All Time Poker Bracelet Winners
It seems as if poker players keep getting younger and younger, beating each other out for the title of the youngest player to ever win a WSOP bracelet by mere days past their 21st birthdays. Here are the 7 youngest players to ever hold the record of youngest player to win a bracelet or youngest player to win the WSOP Main Event Championship.
#7 Gavin Griffin
- Two more players are among the top 20 on the all-time money list that haven't had the pleasure of posing for a WSOP winner's photo: Jason Koon ($20,100,628) and Jake Schindler ($19,273,649).
- Brunson, aka the Godfather of Poker, needs no introduction, as he is considered one of the best poker players of all time. He also shares the second place with the previous to players, as he.
- This extremely quiet, soft-spoken eight-time WSOP bracelet-winner absolutely destroyed the fields of competition winning $6.5 million in 2011 alone, giving it the title of 'The Year of Seidel'. Having been quietly inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010, he proved his worth by taking everyone's money in '11.
Gavin Griffin became the youngest WSOP winner in history in 2004 when he stole the title from Phil Hellmuth, who would still reign as the youngest player to win the WSOP Main Event until 2008.
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“The Poker Brat” himself, and 11-WSOP-bracelet winner, held the title of youngest world champion of poker for 19 years, making him way ahead of his time when he won the Main Event of the 1989 WSOP at 24 years old.
#6 – Eric Froehlich
Eric Froehlich broke the record of youngest poker player to win a WSOP bracelet in June of 2005 when he won the $1500 Limit Hold’ em event. He had just barely qualified for the tournament, turning 21 on February 9th of that year, making him three months and three days past his birthday. He had just dropped out of college when he won his bracelet, but he still sported the University of Virginia ball cap at the table. After an eight-hour final table, Froehlich bought the bracelet and a $361,910 payout.
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#5 – Jeff Madsen
Jeff Madsen, only one year later, took the title from Froehlich as the youngest bracelet winner at only one month and nine days after his 21st birthday. He won his bracelet at Event #22 with a $2,000 buy-in and won $660,948. After two days, Madsen beat out a field of 1,570 other players and made it to the final table that included nine remaining players, none of them bracelet winners.
Following his win, he planned on heading back to college for his senior year as a film student at UC-Santa Barbara. While young, Madsen was no rookie at live poker play. The gambling age in his home state was 18, and he had been playing at Indian casinos in California for almost three years. Nevada state law prevented him from entering the WSOP prior to that year.
Madsen commented on the possibility of his record being beaten: “It’s going to be tough. I’m just lucky that my birthday was so close. It’s going to be hard, since I’m 21 and one month. It will sure be tough to break that record.”
#4 – Steve Billirakis
It wasn’t that tough, though. Fast forward one year later, and Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis, only 21 years and 10 days old, won Event #1 of the 2007 WSOP. The $5000 No Limit Hold’em/Limit Hold’em Mixed Championship final table also included seasoned veterans, rookies, and WSOP bracelet winners, but ultimately, none were a match for Billirakis. He beat out online poker legend, Jon “Pearljammer” Turner; 2002 bracelet winner, Fred Berger; veteran, Roger McDow; poker pro Greg “FBT” Mueller; 1998 bracelet winner, Kirk Morrison; and 25-year veteran, Tony George. Bilirakis won $536,287 to go along with his bracelet and still standing title.
#3 – Joe Cada
Joseph Cada won this year’s WSOP as the youngest Main Event player to win the WSOP at 21 years old. Cada is part of a trend in poker, both live and online, that brings young men to the poker table to tear down the chip stacks of veterans in ways they never dreamed of. There seems to be a line down the middle of poker—you’re either young or your old (or female). You are on the young team or you’re on the old team, and if you are under 25, you’re old. For whatever reason, be it the Internet, a university trend, or just a blip in the matrix, there has been an influx in young poker players emerging over the past two to three years, and they seem to get younger and younger every year. Cada won $8,547,042 after outlasting a player field of 6,494 and a final table that even included Phil Ivey the Great.
#2 – Peter Eastgate
Peter Eastgate stole the title of world’s youngest professional poker player to win a WSOP Main Event bracelet from Phil Hellmuth, who had held the title of world’s youngest world champion of poker for 19 years. At 22 years old, Eastgate took the world of poker by storm and redefined the role of world champion. It was the dawn of the young guns and what better way to honor them than one of their own winning the most prestigious and esteemed poker title in the world. He also became the second Dane to win a WSOP bracelet and $9,152,416 in cash. Eastgate was just 340 days older than Cada, who would go on to take the title away from him just one year later.
Eastgate said after winning the stacks of cash and his shiny gold bracelet, “It feels good to beat Phil’s record. I was not focused on the record that I could break, I was just focused on the game.”
#1 – Phil Hellmuth
“The Poker Brat” himself, and 11-WSOP-bracelet winner, held the title of youngest world champion of poker for 19 years, making him way ahead of his time when he won the Main Event of the 1989 WSOP at 24 years old. He lost his title to Eastgate in 2008, but still holds the record for most WSOP cash finishes at 75, just 10 ahead of Men “The Master” Nguyen’s 65. In total, Hellmuth has won more than $6 million in WSOP career earnings. That’s still not as much, though, as Peter Eastgate won in 2008 WSOP Main Event winnings alone. We’ll still give him the first spot, though, because he held the record for almost two decades, and because he’s the man. What else can you say?
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- »5 All-Time Online Poker MTT Winners
Poker has always had a unique way of ranking players, it uses money won as a marker of success. It’s difficult to measure cash game players’ success using this system because few sites track results. Online poker MTT, on the other hand, are an entirely different beast. Tournaments results are readily available and several websites log each cash.
Online poker MTT receive a lot of attention because of this. They create the superstars of the game, players who others want to emulate. The five biggest winners have accumulated $85,094,544 in cashes between them.
It’s worth noting the astronomical figures you’re about to read about are cashes and not profit. It’s fair to assume, however, that all five online poker MTT specialists are showing a huge profit.
Niklas “Lena900” Astedt Is The Biggest Online Poker MTT Winner with $19,819,767 in Earnings
Sweden’s Niklas “Lena900” Astedt is the online poker MTT player with the most earnings ever. The Swede has amassed an incredible $19,819,767 in cashes and is set to become the first-ever online player to surpass $20 million in cashes.
Astedt is an incredible player, one who manages to play a loose-aggressive style to perfection. He has 8,409 in the money finishes with an average cash of $2,357. He’s just the perfect online poker MTT player.
$1,154,199 are Astedt’s live tournament winnings. Astedt, amazingly, doesn’t play much live poker. This is partly due to the weird Swedish taxation laws. Also, why would you travel to play live poker when you destroy the online scene?
Peter “Belabacsi” Traply has $17,616,026 in Online MTT Winnings
Peter “Belabacsi” Traply has been racking up online poker MTT cashes for the best part of 15-years. The Hungarian boasts of an incredible 29,058 in the money finishes; how many bubbles must he have burst?
Traply’s 17,616,026 in winnings are enough to rank him second in the all-time listing. He was once a regular in the highest stakes MTTs, but focusses more on mid-stakes these days. Traply doesn’t play much live poker, just like Astedt, yet still has $946,427 in cashes.
The fact Traply lives in Hungary means he’s probably living a lavish lifestyle with his winnings and only plays poker for fun and a little extra income. What a life.
Chris “Moorman1” Moorman’s $16,335,193 Place Him Third in the Online Poker MTT Winnings Standings
Chris “Moorman1” Moorman was the first online poker MTT to record $10 million in cashes. He was the poster boy for online tournaments, although he’s slowed down plenty recently. Moorman splits his time between his native United Kingdom and America where his wife is from. He also frequently travels to Canada to play in PokerStars’ largest festivals.
Moorman is a beast in the live poker world, unlike others on this list. The popular Brit has $5,942,729 earnings from live poker tournaments. Two WSOP runner-up finishes, a WSOP bracelet and a WPT title helped Moorman reach this lofty number.
Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet has $16,056,807 in Cashes
All Time Wsop Bracelet Winners
Canada’s Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet comes in at fourth-place thanks to $16,056,807 in winnings. Van Fleet has been around since 2006 and is highly regarded. He’s managed 131 outright victories, 94 runner-up and 113 third-place exits in his online career.
All-time Poker Bracelet Winners
He went on an incredible run in October 2019 on GGPoker. Van Fleet won six $25,000 buy-in Super High Rollers for a combined $2,313,912. His victory in the partypoker MILLIONS Online in 2017 is his career highlight thanks to it banking him $1,027,000.
Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson’s $15,266,751 in Winnings Rank Him Fifth
Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson is another Swedish star, one who’s friends with Niklas Astedt. Mattsson has almost 6,000 online poker MTT cashes to his name, which weigh in at $15,266,751. He probably has more earnings but hasn’t listed his new partypoker alias anywhere.
Mattsson is no slouch in the live arena either as he has $1,420,000 in live winnings.