Beware of the World Series of Poker Monsters

The monsters of the World Series of Poker are again about to stalk the halls of the Rio and although that roster is now full of players who have repeatedly proved themselves by performing well over the last several years, there are a few players that have made the WSOP’s field their whipping boy since 2004 in such a vicious way.

Erik Seidel, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, and Phil Ivey are some of the best-known players for a reason: Combined, they have cashed 65 times in the last four WSOPs, have 8 bracelets and have won more than $11 million.

Hellmuth is getting his picture on WSOP-themed beer cans because, statistically, Hellmuth is the king of the WSOP. Since he started playing WSOP events in 1988, he’s cashed 63 times, holds the most bracelets with 11, and made more than $5.6 million.

Since 2004, which is the year that WSOP fields started going crazy after the country watched Chris Moneymaker become a multi-millionaire on ESPN, Hellmuth has cashed 23 times for $2.1 million and won bracelets in the 2006 $1,000 no-limit event with rebuys and the 2007 $1,500 no-limit event where he broke the shared most-bracelets record with Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. In 2003, he added two more bracelets to his collection, too.

Seidel is second in terms of cashes since 2004 with 17 for more than $1.3 million. He also won bracelets in the 2005 $2,000 no-limit hold’em event and the 2007 $5,000 2-7 lowball championship event. In the 2005 event, he outlasted 1,402 players.

Right behind Seidel is Cunningham with 15 cashes for more than $5.8 million since 2004, but he leads all players with three bracelets during that time span (2005 $1,500 no-limit hold’em, 2006 $1,000 no-limit hold’em with rebuys and 2007 $5,000 pot-limit hold’em). A majority of his WSOP cash comes from his fourth-place finish in the 2006 main event, which was good for more than $3.6 million. He was WSOP Player of the Year in 2005 and came very close to repeating in 2006. He didn’t cash in 2004.

Ivey is next with 10 cashes for $2 million since 2004 even though he spends most of his time during the WSOP at the Bellagio playing high stakes cash games. He only has one bracelet since 2004 in a $5,000 pot limit Omaha event, but he has come close to others. He owns five bracelets total, three of them coming in 2002. Ivey also came oh-so-close to adding to his bracelet total since 2004 by racking up two seconds, a third and fourth place finishes.

There are also a bunch of players who have won two bracelets during this time. They include 2007 WSOP POY Tom Schneider, Scott Fischman, Bill Chen, Jeff Madsen, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, Rafi Amit, Scott Clements and Mark Seif.

Yes, it would be very, very bad to have any of these players on your right in the wee-hours of a tournament. They know what it takes to win these big events and have the recent track record to prove it.

Julio Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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