Clerihews for Every WSOP Main Event Champion
Edmund Clerihew Bentley.
Bored in school before he was a gent, he
Invented the clerihew as an amateur bard.
Why? Because writing limericks is hard.
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Johnny Moss,
Showed 'em who was boss
In '70, '71, & '74.
But the Nick the Greek Dandolas marathon is mostly lore.
Thomas Austin Preston.
In 1972, did the best win?
Yes, when Amarillo Slim charmed on late night TV,
Providing great publicity for poker and the WSOP.
Walter Clyde Pearson
Knew poker, prop bets, and leers, hon.
Puggy won an amazing three of seven events in '73.
Then challenged the competition on the side of his RV.
Bryan "Sailor" Roberts
Sometimes a job hurts.
When the '75 champ was on the road sharing Slim's & Doyle's
Bankroll, robbers with guns hijacked all their spoils.
Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson
And Todd, his number one son,
Were the first parent & child with WSOP bracelets for playing this game
And also the first enshrined in the Poker Hall of Fame.
Bobby "The Owl" Baldwin.
Four bracelets he hauled in,
Including the Main Event in '78,
The youngest champ then at 28.
Hal Fowler
Amateur's unexpected win in '79 was a howler.
Disappeared from poker as part of the fable,
Until Des Wilson sleuthed him out in "Ghosts at the Table".
Stu Ungar
Had a never-ending hunger
For non-stop action and cocaine
But still three-timed the WSOP Main.
Jack Straus
Claimed "better a day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb" (or a mouse).
Treetop did everything with flair
Even if his '82 win wasn't quite from a "chip and a chair".
Tom McEvoy
Knew we'd in fact enjoy
Our poker better smoke free.
He was the first satellite winner to take down the Main in '83.
Jack Keller
Was such a fine feller,
They dubbed the '84 champ Gentleman Jack.
Byron Wolford tilted away Jesse Alto then quickly handed over the combined stack.
Bill Smith
Was three different players according to myth:
Super tight until he started to drink,
World class once loose, then too blitzed to think.
Berry "Numbers" Johnston
Had a WSOP record 29-year locked on run
Of at least one cash.
With his '86 Main Event win contributing $570,000 to the stash.
Johnny Chan
Closed out the 1980's as The Man.
The Oriental Express hit, hit, and just missed
En route to #1 on the WSOP career money list.
Phil Hellmuth
Likes to brag, but he tells the truth.
The Poker Brat clearly reigns
With 17 bracelets including the 1989 WSOP and 2012 WSOP Europe Mains.
Mansour Matloubi.
Late in the 1990 Main Event, perhaps it was meant to be
As the Iranian-Brit twice got the dealer to deliver
First a two-outer eight and then a two-outer ten on the river.
Brad Daugherty
Sold his bracelet for charity.
Not to be confused with the Cleveland Cavalier's Big Train,
The Missourian collected the WSOP's first million dollar prize in the '91 Main.
Hamid Dastmalchi.
Before the '92 Main Event final table by the wall, he
Inverted into a headstand to get his blood flowing,
Which also worked on the chips that his way were going.
Jim Bechtel.
In '93, the cotton farmer hit the deck well.
The Arizonan waited a record 26 more years
To once again hear the cheers.
Russ Hamilton.
In 1994, the overweight but surprisingly slippery mammal won
The gold bracelet plus silver and tried to cheat the weigh-in. A decade later
He invoked God mode as the UltimateBet traitor.
Dan Harrington
Loved his green Red Sox cap so much he final tabled the '04 Main Event wearing one.
He won the whole shebang in '95, but his back-to-back final tables were just as impressive no doubt,
Leading to Boston ending their 86-year World Series drought.
Huckleberry Seed.
About the 1996 Main Event champ, it can be agreed.
Though he's not a boy named Sue, his first name has given him grief.
But at least he shares that with his siblings Caraway, Cotton, and Leif.
Scotty Nguyen.
"You call, it's gonna be all over baby!" he taunted, putting Kevin McBride all in.
But he could've also borrowed Jaws's famous movie quote:
"You're gonna need a bigger boat!"
Noel Furlong
And his Irish contingent rarely were wrong.
The Christmas baby proved that at age 61, he wasn't in decline,
Becoming the oldest Main Event winner not named Moss in '99.
Chris Ferguson
Interrupted the $1.5 million poker lesson
T.J. Cloutier was trying to deliver
As Jesus hit his miracle three-outer Nine on the river.
Carlos Mortensen
Pulled off a sporting win.
In the final tercio, the Matador slew Dewey Tomko's Ace-Ace toro,
His King-high straight sword delivering the fatal blow.
Robert Varkonyi
Isn't famous for winning the 2002 Main Event only.
The Brooklyn amateur manned the barber's chair
To shave off big-mouthed doubter Phil Hellmuth's hair.
Chris Moneymaker
Appeared to be an unassuming Tennessee faker,
But the accountant with the impossibly appropriate name
Proved two and a half million times over that he had the game.
Greg Raymer
Proved twice in 2004 that the Fossilman was a gamer,
Fighting through 2,576 players to become a five-millionaire,
Then a half year later fighting off a dangerous mugging pair.
Joe Hachem.
Bash 'em, mash 'em, smash 'em.
To the land down under he spread the joy.
Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy oy oy!
Jamie Gold
Table-talked his opponents into many a wrong fold.
At the peak of the poker boom,
The $12 million first prize made him the top WSOP earner in the room.
Jerry Yang
Blasted from eighth at the 2007 Main Event final table to first with a bang.
With his newfound prosperity
He donated 10% of his $8,250,000 prize to charity.
Peter Eastgate
Couldn't at least wait
Till he turned 23 to become the youngest Main Event champ. Bonus points for whose crown he took,
Knocking Phil Hellmuth from the record book.
Joe Cada
Proved that decades of poker experience mean nada,
Converting all the sets he sprung
Into $8,547,042 at a record 21 years young.
Jonathan Duhamel.
With his big stack, the Canadian stayed calm well.
But a year later his scheming ex-girlfriend abetted some foolery
Having him beat up while taking his WSOP jewelry.
Pius Heinz
Was in a pickle and had to catch up from 7th at the final table to win the third of the November Nines.
The best prior German result was Henry Nowakowski's 7th in 2001,
And Heinz's only other WSOP cash was 7th seven days before the 7/7 start of his Main Event run.
Greg Merson
Had just notched a relatively terse win,
Capturing the 474-player $10,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em 6-Max two days before the 2012 Main Event began.
If his goal was to rehearse then it was a brilliantly executed plan.
Ryan Riess,
Known as the Beast,
Declared himself to be the "best player in the world",
But maybe his brain cramped because his hair was too tightly curled.
Martin Jacobson
Studied to be a chef but in 2014 was cooking up some fun,
Winning the Battle of Scandinavia for Sweden over Norway
To the tune of a whopping $4,854,032 more pay.
Joe McKeehen.
Not too hard foreseein'
The eighth straight time a 20-something year-old
Collected the Main Event gold.
Qui Nguyen.
The Vietnamese immigrant known as Tommy Gun satellited in
Then dominated the 2016 Main Event final table
To shed his cash game pro label.
Scott Blumstein.
In 2017, he was rolling in some green,
Living in Pennsylvania but proud of his New Jersey roots,
Birthplace of more than just gangsters and brutes.
John Cynn
Just two years before his $8,800,000 Amazon win,
He ran deep before busting to Gordon Vayo in a do-or-die hand,
Finishing 11th for a respectable 650 grand.
Hossein Ensan
Had a massive final table chip lead and then some.
His 49% share was the most since Chris Ferguson,
And translated into ten million dollars without much mussin' or fussin'.
Damian Salas.
In a year that was far from flawless,
The Argentinian reached the online international Main Event final table in third place,
Won over $1.5 million in Rozvadov then another million by beating Joseph Hebert in Vegas face to face.
Koray Aldemir
Showed no fear
In converting his final table lead into a big check paid
To the third German in a decade.
Espen Jorstad
Was of course glad
To win $10,000,000, which buys a lot more beer in London, where he moved partly for tax defiance,
Than in Copenhagen, where he earned his degree in brewing science.
Daniel Weinman
Wouldn't have survived on the green turf as an NFL lineman,
But the mechanical engineer was a force on the green felt,
With whatever cards he was dealt.
Jonathan Tamayo.
Not your average guy pro.
At impropriety accusations he'd scoff
Then advise, "Fold queens. Play 8-3 off."
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Robert Jen,
Wielding his poker-filled pen,
Hopes to transform from meek to stentorian
As the World's Greatest Unknown WSOP Historian
