WSOP Top 10 Tuesday - from the World's Greatest Unknown WSOP Historian
Welcome to the World Series of Poker Top Ten Tuesday thread. Having spent the last ten+ years researching and analyzing the WSOP, I'd like to share some of my favorite findings each week, with a primary focus on the bracelet events.
Some of these lists are very subjective, so have fun arguing about what's been underrated, overrated, or completely missed.
Other lists are fairly objective but will include unknown factoids and more than a few error corrections (I'll cite my original sources when possible).
Enjoy!
Special Honorable Mention: Six Main Event Champions Who Started the Final Table With Less Than Ten Percent of the Chips
(Note: I usually use "Final Table" to mean the last nine players, but I have chip counts for a couple of six-player final tables here):
- 1994: Russ Hamilton, 8.6% (231,000 chips), 3rd of 6 players.
- 2014: Martin Jacobson, 7.4% (14,900,000 chips), 8th of 9 players.
- 1981: Stu Ungar, 7.1% (53,200 chips), 8th of 9 players.
- 1991: Brad Daugherty, 7.0% (150,000 chips), 5th of 6 players.
- 2009: Joe Cada, 6.8% (13,215,000 chips), 5th of 9 players. He later got down to 1% (see above).
- 2007: Jerry Yang, 6.6% (8,459,000 chips), 8th of 9 players.
Congratulations to the new #1 on this list:
- 2024: Jonathan Tamayo, 4.4% (26,700,000 chips), 7th of 9 players.
But nonetheless he was a sharp player, winning two bracelets and racking up a respectable Hendon Mob. Moreover, he was a good man. Another one I am going to miss.
Oh cool, are you also from Northern California? I see a good chunk of his cashes are at Thunder Valley and Stones, which are the two places I most frequent (and by "most," I mean maybe five times a year and not since pre-COVID). There's definitely a non-zero chance I played with him. And I did, I'm sorry I never got to hear what must have been more than a few great stories from the early WSOPs.
rjen, I am very early on reading this thread because you are cramming a lot of info into each of your posts!
I sure hope that you are or eventually will work with wsop, hendon, or someone else. The type of research you are providing is much more worthy of a poker hall of fame than what the wsop is currently doing with it.
If the wsop actually cared about it, they could make a pretty neat online hall of fame / archive. Instead they only care about money/profit, and let hendonmob do it.
If such a thing ever takes shape, I sure hope you are involved because the Hellmuth event 3 events won stuff sure proves you know your stuff.
If 10% of the field cashed each year, and he cashed 4 times in 45 years, he is only slightly under expectation for an average player.
Remember, prior to the last 5 or so years, it used to be 10% of the field cashed, and in the earlier years it was sometimes less than 10%.
Are you going to do ten stupidest controversies? Number one is easy to figure out.
Per PokerNews, Hamilton got his weight up to 330 pounds (about 150 kg for the non-U.S. folks), which in turn was worth around $30K. Source:
EDIT: Okay, just got curious... I don't know the exact date of the 1994 Main, but the WSOP site says May 6. The price of silver closed at $5.06 per ounce on that date, which translates to $26,769.60. This is closer to the estimate of $28K in Sexton's Corner:
I seem to recall some rumors that he also weighted himself down with I want to say ankle bracelet or something.
rjen, I am very early on reading this thread because you are cramming a lot of info into each of your posts!
I sure hope that you are or eventually will work with wsop, hendon, or someone else. The type of research you are providing is much more worthy of a poker hall of fame than what the wsop is currently doing with it.
If the wsop actually cared about it, they could make a pretty neat online hall of fame / archive. Instead they only care about money/profit, and let hendonmob do it.
If such
Thanks, I've actually been explicitly turned down by someone pretty high up at the WSOP, although it's possible I wasn't talking to the right person. (By pure coincidence, they erased me from their records when I asked to add my home town, which they missed somehow.)
If anyone here can get me connected, I'd be eternally grateful. Or maybe CardPlayer or PokerNews?
The Hendon Mob will never be a good source because of the
, which has poked many holes in their data.
Kristen Foxen's deep Main Event run puts her on this list, but first let's look at how this record has grown through the years. Despite being called the "World" Series of Poker, the first eight record-setters were all American, thirteen if you include the non-open records {in braces}.
Chronology of the Largest Prize Won by a Woman in an Open Event
- May 11, 1974: Bonnie Baez (U.S.), $1,050, 4th place in $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em (first woman to cash in a WSOP tournament).
- May 3, 1979: Jackie Mills (U.S.), $11,400, 2nd place in $2,000 Limit Draw High. {Jackie McDaniel had won $5,580 in the debut 1977 Ladies Championship, and Terry Windham [later known as Terry King] $10,080 the next year.}
- May 11, 1982: Vera Richmond (U.S.), $38,500, 1st place in $1,000 Limit Ace-to-Five Draw (first woman to win a WSOP tournament). {Barbara Freer had won $12,720 in the 1979 Ladies Championship, Debby Callihan $14,880 in 1980, and Ruth Godfrey $17,600 in 1981.}
- May 15, 1989: Robin Brown (U.S.), $53,000, 3rd place in $2,000 Limit Hold 'Em.
- May 9, 1991: Mim Penney (U.S.), $88,750, 2nd place in $5,000 Seven-Card Stud.
- May 18, 1995: Barbara Enright (U.S.), $114,180, 5th place in Main Event (first and still only woman to reach the Main Event Final Table).
- May 8, 1996: Barbara Enright (U.S.), $180,000, 1st place in $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha.
- April 22, 2001: Nani Dollison (U.S.), $441,440, 1st place in $2,000 Limit Hold 'Em.
- September 17, 2007: Annette Obrestad (Norway), $2,013,733 (one million pounds), 1st place in WSOP Europe Main Event.
- September 8, 2020: Wenling Gao (China), $2,748,605, 2nd place in Online $5,000 Main Event.
Despite being the third-to-last person to set the record, Dollison was pushed out of the top ten by Foxen, leaving only three American women on the list.
Largest Prizes Won by Women
- 10. Dana Castaneda (U.S.), $454,207, 1st place in 2013 $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em (July 2).
- 9. Jackie Glazier (Australia), $458,996, 2nd place in 2012 $3,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em (June 24).
- 8. Lisa Meredith (U.S.), $500,000, 3rd place in 2016 $1,500 Eight-Game Mix 6-Max (June 12).
- 7. Elisabeth Hille (Norway), $590,442, 11th place in 2012 Main Event (July 16).
- 6. Gaelle Baumann (France), $590,442, 10th place in 2012 Main Event (July 16).
- 5. Kristen Foxen (Canada), $600,000, 13th place in 2024 Main Event (July 15).
- 4. Allyn Shulman (U.S.), $603,713, 1st place in 2012 $1,000 Seniors Championship (June 17).
- 3. Christine Do (Canada), $1,072,405, 4th place in 2021 Online $5,000 Main Event (September 11).
- 2. Annette Obrestad (Norway), $2,013,733 (one million pounds), 1st place in 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event (September 17).
- 1. Wenling Gao (China), $2,748,605, 2nd place in 2020 Online $5,000 Main Event (September 8).
Insanely good thread. Lots of cool wsop information /moments
rjen, I am very early on reading this thread because you are cramming a lot of info into each of your posts!
I sure hope that you are or eventually will work with wsop, hendon, or someone else. The type of research you are providing is much more worthy of a poker hall of fame than what the wsop is currently doing with it.
If the wsop actually cared about it, they could make a pretty neat online hall of fame / archive. Instead they only care about money/profit, and let hendonmob do it.
If such
Agreed with everything ^^^
Most Unusual WSOP Bracelets
- 10. Tag Team Events (in general): These may be the funnest tournaments on the schedule in a game that's primarily an individual contest. But since each player is only required to play one blind level (one hour), you could pair up with a strong pro, fold every hand for the first round while the blinds are small, then let the pro try to win a bracelet for you.
- 9. 2019 $1,000 Tag Team Tourney: This was the only WSOP event that ever awarded three bracelets. When the Tag Team event debuted in 2016, teams could have two, three, or four players. Ohad Geiger, Barak Wisbrod, and Daniel Dayan will remain the only trio to ever win as the rules were changed in 2021 to restrict teams to two players.
- 8. 1973 $3,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw: Jack Straus and Aubrey Day officially chopped the first two prizes and earned bracelets when the event ran long and was encroaching on the start of the Main Event.
- 7. 1973 Five-Card Stud: Bill Boyd was credited with winning in a walkover. If so, he could have won a bracelet yet actually lost money from the tournament fee; most likely he simply got a refund.
- 6. 1971 Banquet Awards: For reasons lost to history, some of the 1971 Banquet awards are considered bracelets, while the parallel awards in 1970 and 1972 are not except for Bill Boyd's Five-Card Stud 1972 win. This is a complicated subject that I explored earlier.
- 5. 1995 and 1996 Chinese Poker: Three events featured a poker variant with no bluffing! Even the Wikipedia article says, "It is intended as a beginner-friendly game." Nevertheless, John Tsagaris (1995 $1,500 event), Steve Zolotow (1995 $5,000 event), and Gregory Grivas (1996 $1,500 event) won bracelets and some cash ($41,400, $250,000, and $93,000).
- 4. 1979 to 1983 Mixed Doubles: One woman and one man were required on each team, so this wasn't an open event. But (out of respect I suppose) nobody complains that Doyle Brunson's ten bracelets should have an asterisk for his 1979 Mixed Doubles title with Starla Thompson (later Brodie).
- 3. 2014 Honorary Bracelet: During the 2014 World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas, the WSOP bestowed an honorary bracelet on an ailing Chad Brown while he was in hospice care in New York.
- 2. 2017 WSOP China Main Event: Yunpeng Zhou defeated a field of 781 for $364,632. The China festival, officially part of the WSOP Asia-Pacific, included numerous non-bracelet events, but the No-Limit Hold 'Em finale was somehow deemed a bracelet event even though every player had freerolled in through the Tencent Poker app, which was shut down by the Chinese government less than a year later. Speculation perhaps, but this had to be the softest field in the history of the WSOP and would be the most unusual WSOP bracelet if not for...
- 1. 1983-85 Casino Operators Events: ... the three most dubious bracelets ever. There is no question that Sandy Stupak won the 1984 Casino Operators event. However, the Hendon Mob, the Global Poker Index, and CardPlayer don't acknowledge it as a bracelet (nor do I) as press reports at the time deemed it a "special" event and the winner was awarded a trophy (of the three sites, only the GPI even mentions the event, listing it without a "WSOP" badge). Furthermore, if Stupak's win is a bracelet, then so are Ted Binion's wins in 1983 and 1985, which the WSOP remains conflicted about. His WSOP page shows both events as bracelets, but while the 1983 tournament page lists him, the 1985 tournament page does not. Verdict: none of these three should be considered bracelets.
Honorable Mention: Events With Non-Standard Decks
- Events With Wild Cards: Wild cards are popular in some home poker games, but they clearly increase the luck component at the expense of skill. In 1981, the WSOP added a $1,000 Limit Draw High with Joker tournament. Two years later, Ace-to-Five Draw with a Joker joined the schedule, and variations of that event continued until 2004. The 2022 WSOP rules still state that this joker becomes the "lowest card not present in your hand".
- Events With Short Decks: Short Deck Hold 'Em, which uses a 36-card deck lacking deuces through fives and ranks flushes above full houses, debuted at the 2019 WSOP as a $10,000 event. The game has been played live in Las Vegas five times, live at WSOP Europe four times, and online five times through 2023. Short Deck Hold 'Em's run appears to have ended as it was not part of the 2024 Las Vegas or online festivals (although the 2024 WSOP Europe schedule hasn't been announced yet).
Most Unusual WSOP Bracelets
- 10. Tag Team Events (in general): These may be the funnest tournaments on the schedule in a game that's primarily an individual contest. But since each player is only required to play one blind level (one hour), you could pair up with a strong pro, fold every hand for the first round while the blinds are small, then let the pro try to win a bracelet for you.
- 9. 2019 $1,000 Tag Team Tourney: This was the only WSOP event that ever awarded three bracelets. When the Tag Team event debuted in 2016, teams could have two, three, or four players. Ohad Geiger, Barak Wisbrod, and Daniel Dayan will remain the only trio to ever win as the rules were changed in 2021 to restrict teams to two players.
- 8. 1973 $3,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw: Jack Straus and Aubrey Day officially chopped the first two prizes and earned bracelets when the event ran long and was encroaching on the start of the Main Event.
- 7. 1973 Five-Card Stud: Bill Boyd was credited with winning in a walkover. If so, he could have won a bracelet yet actually lost money from the tournament fee; most likely he simply got a refund.
- 6. 1971 Banquet Awards: For reasons lost to history, some of the 1971 Banquet awards are considered bracelets, while the parallel awards in 1970 and 1972 are not except for Bill Boyd's Five-Card Stud 1972 win. This is a complicated subject that I explored earlier.
- 5. 1995 and 1996 Chinese Poker: Three events featured a poker variant with no bluffing! Even the Wikipedia article says, "It is intended as a beginner-friendly game." Nevertheless, John Tsagaris (1995 $1,500 event), Steve Zolotow (1995 $5,000 event), and Gregory Grivas (1996 $1,500 event) won bracelets and some cash ($41,400, $250,000, and $93,000).
- 4. 1979 to 1983 Mixed Doubles: One woman and one man were required on each team, so this wasn't an open event. But (out of respect I suppose) nobody complains that Doyle Brunson's ten bracelets should have an asterisk for his 1979 Mixed Doubles title with Starla Thompson (later Brodie).
- 3. 2014 Honorary Bracelet: During the 2014 World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas, the WSOP bestowed an honorary bracelet on an ailing Chad Brown while he was in hospice care in New York.
- 2. 2017 WSOP China Main Event: Yunpeng Zhou defeated a field of 781 for $364,632. The China festival, officially part of the WSOP Asia-Pacific, included numerous non-bracelet events, but the No-Limit Hold 'Em finale was somehow deemed a bracelet event even though every player had freerolled in through the Tencent Poker app, which was shut down by the Chinese government less than a year later. Speculation perhaps, but this had to be the softest field in the history of the WSOP and would be the most unusual WSOP bracelet if not for...
- 1. 1983-85 Casino Operators Events: ... the three most dubious bracelets ever. There is no question that Sandy Stupak won the 1984 Casino Operators event. However, the Hendon Mob, the Global Poker Index, and CardPlayer don't acknowledge it as a bracelet (nor do I) as press reports at the time deemed it a "special" event and the winner was awarded a trophy (of the three sites, only the GPI even mentions the event, listing it without a "WSOP" badge). Furthermore, if Stupak's win is a bracelet, then so are Ted Binion's wins in 1983 and 1985, which the WSOP remains conflicted about. His WSOP page shows both events as bracelets, but while the 1983 tournament page lists him, the 1985 tournament page does not. Verdict: none of these three should be considered bracelets.
Honorable Mention: Events With Non-Standard Decks
- Events With Wild Cards: Wild cards are popular in some home poker games, but they clearly increase the luck component at the expense of skill. In 1981, the WSOP added a $1,000 Limit Draw High with Joker tournament. Two years later, Ace-to-Five Draw with a Joker joined the schedule, and variations of that event continued until 2004. The 2022 WSOP rules still state that this joker becomes the "lowest card not present in your hand".
- Events With Short Decks: Short Deck Hold 'Em, which uses a 36-card deck lacking deuces through fives and ranks flushes above full houses, debuted at the 2019 WSOP as a $10,000 event. The game has been played live in Las Vegas five times, live at WSOP Europe four times, and online five times through 2023. Short Deck Hold 'Em's run appears to have ended as it was not part of the 2024 Las Vegas or online festivals (although the 2024 WSOP Europe schedule hasn't been announced yet).
You definitely are the most well rounded wsop poker historian! Some of the stuff you find out the writers for Norman Chad and Lon McEachern could come up with. Great stuff!
Most Unusual WSOP Bracelets[*]3. 2014 Honorary Bracelet: During the 2014 World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas, the WSOP bestowed an honorary bracelet on an ailing Chad Brown while he was in hospice care in New York.
I didn't remember this, only that Vanessa Rousso basically dumped him while he was ill, or at least that is how it came across. Yet when I went to verify the dates just now it seems like almost all mention of even the fact they were married has been scrubbed from the web. I guess Vanessa doesn't want her brand to be damaged......
The rules may have varied from year to year, but in this year's team event, I thought I heard people say each member of the team had to play at least 1 hand, not a full level.
Also, in California, where they played a ton of draw lowball (because that was the only legal game for years), many or maybe most games played with a "bug" - the term that developed there for a joker that acts as a wild card. So spreading that game in the WSOP was not a big novelty; it was letting all the LA casino players play the game they were used to.
I think the greatest WSOP hands for me would come down to a few. My criteria:
Stakes had to have been high
Hand needed to have drama
Hand significantly impacted the outcome of the tourney
Historic players involved
The hand has to be played with some reasonable level of skill
I'm also biased towards much older hands. The newer WSOPs really just kind of run together for me.
1) Matloubi-Lund
2) Ferguson-Cloutier
3) Moneymaker-Farha
4) Chan-Seidel
5) Furlong-Seed
JMHO but MoneymakerÂ’s bluff of Sammy has to be the greatest poker hand ever filmed.
Ferguson was involved in all sorts of crazy hands once it got down to the final nine, and he went 4-0-3 on the ones I remember. Never been a better player get better cards at a better time. I feel bad for TJ but the one he really shouldÂ’ve won was when Scotty did. He got frustrated by McBrideÂ’s luckboxing and stupidly busted out 3rd with KQo v J9 w/a four flush on the flop.
#1: Matloubi's river two-outer not the final hand, right?
#2: Which Ferguson-Cloutier hand? The final hand wasn't well played but meets the other four criteria.
#3: The BLUFF not the final hand, I assume.
#4: The most famous hand in WSOP history, thanks to "Rounders".
#5: Great call in a big spot.
1. They played for another 90 minutes and Lund even regained the chip lead at one point. He was always bitter about how the video was edited. He finished 3rd two years later.
2. They chopped three allin pots headup, IIRC TJ wouldve won the title had he won any of them, and he had the best hand going to the river twice. The final hand Ferguson’s call was a punt; he explained in detail to McManus why he did it (correctly imo). The crazy hands were seven handed v Jeff Shulman.
3. It was the penultimate hand.
4. Played horribly by Seidel but he obviously learned from it. Very well.
5. Wish I remembered that one. Pretty tough final table.
All I know is that Wink was an Atlantic City regular from Rose, Valley, PA. Anything you remember about him? (WSOP.com doesn't even list a 5th place finisher.)
23 years too late, but congrats for outlasting Phil Hellmuth (9th place). Tough final table.
I snooped on your Hendon and it says you have 2 cashes, last of which was in 2002. You obv still follow or play poker as you're posting in here. I mean ... a wsop final table is no easy feat even in 2001. I gotta know... why you give up on tournaments?
The rules may have varied from year to year, but in this year's team event, I thought I heard people say each member of the team had to play at least 1 hand, not a full level.
Also, in California, where they played a ton of draw lowball (because that was the only legal game for years), many or maybe most games played with a "bug" - the term that developed there for a joker that acts as a wild card. So spreading that game in the WSOP was not a big novelty; it was letting all the LA casino players
The "bug" is the colloquial name for the joker in five card draw high, so named because the joker card in decks from the Bee Playing Card Co. depicted a harlequin figure riding on the back of a bee. The bug is not a true wild card, but it plays as an ace or completing straights and flushes.
In every California lowball game I have ever played, the joker was called simply "the joker."
Every triple bracelet winner has taken down three relatively small tournaments:
- 1973 Puggy Pearson: 8, 13, & 17 players
- 1993 Ted Forrest: 57, 129, & 200 players
- 1993 Phil Hellmuth: 69, 173, & 284 players (the 1994 WSOP Annual report agrees with Hendon that the $5k LHE had 69 entries not the 63 that WSOP.com says)
- 2002 Phil Ivey: 126, 143, & 253 players
- 2009 Jeff Lisandro: 165, 315, & 359 players
- 2014 George Danzer: 48, 112, & 134 players
Lisandro's feat is the most impressive if you go by field sizes with the highest minimum (165), highest maximum (359), and highest average (279.7).
DonÂ’t forget about Lakewood Louie!
Prob the spot to mention imo Hellmuth’s $5K LHE win in ‘93 is his most underrated achievement. I don’t care how small the fields were, there wasn’t much dead money. He won it on little sleep after winning the $2500 NLHE, back when they played them all the way through, while also defending from the year before. A double back to back, don’t think anyone else has done that.
