Top 5 WSOP Main Event Heels

The WSOP Main Event is the biggest poker tournament in the world, with thousands of players flocking to the Rio with the same pipe dream: to be the next World Champ.

With such a massive field, it's inevitable that every year all sorts of players make it deep: loudmouths, card racks, nits, professionals, and of course overzealous, hooting, fist-pumping amateurs.

Each year new icons of poker are made; some you love, some you hate. And some you really love to hate.

With the start of the ME today, it's time to pay tribute to a few players who have played the role of WSOP ME heel over the last few years.

Who will emerge as the defacto villain this year? We'll soon see. In the interim, these five reign supreme:

5) Dmitri Nobles

This upside-down visor wearer took the Main Event by storm in 2006. He had a mountain of chips and wasn't afraid to put them in the pot. He also wasn't afraid to run that mouth of his.

He went from being the chipleader, to almost out, to the chipleader and back seemingly all the time.

It could have been the aggressive play. Or it could have been that he was just, well, terrible.

In the end he talked and spewed his way out of the chip lead and couldn't recover, busting 76th.

Some of his finest work here:

4) Jamie Gold

Who can forget 2006 Main Event champion Jamie Gold?

Between his legal battles and his sometimes over-the-line table banter, Gold has to be one of the most controversial and least marketable Main Event Champions ever.

Put it this way: he is the only Main Event winner without an online sponsorship deal.

Even if somehow you overlook the fact that he hit every single card and ran hotter than the sun the entire tournament (I can't), his personality is undeniably a lightning rod for haters.

Given the vitriol from the poker community during the tournament and still now, three years after the fact, he's definitely a candidate for top WSOP Heel of all time.

"I said top top!"

3) Hevad Khan

Like him or lump him, the guy at least has some poker talent.

Since his 2007 final-table appearance, he's gone on to win the 2008 Caesars Palace Classic and cash in a ton of other tournaments.

That still, in many people's eyes, doesn't quite make up for his deplorable behavior during his 2007 final-table run. Khan crushed red bulls, rambled, grunted, sang, danced and did pretty much anything for attention the entire week.

Some say he was having fun. Others think he was an attention-seeking moron who made life unbearable for everyone around him. It may not have been that bad, but it was at least more than a little annoying.

Since then he's cleaned up his act and plays a quiet, reserved game. But during that 2007 run, there was no player more annoying.

Highlight reel:

2) Humberto Brenes

Who doesn't like Huuuuuuuuumbeerrrrrttto?

As far as I know: almost everybody. Not only are his shark antics annoying at very best to players at his table, he often crosses the line to blatant slowrolling, waiting for the ESPN cameras to come over before calling all-ins with the pure nuts.

If that isn't enough on its own, in spite of all his loudmouth behavior and slow-rollery he somehow manages to still be a gigantic nit.

Daaaaaa chaaaark:

1) Phil Hellmuth

I'll probably catch some flack for this one, but I really don't care. Phil Hellmuth has to be top in the top 5 heels list.

Phil crosses the line all the time. If he isn't telling everyone how great he is, he's telling someone else how awful they are.

He gets away with stuff that no other player would be allowed to get away with because, well, he's Phil Hellmuth.

Phil still unbelievably thinks he's the greatest player in the world - despite the fact that if he held an open cash game there would be a line of players that would stretch down Las Vegas Boulevard.

For that reason alone, he's right at the top of the list of WSOP Main Event Heels.

"Honey, Honey.."

There are plenty more candidates: Eric Molina, Aaron Kanter, Chris Moneymaker, Tony G etc, etc.

We don't have time for everybody, but feel free to post your favorite (least favorite) in the comments.

Big one starts today, so keep it locked to PokerListings for wall-to-wall Main Event coverage.