In 2022, he bested a field of 1,580 entries to win the 16th Annual Arizona State Poker Championship for $221,200. Here’s a look at some winners from the Venetian Showdown Series. The Venetian Las Vegas, which recently debuted its new 50-table, 14,000 square foot poker room (the largest on the Las Vegas Strip), just wrapped up its latest Showdown Series, which ran from August 2 through September 15.
The inaugural WSOPE consisted of three events held in London from September 6–17, 2007. Various events led up to the Main Event, which was held from July 28 until August 10. The Rio also hosted the 2006 World Series of Poker, which began on June 25 with satellite events and formally began the day after with the annual Casino Employee event, won in 2006 by Chris Gros. The WSOP added a made-for-television $2 million "freeroll" invitational Tournament of Champions (TOC) event first won by Annie Duke as a "winner-take-all" event. The winner in 1970, Johnny Moss, was elected by his peers as the first "World Champion of Poker" and received a silver cup as a prize.
Sterling won his first major pot at the final table against Jesse Lonis and eliminated David Bach shortly afterward. This time, the American secured his first bracelet and the first six-figure cash of his career. Sterling Lopez had already reached a WSOP T.O.R.S.E. final table last year, but he was unable to finish higher than sixth place. This time, Benso entered the final eight with just 19 big blinds, while Justin Liberto held a commanding 121-big-blind stack. Prior to this World Series, the Italian had reached only one WSOP final table, back in 2024.
The victory brought him a career-best score and increased his lifetime tournament earnings by roughly one-third. However, he captured his first bracelet in a Mixed Omaha/Stud Hi-Lo tournament. In heads-up play against Daryl Ronconi, Matthew came in with a significant chip advantage. Moss entered the final table of Event #43 with the second-largest stack and, over the course of the final table, lost only one major pot. Aharoni entered the final table with a massive stack and confidently made his way to heads-up against Aaron Kupin.
Bohlman had a slight lead going into the match, and within 30 minutes, he secured the win. A MTT grinder with 15 years of poker experience, Staats took a break after last summer’s WSOP and started working in a warehouse. He got 5 bracelets just in 5 years so he has a lot of hard work and luck in near future. He said that he want make a record by the biggest number of wins in this decade.
Since Reese's death in December 2007, the winner of this event receives the David 'Chip' Reese Memorial Trophy in addition to the bracelet and the prize money. However, some believe that no-limit hold 'em is not the optimal structure for determining a champion poker player. Winners of the event not only get the largest prize of the tournament and a gold bracelet, but additionally their picture is placed in the Gallery of Champions at Binion's.
Since 2004, a Player of the Year (POY) award has been given to the player with the most points accumulated throughout the WSOP. In the 2023 Main Event, a new record was set for entries and a first-place prize for the first time since 2006. With the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006 online poker sites have been barred from purchasing entrance directly for their users. The first $50,000 event, conducted as a H.O.R.S.E. tournament, was won by Chip Reese in 2006. In 2002, Daniel Negreanu argued that the Main Event should switch to pot-limit hold 'em, believing that pot-limit required a more complete set of poker skills than no-limit, although he admitted that such a change would likely never be made. Poker professional Antonio Esfandiari won the event, also receiving a special platinum WSOP bracelet.
On the previous day, a tilted Phil Hellmuth said his usual line that Pan would blow all his chips to someone later but that didn’t happen. He held the chip lead since Day 2 and kept his opponents at bay all the way to the trophy. This is his third bracelet and also his biggest career cash. The Romanian Narcis Nedelcu is a recognizable face in the poker world, having traveled the circuit for more than 10 years. For comparison, last year’s event had 486 entries, and in 2023 there were 642.
Event #78: $600 PokerNews Deepstack Championship
Only four players returned for the final day of Event #94, and Peters needed just 75 minutes to close out the tournament. Interestingly, Lopez was the only player at the final table who had not previously won a WSOP bracelet. Among Jiang’s opponents at the final table of Event #89 were well-known players such as Maurice Hawkins and Punnat Punsri. Before latest online poker news this victory, the American had never reached a final table in a WSOP event and had never earned more than $15.6K in a series tournament. Weber entered the official final table of Event #86 with a stack of only 16 big blinds, but five of the remaining ten players had even shorter stacks.
Poker players during that era had television identities, online personas, forum reputations, and private selves that could be very different from one another. There were a few players like Kathy Liebert, JJ Liu, and Jennifer Harman that weren't sexualized all the time, but the default for players and media personalities alike was to frame them in a sexy way. While the other students in her graduate program spent the summer teaching or taking classes, Welman headed to Las Vegas under the extremely convenient premise that the trip would further her research into poker players. We are the number one source for poker news, gambling industry updates, reviews and free educational content for players of all levels.
The $50,000 buy-in, being five times larger than the buy-in for the Main Event, has thus far tended to deter amateurs from playing in this event, and the variety of games played require a broader knowledge of poker. However, after the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E./Poker Players Championship event was added, many of the game's top professionals, including Negreanu, have since stated that this tournament ultimately decides the world's best player. The event has a guaranteed $3 million prize pool and attracted over 23,000 players in its inaugural year. On April 12, 2012, the WSOP announced that 30 players had committed to the tournament, which brought the first prize to $12.3 million, exceeding the record amount won by Jamie Gold.
Unlike today's coverage, ESPN featured no pre-taped interviews or profiles on the players. Generally, ESPN used poker-playing actors such as Dick Van Patten, Vince Van Patten, and Gabe Kaplan, with either the tournament director (usually Jim Albrecht) or a poker professional, of which one was Phil Hellmuth, joining the team. Barbara is also the first woman to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and the Senior Poker Hall of Fame, making her the only poker player to be in all three poker halls of fame. An Ambassador of Poker League of Nations, Barbara is the first woman to win two WSOP bracelets, the first woman to win three bracelets, and the first woman to win an open event at the World Series of Poker.
Popular poker games commonly played in live tournaments include Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud and other variations. Live poker tournaments can be watched online on various streaming platforms such as Twitch, as well as on specialized sites that broadcast poker events. The WSOP, the most iconic live poker series, provides online qualification options for events in Las Vegas and WSOP Europe.
Since 2022, the World Poker Tour's biggest annual event is the WPT World Championship festival at Wynn Las Vegas, which features a series of big events over a two-week period in December. Brian Altman won Player of the Year during Season XVIII after winning the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open and finishing third in two other events. It was the perfect storm to grow the game, and the WPT played a significant role in poker's popularity back then and still to this day.
He quickly took over the chip lead and eliminated four opponents in succession. Blumenthal entered the final nine with the second-largest stack, although the gap between him and two other contenders was minimal. For example, his career-best cash of $334,756 came in 2011 when he finished runner-up in a $1,500 WSOP No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. To catch up with the Mizrachi brothers, Alex and Kristen still need three more bracelets.
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This bounty is a cash amount which each player buys as an 'add on' when they first buy into the tournament. Satellite tournaments are a way to win your way into a higher buy-in tournament. If no prize pool is stated then the total number of player buy-ins will determine the prize pool. Online poker tournaments are a good way to build a poker bankroll. Use our tournament finder to view upcoming poker tournaments for the next 24 hours. Live poker tournaments differ from other forms of poker primarily in their atmosphere and format.
The WSOP bracelet is the ultimate symbol of poker history and greatness. If you wish to Opt In your player name please click here. We don't have the chip leaders of Day 1B finalized as of yet, but here are some notable chip stacks after Day 1B. In September 2009, Harrah's signed an agreement with Dragonfish, the B2B arm of 888 Holdings, to provide its online gaming services. In an interview for Card Player Magazine, PokerGO President Mori Eskandani mentioned longtime WSOP broadcasters Lon McEachern and Norman Chad would be back in the booth, along with Ali Nejad, David Tuchman, and Jeff Platt. Former pro turned executive producer Mori Eskandani's team pioneered the live broadcast format seen at the WSOP since 2011.
For the first two years of its existence, ESPN was broadcasting one hour programs of the "circuit" events that the WSOP has at various Harrah's-owned casinos, but ESPN did not renew these events. Also, their coverage of the main event now typically includes at least one hour program on each day. Since then, ESPN has greatly expanded its coverage to include many of the preliminary events of the WSOP, especially Texas Hold 'Em. 2003 was the first year that the broadcast covered action preceding the final table.
Or MTTs, begin at a scheduled time and usually feature a late registration period, often with 100+ players competing for big prizes (many MTTs feature guaranteed prize pools).See more Thousands of players from around the world participate in the WSOP each year to compete for the title of WSOP series of poker champions. The WSOP is also held in an online format that allows players to participate in games literally without leaving their home. The WSOP Circuit was founded in 2005 to provide players with more opportunities to participate in WSOP tournaments outside of Las Vegas. These are online poker tournaments in which WSOP entries are offered as prizes.
Daniel Aharoni prefers cash games over tournaments and has not played at the WSOP for the past two years. I don’t want to be one of those players who cling to past accomplishments, but I genuinely feel like I’m finally starting to realize my full potential.” The American admitted that he primarily plays in private cash games and only enters a handful of tournaments each year. Nathan won several large pots from Liberto without showdown and became the new chip leader with four players remaining. His main opponent at the final table was Justin Liberto, who had already won a WSOP event earlier in the series. It felt like the final table was pretty easy,” Holtz said after winning the bracelet.
The tables are livelier; they're more willing to chase draws and take gambles, and their fundamentals are still a bit weaker compared to US players. Tony ‘Ren’ Lin has become one of the most recognizable and successful players in the world, crushing the high-stakes tournament scene to the tune of over $20M in Hendon Mob-recorded earnings. So, I liked in my interviews to try and bring players opportunities to express themselves without worrying if it was going to give away crucial information about how they thought about the game. What did interviewing them face-to-face reveal that the public version of those players concealed?
- The behaviors I observed and wrote about certainly happened at the series, so I guess I didn't get anything 'wrong' per se?
- Most operators and tournaments offer live streams on YouTube and other streaming services.
- Fourteen events awarded first prizes of $1 million or more, reflecting both the massive fields in lower buy-in events and the enormous pools generated by high roller events.
There were some reporters who refused to do chip counts because they thought it beneath them even though tournament coverage without chip counts is like a baseball game without a scoreboard. When people remember the boom-era WSOP, they tend to focus on famous players and televised hands. Towards the tail end of my career, as Black Friday's immediate effects had worn off and people realized the new status quo was never going to be the boom again, players became very wary of the media. I can promise you, more often than not, the voice in the meetings speaking up for the players was Seth's. No one ever said, \"well, you can't interview players because you have to be hot to do that,\" but no one was really clamoring for me to interview players on camera. I always thought it was an advantage to be a woman in the tournament reporting space because poker tournaments are very boring and these guys are stuck in their seats and just want someone to talk to.
Pure Poker Tour Series #4
The action begins at noon with an $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament, which promises at least $100,000 in the pot. Today (July 12), the Wynn Summer Classic has another three events on the go. Fernandez Ucona was the last player standing, an accomplishment that resulted in a $43,913 payday. The third an final event on July 11, which started at 6 p.m., was the $1,100 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo. Yuan Lei (fourth place for $69,000), Weirui Tang (fifth place for $51,405), and Paulius Vaitiekunas (sixth place for $39,675) also reached the final table.
Why should American players come to play APTs? How is the competition different from American players? What I like most about APT is their big lion trophies, especially the golden-colored lion trophy for their main event, which is the trophy I want to win the most right now. We experimented with short-form videos, guest blogs from players, including how many blinds a player had, and even just invented a recap show no one at WPT ever asked for called Jess & BJ.
Adrian Mateos cemented his place among poker's elite by winning the $250,000 Super High Roller (Event #41) for $4,334, the largest non-Main Event first prize of the entire series. From record-setting paydays to multi-bracelet runs and a married couple both winning gold, the 2026 summer will be remembered as one of the most eventful in the series' history. This reflects the increasingly global nature of the game's highest stakes, where European and Latin American players now compete on equal footing with the traditionally dominant American contingent. Not a single high roller bracelet went to an American player -- winners came from Spain, Brazil, Canada, Finland, India, UK, Bulgaria, and Russia. The high roller events ($25,000+ buy-in) produced the summer's largest prizes and attracted poker's global elite.
Cristian Gutierrez brought home only the second WSOP bracelet ever won by a Colombian player — the first since David Ospina in 2018. Instead, the spotlight shifted to a dark horse Ryan Bambrick, who played a solid game and outlasted the two poker legends. On the bubble of the final table, he was down to just one chip which was equal to a single big blind. Winner Phovieng Keokham and runner-up Christopher Zollo had been grinding smaller $200–$400 tournaments from time to time, so this was a major breakthrough for both. Michael Wilklow has been grinding live tournaments under $500 since the end of 2022, racking up over 100 small cashes in just two and a half years.