Poker Leaderboard: The Best Without A Bracelet By Earnings

The World Series of Poker awarded a record amount of gold bracelets in 2021, with 188 handed out throughout the year. The final bracelet was handed out on Dec. 8, with Josef Gulas winning the WSOP Europe main event for more than $1.4 million. Just 175 days later, the first bracelet winner of 2022 will be determined in the $500 buy-in Casino Employees event that will kick off this year’s festivities.

With the race for the gold beginning anew, it is once again time to go over the dreaded ‘best without a bracelet’ list. Last year, notables such as Dan Cates, Jason Koon, and Mikita Badziakouski were able to get the monkey off their backs. These ten players, however, have accumulated the most tournament earnings of any players in the world without having won a WSOP bracelet.

Dan Smith remains the player atop the leaderboard with more than $38.5 million in career scores to his name. The World Poker Tour champion and high-stakes regular has cashed for more than $10.1 million at the series, with seven podium finishes in bracelet events, but has yet to break through and secure his first bracelet.

Cary Katz joins Smith as the only other top-10 player on poker’s all-time money list to have not taken down a title in a WSOP event. Roughly $5.2 million of Katz’s more than $34.6 million in total earnings have come in bracelet events, with two seven-figure cashes for deep runs in the 2014 and 2016 Big One For One Drop tournaments.

Rounding out the top three is recent Super High Roller Bowl Europe champion Jake Schindler with nearly $33.9 million in career scores. He cashed for seven figures on five separate occasions, but his largest cash in a bracelet event was for just $212,373 back in 2014. Schindler will also have to deal with any potential fallout for being implicated in the GGPoker cheating scandal.

Sitting in fourth place is American Steve O’Dwyer with nearly $32 million in earnings. He is highly unlikely to score gold, however, as he has not competed at the domestic series since 2014 and now resides in Ireland. Top 10 newcomer and WPT champion Alex Foxen now sits with just shy of $22 million in lifetime earnings, with 11 final-table finishes so far this year. He has $1 million in career cashes at the WSOP, but boycotted the series last year because of the vaccine mandate. ♠