There has been a lot of talk about multiple deep runs at the Main, but often people rely on memory, and there are actually a few players ESPN never really mentioned. For example, because ESPN dramatised the Matt Affleck story, people often name Matt Affleck as one of the greatest achievements. As you will see below, his run isn't even in the top 20. There are people that won't have got 10 seconds of camera time that made runs as impressive.

I have created a list of every single player that has finished in the top 100 more than once since the 2004 Main Event (ie. every Main Event with 4 figure entry numbers).

I've listed them by earliest year (ie. all the players that first cashed in 2004 and then another, then 2005 etc.).

I've highlighted players that made back to back top 100 finishes.

Three Top 100 Finishes

Mike Matusow (87th '04; 9th '05; 30th '08)
Kyle Bowker (37th '06; 84th '12; 74th '14)
Andrew Brokos (35th '08; 87th '10; 53rd '11)
Antoine Saout (3rd '09; 25th '16; 5th '17)
Ben Lamb (14th '09; 3rd '11; 9th '17)
Marc-Etienne McLaughlin (30th '09; 86th '11; 6th '13)
Matthew Reed (89th '10; 11th '13; 47th '16)
Fabio Sousa (42nd '11; 93rd '12; 92nd '17)
Brian Yoon (58th '11; 60th '16; 41st '18)
Benjamin Pollak (27th '13; 3rd '17; 42nd '18)
Vitaly Lunkin (46th '13; 57th '14; 87th '17)
Richard Robinson (87th '13; 82nd '17; 84th '18)

Two TOP 100 Finishes

First Top 100 in 2004

Greg Raymer (1st '04; 25th '05)
Marcel Luske (10th '04; 23rd '17)
Hung La (22nd '04; 49th '05)
Brad Berman (31st '04; 46th '15)
Julian Gardner (32nd '04; 64th '07)
Dung Nguyen (40th '04; 89th '12)
Kevin Schaffel (42nd '04; 8th '09)
Desmond Portano (44th '04; 99th '10)
Anh Van Nguyen (46th '04; 73rd '14)
Ali Eslami (49th '04; 89th '14)
Gavin Smith (52nd '04; 96th '12)
Blair Rodman (54th '04; 34th '09)
Tony Abesamis (56th '04; 40th '05)
Daniel Alaei (59th '04; 25th '07)
Ayhan Alsancak (71st '04; 10th '05)

2005

Phil Ivey (20th '05; 7th '09)
Roland Israelashvilli (37th '05; 25th '11)
Lee Watkinson (45th '05; 8th '07)
Nicklas Flisberg (56th '05; 26th '08)
Jonathan Kalmar (82nd '05; 5th '07)
Marcello Delgrosso (83rd '05; 72nd '06)
Webber Kang (86th '05; 41st '12)
Jonathan Lane (88th '05; 94th '13)
Joshua Prager (96th '05; 41st '13)

2006

Allan Cunningham (4th '06; 69th '11)
Leif Force (11th '06; 21st '14)
William Thorson (13th '06; 22nd '10)
Prahlad Friedman (20th '06; 64th '09)
Humberto Brenes (36th '06; 83rd '07)
Richard Gryko (50th '06; 18th '17)
Steffan Mattson (57th '06; 22nd '07)
Benjamin Logan (87th '06; 91st '11)

2007

Ray Henson (12th '07; 99th '11)
Kenny Tran (16th '07; 86th '09)
John Armbrust (18th '07; 66th '11)
Maria Ho (37th '07; 77th '14)
Ralph Porter (39th '07; 12th '13)
Jeff Banghart (41st '07; 75th '10)
Senovio Ramirez (44th '07; 98th '13)
Reagan Silber (46th '07; 86th '08)
Hyon Kim (56th '07; 76th '17)
Brandon Adams (69th '07; 95th '15)
Tommy Le (79th '07; 49th '08)
Justin Sadauskas (86th '07; 59th '08)

2008

Peter Eastgate (1st '08; 78th '09)
Dennis Phillips (3rd '08; 45th '09)
Chris Klodnicki (12th '08; 45th '16)
Owen Crowe (15th '08; 79th '09)
Adam Levy (48th '08; 12th '10)
David Benefield (73rd '08; 8th '13)
Alexander Kostritsyn (84th '08; 52nd '10)
Aditya Agarwal (96th '08; 71st '15)

2009

Joe Cada (1st '09; 5th '18)
Eric Buchman (4th '09; 74th '12)
Jamie Robbins (11th '09; 19th '12)
Jonathan Tamayo (21st '09; 78th '15)
Ryan Fair (31st '09; 48th '14)
Grayson Ramage (35th '09; 80th '13)
Rifat Palevic (69th '09; 55th '18)
Reed Hensel (70th '09; 60th '17)
Matt Affleck (80th '09; 15th '10)
Robert Law (91st '09; 57th '12)
Minh Nguyen (93rd '09; 56th '11)

2010

Matt Jarvis (8th '10; 51st '15)
Brandon Steven (10th '10; 91st '13)
David Baker (ODB) (17th '10; 56th '12)
Jean-Robert Bellande (78th '10; 65th '11)
Christian Harder (100th '10; 92nd '11)

2011

Sam Holden (9th '11; 55th '12)
Bryan Devonshire (12th '11; 25th '14)
Stefan Huber (51st '11; 76th '18)
Per Linde (57th '11; 68th '16)
Marc-Andre Ladouceur (63rd '11; 13th '12)
Jacob Bazeley (65th '11; 25th '17)
Frank Calo (90th '11; 99th '12)

2012

Steve Gee (9th '12; 24th '13)
Robert Buckenmayer (17th '12; 39th '15)
Paul Volpe (20th '12; 29th '16)
Kyle Keranen (38th '12; 24th '14)
Richard Pyne (52nd '12; 45th '18)
Isaac Baron (85th '12; 52nd '14)

2013

Sylvain Loosli (4th '13; 18th '18)
Mark Newhouse (9th '13; 9th '14)
Anton Morgenstern (20th '13; 22nd '15)
Jamie Kaplan (47th '13; 62nd '18)
Vladimir Geshkenbein (62nd '13; 81st '16)
Chris Johnson (82nd '13; 31st '14)

2014

Robert Park (33rd '14; 59th '16)
Matt Waxman (45th '14; 75th '15)
Brian Hastings (64th '14; 49th '15)
Dan Wilson (65th '14; 71st '18)
Chanrancy Khun (69th '14; 49th '18)
Henrick Hecklen (75th '14; 38th '18)
Griffin Benger (90th '14; 7th '16)

2015

Kelly Minkin (29th '15; 50th '18)
Jonas Mackoff (63rd '15; 21st '17)
Clayton Fletcher (96th '15; 28th '18)

2016

Michael Ruane (4th '16; 10th '17)
Kenny Hallaert (6th '16; 64th '17)
John Cynn (11th '16; 1st '18)
James Obst (13th '16; 46th '18)
Max Silver (33rd '16; 45th '17)
Hari Bercovici (34th '16; 13th '18)
Tom Middleton (56th '16; 95th '17)
Bryan Piccioli (84th '16; 6th '17)
Joldis Cosmin (85th '16; 60th '17)

2017

Alexandre Reard (16th '16; 92nd '17)



My opinion of Top Ten Greatest Main Event Runs in the Modern Era:

1) Ben Lamb (14th '09; 3rd '11; 9th '17)
2) Antoine Saout (3rd '09; 25th '16; 5th '17)
3) Joe Cada (1st '09; 5th '18)
4) John Cynn (11th '16; 1st '18)
5) Michael Ruane (4th '16; 10th '17)
6) Mark Newhouse (9th '13; 9th '14)
7) Greg Raymer (1st '04; 25th '05)
8) Benjamin Pollak (27th '13; 3rd '17; 42nd '18)
9) Dennis Phillips (3rd '08; 45th '09)
10)Steve Gee (9th '12; 24th '13)

thanks for posting this

No problem. Meant to do it for years, didn't take too long with the Hendon Mob and Excel.

It's always kind of been curious that the poker media companies don't do more stuff like this.

Cool list, thanks for posting. Richard Robinson getting three results within 5 places of each other in 6 years seems insane

Nice list. Eastgate winning in 08 and finishing top 100 in 09 is more impressive than what Dennis Phillips did given how much more important winning is compared with third.

I think Allen Cunningham has cashed in the main in 7 of the last 11 years, which is pretty impressive in conjunction with his high finish in 06. Not many true deep runs though.

Lamb's results are crazy. With all the repeat finalists, it makes you think a repeat champ will happen eventually. Odds drop though when people like Eastgate and Heinz don't even play.

Good research. But comparing Cada and Cynn, isn't Cynn more impressive because they are a few years apart. Assuming he hasn't been playing it since 2009, but Cada has played it every year?

I think Cynn made a comment to Miles about how it's all about how you spin the stats. You could say 2 of last 3 years with a deep run or 2 of last 5. I assume that means he has played the main for 5 years in total and bricked the first 2 years

Reed Hensel was knocked out by Ben Lamb in ‘09 for a top 15 Stack all in turn with the best hand. In ‘17, prior to the start of Day 4 or 5, we were looking at the chip counts together. He saw Ben Lamb and he said something like I don’t care who’s at my table -just not Ben. Ben knocked him out on Day 6 again


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It’s totally off the top of my head. It just felt like 5th smashes 11th, but I guess 3 years vs 10 years is a factor as well.

I feel like on that same basis Saout might be ahead of Lamb....3rd-5th-25th better than 3rd-9th-14th? Possibly, especially when the 5th and 25th was back to back.

Interesting list. Pretty hard to compare finishes one against another without developing some kind of weighting criteria, which of course would be subjective.

I think I would place Saout slightly above Lamb, but it's pretty much a coin flip between the two for top place.

Did you happen to keep track of money won?

I could have done, it's on the spreadsheet - name, position finished, payout.
In the end I decided not to include it and focus on the position. To be honest, 2005-2018 the payouts for top 100 are often very similar (until the FT), 2004 is substantially less because it 'only' had 2.5k.

Amazing list. Thanks for posting

Thank you for sharing

Great job.

Newhouse back to back 9th will always be the craziest imo. Probably because of all the hype around the second time during the November 9 break and his infamous tweet on day 1:

Fun post, thanks

Incredible

Disproportionate number of white and Asian people... maybe Prahlad has a point.