Putting aside the LOLdonkaments and variance factor, just curious to hear what people think about this. For a long time Raymer's back-to-back runs and Harrington's back-to-back FTs got a lot of the ink, but a lot of time has passed since then and other players have done some crazy stuff in the main.

Here are players with multiple top 27 finishes in the "modern" era (2003-now). Let me know if I'm missing anyone.

Joe Cada
2009 - 1st
2018 - 5th

John Cynn
2018 - 1st
2016 - 11th

Steve Gee
2012 - 9th
2013 - 24th

Phil Ivey
2003 - 10th
2005 - 20th
2009 - 7th

Ben Lamb
2009 - 14th
2011 - 3rd
2017 - 9th

Dan Harrington
2003 - 3rd
2004 - 4th

Alex Livingston
2013 - 13th
2019 - 3rd

Sylvain Loosli
2013 - 4th
2018 - 18th

Anton Morgenstern
2013 - 20th
2015 - 22nd

Mark Newhouse
2013 - 9th
2014 - 9th

Michael Niwinski
2016 - 15th
2019 - 12th

Benjamin Pollak
2013 - 27th
2017 - 3rd
(also top 50 in 2018)

Greg Raymer
2004 - 1st
2005 - 25th

Jamie Robbins
2009 - 11th
2012 - 19th

Michael Ruane
2016 - 4th
2017 - 10th

Antoine Saout
2009 - 3rd
2016 - 25th
2017 - 5th

Some other cool achievements:

Peter Eastgate outlasted a field of 6844 to win the Main Event in 2008, then wasn't eliminated until 78th place in 2009, in a field of 6494. If you combine the two tournaments, he basically played one long Main Event where he survived more than 13,000 eliminations before he was finally taken down. That's a lot more players than Raymer's 2004-2005 run. Shame he disappeared from the scene, though he seems at peace with it.

If you are looking for a reliable horse, Allen Cunningham cashed the Main Event in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019. He also got 27th place in 2001. He is tied for the most Main Event cashes of all-time and easily has the most in the "modern" era. One of those was a 4th place in 2006 and he also had a top 70 finish in 2011. He's (still) Allen Cunningham!

So what's the most impressive achievement?

I think I'm going with Cada's 1st place in 2009 and 5th place in 2018. Ultimately, WINNING is so much more valuable than finishing in any other spot that he edges it, although Saout and Lamb have done some disgusting stuff as well. Three top 27 finishes for both, including two FTs for both. I don't recall the specifics of 2011 when Lamb finished third, but I know that Saout could have easily won in 2009 with a little more luck.

Ivey unquestionably owned the 00s decade in poker and his three top 27 Main Event finishes from 2003-2009 are just part of that legacy. It's a shame that he couldn't run better in the big spots because he was able to get close many times. Hopefully he still has a couple deep runs left in him.

From a sheer "I can't believe he's done this" standpoint, Newhouse going back-to-back 9th place in massive fields seems like something that nobody will duplicate for a long time, but then Ruane very nearly pulled off back-to-back FTs just a couple years later.

Given how many past champions have come close to winning a second (Raymer, Scotty, Carlos, Cada), it feels like something that will happen within 2-3 decades if this event is still a thing. If Cada wins that flip vs. Miles in 2018 then this discussion might be very different, but then again he was extremely lucky to win in 2009.

This tweet + the resulting finish is the greatest of all time

For me Saout or Lamb. If Saout hadn't been coolered by Farber then it would be a no brainer.

definitely lol

Came for Saout and Lamb.

Hah. Hard to argue against that.

It's all the more legendary since, IIRC, he had quite a lot of chips going into the FT in 2014.

Must be bittersweet for him to have pulled off this incredible accomplishment twice in a row only to be the first guy out both times.

Saout also got sucked out on by Cada for a massive post in the first one.

Then again, it seems arbitrary to focus on the hands lost. It takes an insane amount of luck to do what all of those guys did. Clearly they know what they´re doing, but in terms of skill, making two WSOP ME final tables isn´t remotely close to winning say the US Open twice.

also 1st in 1995.

I wouldn't class 2003 as modern era personally, the game has evolved so much since then.

When was Saout coolered by Farber?

I got this wrong. I was just using my brain to remember. Damn thing. The player was Marc Etienne Mclaughlin.

Mark Newhouse back to back FT's is on my list. Still LOL'ing @ him finishing 9th again. Then again, it's only because of the tweet. I'd give anything to finish 500th

For sure, but 2003 is when field sizes really began to spike and they've been massive from about 2005-now. The level of play is higher now, which I guess is an argument for ranking something like Newhouse's two 9th places ahead of Harrington's 3rd/4th in smaller and softer fields.

Another factor to consider is structure, as the Main Event has gotten deeper and slower since those early poker boom years. Even if the field sizes are the same as 2006-2007, there's less variance involved in running deep now.

If you really want to nitpick, you could argue that the "modern" era didn't really begin until around 2008-2009 when online play was widespread, training sites had become a thing, and the starting stack at the WSOP had been bumped up from 10k to like 25-30k. Most people tend to draw a line from pre-Moneymaker to post-Moneymaker though.

I played the ME 5 times in the 2010s, eating at the poker kitchen multiple times, and never got sick once. Real ones will appreciate this accomplishment.

I liked the guy who shoved blind, dropped his pants, mooned his table, and finally threw his shoe at the dealer after he lost. Apparently he wasn't even drunk, feels like a good metaphor for current state of US

Which reflects "the current state of the US", that he did that or that you liked it

I have to write something here because just writing lol is not cool.

Lol tho.

probably both, though I'm not from US, so I meant the former

During the 2009 Main, I found myself chatting with Dennis Phillips' manager or agent (not sure which). This was late on Day 6, maybe 100 players left, with Phillips sitting on a healthy stack.

Manager Guy was already comparing his client's back-to-back runs to Dan Harrington's consecutive final tables in 2003 and 2004, making the argument that the field in 2009 was about twice the size of the combined fields of the 2003 and 2004 Main Events. The question arose: what finish could Dennis get that – when combined with this third place the year before – would be mathematically as impressive as Harrington's FTs from five years earlier?

(Note: Phillips finished in 45th.)

Now more than a decade removed from that conversation, I still think back to it whenever players make these incredibly deep runs in consecutive years, or within a short span.

Gotta agree with the others. Lamb, Saout and Ivey for me. As rare as it is to make two high finishes in such a short span, making even the final three tables three times adds an extra degree of unlikelihood.

And this...

...is pretty cool when (again) you think how big the fields are. If you converted tourney finishes into some sort of win-loss record* – e.g. his 331st in 2013 means he went 6021-330 - Cunningham would have to be the wins leader for post-boom Main Events.

It also harkens back to when Ronnie Bardah scored his fifth straight ME cash a few years ago. It's one of those odd things in life that is both overrated and underrated at the same time.

On the one hand, many people downplayed the record, saying things like "it's not hard to cash in the Main" and "one final table still makes more money than five min-cashes." And they're right, which is probably also why Bardah's accomplishment is not on your list.

On the other hand, finishing among the top 10 percent year after year (as the prize structure dictated back then) must be pretty tough to do or others would have done it. So it should deserve some credit.



*For what it's worth, this is part of the formula for Golfweek's Sagarin Performance Index.

Right. Bardah's streak is a fun achievement and so is Cunningham's impressive run of (mostly small) cashes, but a lot of people keep score in poker based on money won. From that standpoint, a one-hit-wonder like Yang, Heinz, or Gold has still pulled more money out of the Main Event than someone like Pollak or Saout who has gone super deep on numerous occasions.

I suppose you could use something like the GPI formula to calculate the point value of each rank in each field and try to figure out who has the highest career score. I suspect that methodology would land on an answer close to the loose consensus here (Saout, Lamb, etc).

The reason I went Cada is that, from a money and legacy standpoint, winning is worth much more than finishing in any other spot. It may be roughly the equivalent of getting two third place finishes. Add in his other top 5 finish and his record is very impressive.

All that being said, you can't really compare it to something like Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps's Olympic records since there's so much variance in poker. Someone like Saout could be a 2x ME winner with different runouts in literally 3-4 hands. I still find it really cool that people are able to blast through these fields and get that deep multiple times, even if it's a statistical inevitability to some extent.

i think james obst's deep run at the main event is the greatest of all time. (goat) he can lay down the best hand and also lay down a very good hand but is second best. He probably only read half of the fundamental theorem of poker. Imagine if he read the whole chapter he would win every main event since he turned 21 and perhaps earlier like he was crushing online poker at 17.