WSOP Top 10 Tuesday - from the World's Greatest Unknown WSOP Historian

Lightning does strike twice (or more).

• 10. Father-Son: In 1983, Donnacha O'Dea reaches the Main Event final table and finishes sixth. In 2011, his son Eoghan O'Dea reaches the Main Event final table and finishes sixth. They are still the only father and son to both make the WSOP Main Event final table.
  
  
• 9. Biggest Women's Cash: On May 5, 1989, Thomas Chung wins the $2,000 Limit Hold 'Em for his first bracelet as Robin Brown finishes third for a WSOP women's-record $53,000. Two years later, on May 10, 1991, Chung wins the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud for his only other bracelet as Mim Penney finishes second for a WSOP women's-record $88,750, breaking Brown's record.
  
  
• 8. Party Crashers: In 1996, Huck Seed is the last of the 295 entrants to register for the Main Event as he has to beg to be allowed to play as he's technically too late. He wins the championship. The very next year, Stu Ungar is the last of the 312 entrants to register for the Main Event as he has to beg Bill Baxter for a buyin. He wins the championship.
  
  
• 7. Employee Omens: In 2002, Mike Majerus finishes third in the Employee event then goes on to win the $2,000 Limit Hold 'Em the next day for his first bracelet. The next year John Arrage finishes third in the Employee event then goes on to win the $1,500 Limit Hold 'Em two weeks later for his first bracelet.
  
  
• 6. Back-to-Back: Only four players have won the Main Event at least twice. If you include Johnny Moss's 1970 win by vote, all four of them won it back-to-back -- Johnny Moss: 1970-71 (and 1974), Doyle Brunson 1976-77, Stu Ungar 1980-81 (and 1997), and Johnny Chan 1987-88.
  
  
• 5. First Foreigner, Part 1: In 1982, twelve years and more than 100 tournaments after the World Series of Poker's debut, Dennis Zervos finally becomes the first non-American to make the money as the Greek finishes third in the $1,000 Limit Hold 'Em for $20,200. Less than a week later in the next two events, England's Barry Clayton, South Africa's Hugh Todd, and the Philippines's Noli Francisco become the second, third, and fourth.
  
  
• 4. First Foreigner, Part 2: In the first 18 years of the World Series of Poker, every bracelet was won by an American. After the first four events of the 1988 WSOP, nearly 200 bracelets had been awarded, none to a foreigner. On May 7, 1988, Norway's Thor Hansen finally breaks through, winning the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud, defeating a field of 79 for $158,000. It had taken 6,594 days between the time Johnny Moss was voted the winner of the first World Series of Poker to the first foreign winner. It took just four days for the second non-American to collect a bracelet, as France's Gilbert Gross wins the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha over a field of 111 (70 rebuys) for $181,000.
  
  
• 3. Still Short: In 2000, T.J. Cloutier reaches heads up in the Main Event for a second time, a record fifteen years after he lost to Bill Smith. He falls short again, this time to Chris Ferguson for second place. The next year, Dewey Tomko reaches heads up in the Main Event for a second time, a record nineteen years after he lost to Jack Straus. He falls short again, this time to Carlos Mortensen for second place.
  
  
• 2. Turning Lead Into Gold: In 1976, Doyle Brunson wins the final hand of the Main Event with Ten-Deuce, going runner-runner on the turn and river to make a full house. The next year, Brunson wins the final hand of the Main Event again with Ten-Deuce, going runner-runner on the turn and river to make a full house.
  
  
• 1. Rematch Regulars: In 2002, Allen Cunningham beats O'Neil Longson heads up for the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw title and his second bracelet. The next year in the same event, Longson again beats Cunningham heads up for the title and his second bracelet.
  Since then, only three heads-up rematches have occurred at the WSOP, and Shaun Deeb has been in all of them. He beat Paul Volpe in 2015 and 2018, split with Ben Yu in 2017 and 2018, and split with Adam Friedman in 2016 and 2019.
  The previous two decades had only three heads-up rematches, and Johnny Chan was in all of them. He beat Lyle Berman in 1985 and 1997, split with Erik Seidel in 1985 and 1997, and split with Phil Hellmuth in 1989 and 2002.
  In the known history of the WSOP, hundreds of thousands of players have competed and only ten heads up rematches have occurred; Chan and Deeb have been involved in six of them.
  

Honorable Mention:

• Born on December 14, 1939, Bobby Hoff finishes second in the 1979 Main Event. Born on December 14, 1931, Frank Henderson finishes second in the 1987 Main Event; he was born eight years before but finishes second eight years after Hoff. {This factoid and the next might sound like they belong on the list, but the birthday paradox assures us that there's a better than 50% chance of having a pair of shared birthdays among a group of 23 people, so having two pairs in 50+ years isn't unexpected.}
  
  
• Born on Christmas Day in 1937, Noel Furlong reaches the 9-player final table of the 1999 WSOP Main Event fourth in chips and goes on to win his first and only bracelet. Born on Christmas Day in 1984, John Cynn reaches the 9-player final table of the 2018 WSOP Main Event fourth in chips and goes on to win his first and only bracelet.
  
  
• On May 11, 1981 Dave Hampton reaches the final table of the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven and finishes fourth for $19,000. A year later on May 14, 1982 Hampton reaches the final table of the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven and finishes fourth for $19,000. They are his only two career cashes, and Bobby Baldwin joins him at both final tables.
  
  
• In 1995, Dan Harrington wins the final hand of the Main Event with the Nine and Eight of diamonds. The next year, Huck Seed wins the final hand of the Main Event with the Nine and Eight of diamonds. Both champs are behind preflop and win with Two Pairs against a Pair. {This would have made the list if not for Brunson's more amazing pair of hands.}
  

You're probably aware of this already, but PokerGo has been running a countdown of its 100 best WSOP hands. (Of course, these are limited to televised/streamed hands, which means it leaves out hands that showed up in the live reporting but never appeared on camera.)

I'll be interested/curious to hear your opinions of their top 10. I've actually been waiting for the full set of videos to be out so that I can binge watch all 100.

Wow.

i.e. Ladies... if Chung has a big stack on Day 2 of a four-day event, register for the first available three-day event immediately.

Phil Hellmuth's 3 bracelets in 3 days in 1993 is one of the most remarkable achievements that no one talks about. A few days later, he took 2nd in another event.

Surely there are bigger women’s cashes than that even if you count inflaation, doesn’t Selbst have multiple bracelets?

I expect it's written to mean "the record at the time"

Agree, it's somewhat implied given Brown's $53K score is already superseded in the next sentence.

Also, Selbst's largest score was her 2014 $25K mix max bracelet – a cool $871,148.

Sorry, yes, pretty much any time I say record in a historical context I mean "at the time". In this case it was certainly implied, but I'll be more careful in the future.

Of course I have lists for the "Top 10 Women's Cashes", "Top 10 Women's Main Event Cashes", and even the history of the biggest women's cash, of which two were on this list. (And for completeness sake, the history of the biggest women's Main Event cash too ;-).

Great stuff so far, but this is very much like the Top 100 Albums (or Songs) of All Time. Very subjective and impossible to even figure out what the criteria are and how they're weighted. I'd lean toward the biggest events (Main Event, PPC, Big One for One Drop), how late in the event the hand was, and something like the highest Win Probability Added. Bonus points for cleverness? Deductions for just plain getting lucky? Whatever I say today I might disagree with tomorrow!

Instead of PokerGo's massive list, I'd rather break things down into manageable Top 10 lists in various categories (all of which can be either all events or just Main Events): Bad Beats, Coolers, Best Bluffs, Rarest Hands (the straight flushes and quads), and so on to at least get on a more apples-to-apples basis.

Fun compilation for sure though.

Parts of this "fact" will be on multiple of my lists, but let me debunk the 3 days part now, because it's probably my number one peeve about the current online tournament databases (WSOP, Hendon, GPI, and CardPlayer at least, plus Wikipedia of course)...

There was a site called PokerPages.com that posted historical WSOP tournament results in April 2000. I don't know where they got their data from, so it might not be their fault, BUT, they listed most of the early years' results alphabetically by the winner's last name. The dates of the tournaments are then guestimated by working backward from the Main Event, which is correctly listed last at least.

WSOP, Hendon, et al., all copied this incorrect order! Hellmuth discusses his feat with the correct dates in his book "Poker Brat", pages 169-170.

The 1993 Hendon WSOP page and Wikipedia page show the bizarre reverse alphabetical order for the third straight year in 1993 (except for the Main Event, which is close because it was Bechtel)!

Hellmuth actually won events 7, 18, and 19 (not 7, 8, and 9), while Ted Forrest won events 5, 6, and 17 (not 11, 12, and 13). Hellmuth's second place finish was event 11, BTW.

I have the correct starting dates and correct order for almost all these old WSOP bracelet events (and most of the ending dates) if anyone at the five aforementioned sites wants to contact me.

I've always thought the fact that Johnny Chan came in 2nd in the main event the year after his back to back wins deserves more mention than it gets.

Interesting. Maybe it's because I watched those early-mid 2000s WSOP Main Event telecasts so many times, but I feel like that feat and the back-to-back Dan Harrington ME final tables came out of Norman Chad's mouth more often than ex-wife jokes.

Posts like this make me sure that the rest of your posts and lists will be great! True knowledge!

Thank you, Kebabkungen.

Two things I forgot to mention:

1. Mark Rogers's 2006 book, "52 Greatest Moments World Series of Poker", lists the correct 1993 event numbers for Hellmuth and Forrest on page 73 ("Good Things Come in Threes"). This is a fun book that could have used some better editing.

2. GGPoker is currently running an excellent year-by-year recap of the WSOP, but you have to forgive them for presenting each year's events out of order. (They're currently up to 1987.)

I happened to watch the 1973 TV coverage of the WSOP ME this morning then found this thread. Thoroughly enjoying the history lessons and info so far! Keep it up.

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

Emphasis mine. Totally agree with the bolded part. There are some hands that are for massive pots and with a lot of money/equity on the line, and/or they have huge historical significance, but they're not really all that interesting because they're just coolers. One hand that comes to mind immediately is this:

Blinds were 15K/30K, which means Shak had about 17x to start the hand, Richey had 14x, and Hellmuth was nursing a stack that barely covered the 80K initial raise. You can see by the video that the telecast tabbed the hand as the "Degree All-In Moment" but it's a spot that largely played itself. (Although plenty of people will argue that Richey, despite his stack size, could fold KK if was paying attention to Shak: she literally signaled to Dan Shak what she had.)

All that said...

Here is a WSOP hand that also played itself but remains both mind-blowing and entertaining every time I watch it:

PokerGO's Top 100 yet is now all posted on YouTube.

Hidden for those of you who enjoy the suspense of what order they picked (does not reveal anything in the final video):

#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.

Hidden for those who haven't watched the PokerGO videos and don't want the order spoiled:

1 - correct
2 - final hand. I won't claim it was some masterpiece, but it definitely hit all the other criteria
3 - correct
4 - correct
5 - underrated. Seed becoming a 2 time champ would have really elevated him in the poker world. Maybe he's in Rounders instead of Chan.

Best Official Player Names

From Aadam Daya, who won the 2010 $1,000 NLHE for $625,872 (also the first bracelet winner alphabetically by first name) to Zymer Guraziu, who made the money twice in 2021, nearly 100,000 players have cashed in a WSOP bracelet event. These names are officially listed by the WSOP or Hendon Mob. Extra weight if the full name is interesting rather than just the first or last name.

• 10. Prince of Docness: R.J. Kegel cashed 13 times, including one final table, under this nickname and also went by Rainbow Rosenbloom and Dr. Kegal.
  
  
• 9. Princess Love: American has cashed three times for $11,160 under what I believe is her legal name.
  
  
• 8. Easy Rider: American finished 89th in the 2012 $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em for $3,602.
  
  
• 7. Posh Wave: American finished 200th in the 2011 $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em for $2,320.
  
  
• 6. Vanna Tea: American woman has three cashes for $15,912.
  
  
• 5. Huckleberry Seed: Although WSOP.com lists him as Huck Seed, Hendon gives his full first name, earning him a spot on this list. For the record, his siblings are Caraway, Cotton, and Leif.
  
  
• 4. Yu Rong: Chinese player has three cashes for $4,466. No offense intended if it's his real name.
  
  
• 3. Kym Possible: American has four cashes for $10,757.
  
  
• 2. Schtop Steeling: Austrian finished 747th in the 2022 online $210 Million Dollar Bounty for $1,064. Although he still has an empty Hendon player listing, the tournament listing now just says "Unknown".
  
  
• 1. Juan Thyme: Floridian finished 151st in the 2023 $300 Gladiators of Poker No-Limit Hold 'Em for $3,540. Hendon has this name while the WSOP says it's unknown.
  

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order):

• Chicago Mike: In the early days of the WSOP, many poker pros went by a nickname of the format "location+name" (e.g., Amarillo Slim), but this American player, who had one cash for $6,350 in 1990, doesn't have his last name recorded.
  
• Gackt: Japanese player Kevin Taylor entered using his online nickname while finishing 133rd in the 2017 $1,000 Little One for One Drop for $3,454.
  
• Ironman Smith: American finished 3rd in the 1974 $1,000 Non-Professional No-Limit Hold 'Em for $1,800 and 3rd in the same event in 1976 ($2,500 buyin) for $12,975. This second cash is missing in all the online databases, which erroneously say Curtis Skinner and Doc Green instead of Smith and Doc Ramsey as initially reported in the May 10, 1976 Las Vegas Review-Journal, page 4.
  
• Jewel Treat: American finished 58th in the 2011 $1,000 No-Limit Hold 'Em for $6,338. {Arguably belongs in the top ten}
  
• John Doe: Americans, Germans, and Russians have cashed 16 times under this anonymous alias.
  
• Lakewood Louie: George Shaw, from Lakewood, California, used this nickname while winning four bracelets between 1978 and 1980.
  
• Ralph Perry: Rafael Perivoskin Americanized his name at some point.
  
• Robin/Robyn Hood: Two women have each cashed once, for $1,500 and $20,241, using names that sound like the Sherwood Forest hero.
  
• Samuel Hunter: Byron Kaverman occasionally played under this online alias according to Hendon.
  
• Scotty Warbucks: Charlie Shoten used this nickname to hide his real identity for three of his seven cashes, including one of his two final tables.
  
• Simon Deadman: Englishman has 42 cashes, including one runner-up finish. I think this might be his real name though.
  
• Zorn Venture: Zoran Smiljanic won the 1985 $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $105,000 and had 8 other cashes under this alias.
  
• Korean Aliases: possibly for anonymity, a number of South Korean players have seemingly random non-Korean sounding nicknames in the Hendon database (but not on WSOP.com). I won't out them here for the obvious reason.
  

P.S. - Last week's first list was supposed to be titled "Most Unlikely Coincidences" but apparently the "Title" field isn't usually visible when reading.

Nice. I'll suggest to your HM list oh he of the back-to-back kings vs. aces from last year's Day 1A: [B]Idan The One[/B].

Also, this one reminds me of a story:

In baseball, sometimes you have what's known as a "Bullpen Day," when instead of having a single starting pitcher, you'll have a committee of pitchers – usually relievers – throw an inning or two each. Since it's common to list the expected starters for upcoming games in media notes, the nickname for this is "Johnny Allstaff."

Thus, the media notes might look like this:
Sunday - Mike Cuellar
Monday - Jim Palmer
Tuesday - Dave McNally
Wednesday - Pat Dobson
Thursday - Johnny Allstaff

One time, we played a team whose starting rotation was unsure. The PR guy replied with the Friday and Saturday names, but for Sunday he simply put "Johnny Allstaff." My co-worker received this information and looked high and low trying to figure out the identity of the Sunday starter. "There's no Johnny Allstaff on the roster, I have no idea who this is."

My guess is my old co-worker would look at poker chip counts and think, "Wow, this Did Not Report guy plays a lot of events."

Dragana Lim

Week 2 is funny names? Boy did this go down hill fast!