of tournaments since 2000. While most poker fans and players acknowledge that being at the top of the All-Time Money list is a significant accomplishment for any player, some say the honor has been diluted to some extent in recent years. Notably, with the explosion of high rollers over the last five to ten years, it has become easier for players to quickly make a jump in the standings. Many of the High Roller events attract a small number of players, as is the case of Bonomo's win in the $100k High Roller, where only 19 players entered. This has allowed players a better opportunity to “pad” numbers without beating many opponents. It also led to a so-called new school of high stakes players to rack up wins (Smith, Kenney, David Peters, Jason Koon), passing many of the top winners of yesteryear (Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth). Sure, many of these players are among the best in the world and deserve to be there. But it is true that most, if not all, of players are heavily staked in these high rollers, which would mean the players winning these huge prizes are often taking home a smaller percentage of what is actually won. The All-Time Money List itself has also been scrutinized for the fact that it only calculates win totals and doesn't account for buy-ins. For many players, when accounting for staking and buy-ins, they are winning much less and in some cases are actually losing poker players. So The All-Time Money List is very useful to see what players have scored the most winnings over time, but as many have argued, does represent an incomplete picture of overall skill in the poker world.

Where has Bryn Kenney been?

Bryn Kenney has not played much live tournament poker since the 2019 Triton Poker Super High Roller event, which gave him the lead in the All-Time Money List. Since then, Kenney has recorded cashes during EPT Prague in December 2019 and the Aussie Millions in January 2020 but had not cashed until his 2nd place finish at the $25k WPT Rock N Roll Poker Open last month. The lack of live tournaments gave Bonomo an easier opportunity to catch up despite himself not playing poker as much of late. Bonomo has slashed the amount he has played in recent years, which was of course accelerated by the COVID-19 closures. Still, given Bonomo's recent track record he seems more likely to extend the lead than to lose ground to Kenney. But with Bonomo playing more than Kenney these days, it looks more likely that Bonomo is more poised to extend his lead. However, with a big win, Kenney would easily regain his spot.

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