Poker Leaderboard: WSOP Bracelets

The poker world was turned upside down in 2020, but there is a sense of normalcy returning as the World Series of Poker is back in a big way for 2021, with a live WSOP in Las Vegas this fall, the WSOP Europe scheduled toward the end of the year, and a WSOP Online series kicking off the whole bracelet bonanza this summer. While a complete list of events has not yet been finalized, it seems very likely that there will be more than 100 total gold bracelets awarded by the time the year comes to a close.

More than 1,200 individual players have won at least one WSOP bracelet since the series was first held in 1970, with a total of 1,704 given out along the way. The player with the most bracelets won is, of course, Poker Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth. The Wisconsin-born poker pro earned his first piece of hardware at the series by taking down the 1989 WSOP main event for $755,000. He has gone on to win a total of 15 bracelets, with all but two coming in hold’em events. In addition to winning the main event in Las Vegas, Hellmuth also took down the 2012 WSOP Europe main event for €1,022,376. His most recent win came in a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em turbo event in 2018.

Hellmuth has a five-bracelet lead over the nearest competition, which is a three-way tie between a trio of Hall of Fame members in Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Ivey. Brunson and Chan are both two-time main event winners. Brunson won back-to-back world championships in 1976 and 1977, while Chan achieved the same feat in 1987 and 1988. Chan nearly won the main event three years in a row, but Hellmuth defeated him heads-up to deny the hat trick. Chan and Brunson both won their tenth bracelets in 2005. Ivey earned his tenth in 2014, taking down a $1,500 eight-game mix event.

Among those with seven bracelets or more, just Ivey and Hellmuth have won one in the last decade. The youngest player on the list is 34-year-old Jason Mercier, who has five wins. Fellow five-time bracelet winners Daniel Alaei (38) and Michael Mizrachi (40) are the next youngest. Among the next group of players at four bracelets, Germany’s Dominik Nitsche is the youngest at 30.