Jen Harman is one hell of an excellent poker player. She’s sat with the best in the world for who knows how long, she’s won over $2.6 million in live tournament play, she has two World Series of Poker bracelets . . . I mean, you have to respect that kind of long term excellence and there’s no doubt that the old “she’s not only one of the best female players in the world, but she’s also one of the best players in the world!” refrain applies. All the respect in the world. All that charity work she does looks nice on the ole resume too, right?

There’s no way I’m voting for her on my World Series of Poker Hall of Fame ballot.

That statement might be too aggressive. Really, I just feel there’s no way I can give her my vote because of the company she keeps and the treatment she’s always sought (and gotten). I definitely want women to feel supported in their pokering endeavors and offering them prime examples of women who’ve felt that support and flourished; seems like a good way to do that, but you have to ask yourself this question: Do you want to see women treated fairly or do you want to see them treated as a special needs group?

If you want the latter, hey, that’s your agenda. Of course, there are a lot of dunderheaded jackass moron dudes out there who would take any such treatment to mean they’re entitled to treat you in their own “special” way, which I think is the reason there are so few women in this game to begin with, am I right?

Really what I think women should be looking for is acceptance and equality. Talk to Jen and she’ll tell you she’s found that in poker, and she is happy just being one of the boys. She’s made the full locker room conversion when it comes to the way she’s treated and accepted by her peers. OK, maybe there’s a little fear and awe in there too; that comes with the company she keeps.

To illustrate the reasons I won’t be voting for Harman, a comparison is needed to three of her fellow candidates, keeping in mind that the criteria we’re looking for are sustained excellence against top competition and additional contributions to the game:

Chris (Jesus) Ferguson: Ferguson’s won the world championship (2000), one of five bracelets he owns to Harman’s two. He also has 59 lifetime WSOP cashes to Harman’s 24, has over three times Harman’s lifetime tournament winnings and allegedly played a major role in the formation and growth of FullTiltPoker. That was business more than philanthropy, obviously, but he has to get credit for that as FTP has been a stabilizing force.

Scotty Nguyen: Like Jesus, Scotty has five bracelets, one of them the world champion. He only has 37 WSOP cashes, but he also brings his massive WPT resume, which includes a win and eight final tables. That all adds up to over $11 million in career winnings, good for fifth on the all-time list. Scotty is also the only man to have won the WSOP main event and the Chip Reese trophy, awarded to the winner of the summer’s highest buy-in event (talk about your tough competition). Granted, Jen has never gotten raucously drunk during a nationally televised final table and yes, that helps her in this conversation.

Tom McEvoy: I think most people would say that Jen is the better poker player if asked. While she sits in the big game, McEvoy has been known to hit and run for $150 on PokerStars. Still, Jen trails McEvoy in bracelets (he has three), world championships (one) tournament of champions wins (one) and books. This last thing is McEvoy’s greatest selling point in the comparison; the man wrote more books on poker than anyone - before it was cool or explosively profitable to do so -  and as such was a major contributor to the growth of the game.

The one place where Harman presumably has all three of these guys beaten is in cash game play. She sits with Doyle and Phil Ivey and Barry Greenstein and the toughest cash game players in the world and presumably does well in that scenario as she hasn’t left. The problem there is we can’t measure how successful she’s been there; we’ll take it as gospel that she’s done better than break even (though at the highest levels, there’s no doubt she crushed on her way up), and that keeps her in the conversation with three guys listed above. Therein lies the problem; Ferguson, Nguyen and McEvoy are the only other nominees I’m sure I’m not voting for.

Amongst the six remaining candidates - Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Dan Harrington, Barry Greenstein, and Linda Johnson - Harman’s beaten in just about every way. Ivey has better cash results; he and Seidel have eight bracelets a piece; Harrington and Johnson have made massive contributions to the way people think about the game and growing it; Greenstein has a similar cash history to Harman while playing a major role in bridging the live and online worlds, Negreanu is a standard for poker fame and excellence.  Hell, Johnson’s even been a woman for longer!

Jen Harman has always wanted to be treated as an equal and I don’t see how I can accomplish that and give out special merit hall of fame votes at the same time. She should be proud of her accomplishments and yes, she’ll get into the hall eventually, but while the competition is as thick as it is, there’s no way I can send a vote her way. Sorry ladies; I respect you too much.

Gary Wise is a regular contributor to the ESPN Poker Club and is a regular panelist on the award-winning The Poker Beat on PokerRoad. He tweets the URLs to all of his columns though @GaryWise, so follow him for more of the same.