Mike Watson Wins Bracelet To Complete Poker's Triple CrownCanadian Poker Pro Takes Down WSOP Online Event To Join His World Poker Tour Championship and Two European Poker Tour Titles |
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Mike Watson has been a top poker tournament player for nearly two decades, with live results dating back to 2006. The 40-year-old Canadian poker pro has cashed for over $29 million on the circuit, with major victories on several top tours. The one trophy that has always eluded Watson, though, was a World Series of Poker bracelet. Finally, 17 years after recording his first WSOP cash, Watson has finally captured his first piece of WSOP hardware.
“I do think that if I’m a very successful tournament player, winning the bracelet isn’t the biggest priority. But, it’s definitely gotten to the point now where I just keep getting close and it keeps not happening, and that has gotten frustrating,” Watson told Card Player in an interview back in 2022 when asked about close calls in bracelet events.
Watson took down the 2024 WSOP Online $1,000 no-limit hold’em six-max championship to earn $138,327 and the coveted hardware. This win officially made the Toronto, Ontario resident the 10th player in history to achieve poker’s ‘triple crown’, with victories at the WSOP alongside main event wins on the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour. A full list of triple crown winners can be found at the bottom of the page.
Watson nearly crossed winning a bracelet off his to-do list in 2012. He won a high roller event during that year’s World Series of Poker Europe, but the event was listed as a non-bracelet tournament despite taking place at the same venue as the bracelet-awarding tournaments during the same series in Cannes. Watson topped a tough field of 60 entries in what amounted to a $66,060 buy-in when rendered in US dollars.
His WPT win came back in 2008. He topped a field of 446 entries in the 2008 WPT Bellagio Cup IV $15,400 buy-in to earn $1,673,770. As for the EPT, he won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $728,325 in 2016 and then took down the 2022 EPT Monte Carlo main event in 2022. Those tournaments were $5,300 and $5,651 to enter, respectively, with 928 and 1,098 entries.
Watson is also a four-time Triton Poker event winner. That puts him in a tie with Fedor Holz and Wai Kin Yong for third place on the tour’s titles leaderboard. Only ten-time champion Jason Koon and five-time champions Mikita Badziakouski, Phil Ivey, and Danny Tang have secured more trophies on the tour.
Watson had plenty of tough competition down the stretch in his run to the bracelet, with the likes of bracelet winner Mitch Halverson (16th), bracelet winner and two-time WPT champion Kevin Eyster (10th), and WPT champion Matthew Salsberg (6th) all running deep.
Here is a look at the payouts awarded at the final table:
| Place | Player | Earnings |
| 1 | Michael Watson | $138,327 |
| 2 | Michael McNeil | $101,118 |
| 3 | Michael Balan | $74,324 |
| 4 | John Gallaher | $54,630 |
| 5 | Derek Kwan | $40,428 |
| 6 | Matthew Salsberg | $30,108 |
| 7 | Scott Castelluccio | $22,629 |
| 8 | Frank Bonacci | $17,137 |
| 9 | Aidan Long | $13,066 |
Here are the ten Triple Crown winners:
Gavin Griffin
Roland De Wolfe
Jake Cody
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Davidi Kitai
Mohsin Charania
Harrison Gimbel
Niall Farrell
Roberto Romanello
Mike Watson
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