"If you ain't first, you're last." -- Ricky Bobby

Top Senior Moments

{Seems like a good time to post this list as I just returned from Vegas where I played in the WSOP $1,000 Seniors. Appropriately, I suffered two senior moments to bust twice -- Day 1A: lost my focus and lost half my stack with TPTK vs. a set before getting felted as a 2-to-1 favorite on the next hand. Day 2: falling asleep at the table, I put in the wrong chips twice and let my opponent 3-out me. Min-cash, thanks for asking.}

• 10. July 13, 2006: Ron Rose becomes the first player to reach the final table of the Seniors Championship twice, falling in 6th for $37,710 three years after winning the bracelet and $130,060. His feat would later be matched by 2008 Main Event third place finisher Dennis Phillips (2012 2nd place for $372,895 and 2014 5th place for $153,883), Bill Stabler (2012 5th place for $147,605 and 2018 2nd place for $409,456), and Dan Heimiller (2014 1st place for $627,462 and 2017 9th place for $53,817).
  
• 9. June 25, 2023: The Seniors Championship sets a record with 8,180 entries (players could enter twice on each of two starting days). With a record 1,227 paid, Lonnie Hallett becomes the event's first foreign winner, taking home a record $765,731 to Canada as he denies Billy Baxter his eighth bracelet heads up.
  
• 8. June 21, 2015: John Andlovec wins the debut $1,000 Super Seniors Championship (65 years and older), defeating a field of 1,533 for $262,220.
  
• 7. July 4, 2005: Paul McKinney becomes the oldest player to win his first bracelet and the second oldest bracelet winner (a younger 80 than Johnny Moss), defeating a Seniors field of 825 for $202,725.
  
• 6. June 25, 2023: Dan Heimiller becomes the first player to reach the final table of the Seniors Championship three times: 2014 (1st place for $627,462), 2017 (9th place for $53,817), and 2023 (3rd place for $356,166).
  
• 5. May 8, 2001: "The Oklahoma Johnny Hale Seniors World Championship of Poker" for players 50 and older, formerly its own event called the Seniors World Championship of Poker since 1998 featuring Seniors Hall of Fame inductions, joins the WSOP. Jay Heimowitz outlasts a field of 340 for $115,430 and his sixth bracelet.
  
• 4. July 13, 2006: Clare Miller becomes the first woman to win the Seniors Championship, defeating a field of 1,184 players for $247,814.
  
• 3. June 17, 2012: Allyn Jaffrey Shulman defeats a then-record 4,128-player field to win the Seniors Championship and a record $603,713 and join her husband Barry as the fourth married couple to both own bracelets.
  
• 2. June 17, 2018: Farhintaj Bonyadi becomes the first female to win the Super Seniors, defeating a field of 2,191 for $311,451. Despite the WSOP lowering the minimum age from 65 to 60, Bonyadi becomes the WSOP's oldest bracelet winner at 83, breaking Johnny Moss's thirty year-old record of 80 years, 11 months, and 17 days (still the open record). Farhintaj and her son Farzad Bonyadi become the first mother and son to win bracelets.
  
• 1. June 19, 2017: James Moore wins his second straight Super Seniors Championship, defeating a field of 1,720 for $259,230 a year after outlasting a field of 1,476 for $230,626. {Still going strong in 2024 at age 73, he reached Day 2 of the Seniors with a healthy chip stack, but my table busted him [not me personally though].}

Great research!

I also didn't find any shared-name bracelets besides the two you mentioned.

Hendon combines all of the Mark Radoja results. I also consider the Yuri Dzivielevskis and Joao Vieiras to be the same but have no proof (each has one set of results missing from Hendon).

You've foreshadowed some of my future lists: Presidential Players and Most Bracelets by Last Name (and First Name).

Cool story about Anter (whom WSOP calls Alexander, which Hendon says is his middle name).

Weren't these basically single table sit-n-goes at this stage in the evolution of the WSOP?

Lots harder to win nowadays with thousand player fields.

Obviously, you exaggerate with the notion of single-table SNGs. But philosophically, yeah, you're in the ballpark:

Event #7: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em: 173 entries, 18 cashed
Event #11: $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball: 58 entries, 5 cashed, Billy Baxter wins for $130.5K.
Event #18: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em: 284 entries, 27 cashed
Event #19: $5,000 Limit Hold'em: 63 entries, 6 cashed

(Note: event numbers are according to the post above referencing Poker Brat: Phil Hellmuth's Autobiography.)

Every triple bracelet winner has taken down three relatively small tournaments:

• 1973 Puggy Pearson: 8, 13, & 17 players
• 1993 Ted Forrest: 57, 129, & 200 players
• 1993 Phil Hellmuth: 69, 173, & 284 players (the 1994 WSOP Annual report agrees with Hendon that the $5k LHE had 69 entries not the 63 that WSOP.com says)
• 2002 Phil Ivey: 126, 143, & 253 players
• 2009 Jeff Lisandro: 165, 315, & 359 players
• 2014 George Danzer: 48, 112, & 134 players

Lisandro's feat is the most impressive if you go by field sizes with the highest minimum (165), highest maximum (359), and highest average (279.7).

• 2024 Scott Seiver: 186, 547, & 197 players

So Seiver has the highest min, max, and average (310), putting him out in front by a decent margin. It'll be hard to beat.

Nice pull, didn't even think to look for that as I figured the razz event was also in the 200 range.

rjen, do you have all of this stuff in some sort of database? So much is said about the field sizes when it comes to winning bracelets – i.e. large fields are softer, but any given person is less likely to win; small fields tend to be tough and more pro-heavy, but any given person is more likely to win. The min/max/mean analysis would be pretty interesting for all players with, say, five or more career bracelets.

Even the question of which of the Five-Timers Club has won against the largest field is pretty interesting. For example, of Hellmuth's list of wins, the 2007 $1,500 NLHE event had 2,628 runners. That will likely be high on the list.

EDIT: I can already tell Billy Baxter will be low on the list, with six of his bracelets coming in lowball and many with double-digit fields.

EDIT EDIT: Oh wow... Brian Yoon has bracelets in the 2017 $1,500 Monster Stack (6,716 runners) and the 2013 Little One For One Drop (4,756) among his five.

I have over a hundred Excel spreadsheets and thousands of pages of notes. I've started a database but am not really using it yet as I still need to write a bazillion queries, so pretty much everything I've posted here so far has been culled by hand.

Most Famous Amateur Bracelet Winners and Runners-Up

Includes only players who were famous before their poker success. Listed in chronological order (dates in bold for winners).

• May 13, 1987: Grateful Dead attorney Hal Kant wins $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, defeating a field of 91 (with 83 rebuys), including Lyle Berman heads up, for $174,000.
  
• May 12, 1990: Kant finishes second for $127,000 in $2,500 Limit Hold 'Em behind Berry Johnston.
  
• May 7, 1994: Kant finishes second for $110,000 in $2,500 No-Limit Hold 'Em behind John Heaney. {He would end his WSOP career with 7 final tables and 13 cashes for $531,414.}
  
• May 9, 1996: Transformers and hole card camera inventor Henry Orenstein wins $5,000 Seven-Card Stud, defeating a field of 65, including Humberto Brenes heads up, for $130,000. {He would end his WSOP career with three final tables and four cashes for $232,519.}
  
• June 27, 2005: Actress Jennifer Tilly wins the Ladies Championship, defeating a field of 601 players for $158,625.
  
• June 30, 2005: Comedian, actor, and poker announcer Gabe Kaplan finishes second for $222,515 in $5,000 Limit Hold 'Em behind Dan Schmiech.
  
• June 12, 2007: Six-time U.S. chess champion Walter Browne finishes second in $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. for $131,445 behind James Richburg. {He would end his WSOP career with four final tables and eight cashes for $288,507.}
  
• June 16, 2018: Musician and sound engineer Steve Albini wins $1,500 Seven-Card Stud, defeating a field of 310, including Jeff Lisandro heads up, for $105,629.
  
• October 10, 2021: Statistician, writer, and founder of FiveThirtyEight.com Nate Silver finishes second for $151,842 in $10,000 Limit Hold 'Em Championship behind John Monnette.
  
• June 17, 2022: Albini wins $1,500 H.O.R.S.E., defeating a field of 773 for $196,089 and his second bracelet. {He would end his WSOP career with three final tables and nine cashes for $369,136.}

Walter played poker for a living, working as a prop player at the Oaks Card Club, in Emeryville, California. I spent many hours matching wits with him over the felt. He was a really nice guy, and I miss him.

Whoa... that's pretty cool, I had no idea. Shows you how little I was paying attention to that October span of the 2021 WSOP, as that would have been right around the time I was moving from my previous job to my current one. My team made a little run in the American League playoffs during that same period, beating the Yankees then upsetting the Rays. Yet I don't think I watched one game of it. Out to lunch.

Also interesting stuff about Kant. That's before my time as a poker fan so it's less surprising that I didn't know. His Hollywood Reporter obit says Dead band members were there to cheer him on, too: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...l-kant-121564/ And here I thought Franco Spitale had an active rail.

Kant is quite an intriguing figure: he was a conservative Republican who just happened to represent a bunch of great artists from that hippie California music scene. That would like Victor Rabinowitz ditching his trade as a litigator to become Ted Nugent's legal counsel. Still, despite his connections with the Dead, the New Riders, Sonny & Cher, etc., he supposedly preferred the opera. Probably made him a good lawyer – he ultimately stuck to the facts, ma'am.

Great list yet again, looking forward to the next one.

In 1994, Jack ran a promotion where the winner of the WSOP main event would be awarded their weight in silver, to commemorate the silver anniversary of the WSOP. Russ Hamilton, a genuine scumbag and poker cheat, won it, and he weighed a lot! People have talked and joked about it, but was the promotion legit? Did Hamilton really get the $1,000,000 first prize + his weight in silver? If so, how much silver was it and how much was it worth at the time?

Per PokerNews, Hamilton got his weight up to 330 pounds (about 150 kg for the non-U.S. folks), which in turn was worth around $30K. Source: https://www.pokernews.com/poker-players/russ-hamilton/

EDIT: Okay, just got curious... I don't know the exact date of the 1994 Main, but the WSOP site says May 6. The price of silver closed at $5.06 per ounce on that date, which translates to $26,769.60. This is closer to the estimate of $28K in Sexton's Corner: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/...-bars-5191.htm

The 1994 Main Event ended on May 13. According to the March 30, 1995 Miami New Times, the silver was worth $28,512 (which works out to $5.40/ounce, the closing price from the day before).

To clarify, the tournament ended after midnight, so it was technically May 13 but the closing price from May 12 was the latest available.

Best Female Main Event Finishes

Until a woman wins the WSOP Main Event, there will be [at least] three ways to determine who had the best result: by place, percent of field remaining, and money won. Gaelle Baumann leads two of these lists and is second on the other, but I won't argue against anyone who says Barbara Enright is still the Main Event queen.


Top Female Main Event Finishes by Place

• 9. Kathy Liebert 17th for $30,000 in 1998
  
• 9. Kathy Liebert 17th for $39,120 in 2000
  
• 9. Tiffany Michelle 17th for $334,534 in 2008
  
• 8. Tiffany Williamson 15th for $400,000 in 2005
  
• 7. Marsha Waggoner 12th for $33,920 in 1997
  
• 6. Elisabeth Hille 11th for $590,442 in 2012
  
• 2. Barbara Samuelson 10th for $26,880 in 1994
  
• 2. Susie Isaacs 10th for $40,000 in 1998
  
• 2. Annie Duke 10th for $52,160 in 2000
  
• 2. Gaelle Baumann 10th for $590,442 in 2012
  
• 1. Barbara Enright 5th for $114,180 in 1995

Top Female Main Event Finishes by Percent Left

• 10. Maria Ho 0.60% for 38th in 2007
  
• 9. Jackie Glazier 0.49% for 31st in 2013
  
• 8. Kelly Minkin 0.45% for 29th in 2015
  
• 7. Erika Moutinho 0.42% for 29th in 2011
  
• 6. Leo Margets 0.42% for 27th in 2009
  
• 5. Tiffany Williamson 0.27% for 15th in 2005
  
• 4. Tiffany Michelle 0.25% for 17th in 2008
  
• 3. Efthymia Litsou 0.21% for 18th in 2022
  
• 2. Elisabeth Hille 0.17% for 11th in 2012
  
• 1. Gaelle Baumann 0.15% for 10th in 2012

Top Female Main Event Finishes by Prize

• 10. Kelly Minkin 29th for $211,821 in 2015
  
• 9. Jackie Glazier 31st for $229,281 in 2013
  
• 8. Maria Ho 38th for $237,865 in 2007
  
• 7. Erika Moutinho 29th for $242,636 in 2011
  
• 6. Efthymia Litsou 18th for $323,100 in 2022
  
• 5. Tiffany Michelle 17th for $334,534 in 2008
  
• 4. Leo Margets 27th for $352,832 in 2009
  
• 3. Tiffany Williamson 15th for $400,000 in 2005
  
• 1. Elisabeth Hille 11th for $590,442 in 2012
  
• 1. Gaelle Baumann 10th for $590,442 in 2012

My downstairs tenant was the last woman standing in 2006, but she didn't make any of these lists.

https://w50p.com/po/WSOP%20ME%20Last...0Standing.html

Whoa... what is that website? I gotta save that for later – that's a potential rabbit hole for me.

I don't know what it says about me, but when I think of Kelly Minkin, I think of that dude that hovered on her rail throughout her run in a subsequent WSOP. Normally, I wouldn't care, but then she confirmed that she had no idea who he was.

Thanks for posting that as I've been working under the impression that I shouldn't.

Please note that the data on https://w50p.com/po is only current through 2022 as I've had various reasons/excuses for not updating it (and at this point, I'm just going to add 2023 and 2024 simultaneously in December).

And yes, Wilbury Twist, it's a very deep, labyrinthine, rabbit hole that I've been digging for over a decade! You can browse, poke around the table of contents, search, or even tap the Wikipedia-inspired Random Page button (the last three from the Contents button).

2-7 has been around for a long long time damn, idk why I thought it was a "newer" game

Kristin Foxen takes over #1 by Percent and Money (#8 by Place), finishing 13th this year for $600,000 (0.13%).

Best Main Event Streaks

• 10. Howard Andrew played in 45 consecutive Main Events from 1974 to 2018. He cashed four times, including finishing eighth in 1984 for $26,400.
• 9. Ronnie Bardah cashed in five straight Main Events from 2010 to 2014, with his best result of 24th in 2010 for $317,161.
• 8. Liv Boeree and Melanie Weisner share the women's record with three consecutive cashes, both from 2016 to 2018. Argentina's Veronica Dabul was the first female to cash in consecutive Main Events, banking $39,445 for 314th in 2007 and $35,383 for 235th in 2008.
• 7. Jesse Alto reached three straight Main Event final tables from 1984 to 1986, finishing third for $132,000, sixth for $42,000, and fourth for $62,700. He also finished fifth in 1978 ($21,000) and ninth in 1988 ($21,000).
• 6. Dan Harrington finished third out of 839 players in 2003 for $650,000 and fourth out of 2,576 players in 2004 for $1,500,000, which was more than he made for winning it all in 1995 ($1,000,000).
• 5. Mark Newhouse finished ninth in the Main Event in both 2013 and 2014, the first out of 6,352 players for $733,224 and second out of 6,683 players for $730,725.
• 4. Greg Raymer followed up his win over a field of 2,576 in 2004 for $5,000,000 with a 25th place finish out of 5,619 in 2005 for $304,680.
• 3. Doyle Brunson won the Main Event in both 1976 and 1977, defeating fields of 22 and 34.
• 2. Stu Ungar won the Main Event in both 1980 and 1981, defeating fields of 73 and 75. His 1997 win was over a field of 312.
• 1. Johnny Chan reached heads up in the Main Event every year from 1987 to 1989, defeating fields of 152 and 167 before falling one short to Phil Hellmuth in 1989 (178 players).

Honorable Mention: Johnny Moss was named the 1970 world champion by vote then won the 1971 Main Event.

Yeeesh, tough ROI.

But nonetheless he was a sharp player, winning two bracelets and racking up a respectable Hendon Mob. Moreover, he was a good man. Another one I am going to miss.