Shiina Okamoto Dominates Ladies Championship With Back-To-Back Wins

In a series that has already seen a triple-bracelet winner and several top pros add to their gold collections, the most recent stretch of action at the 2025 World Series of Poker was so ridiculously packed with big storylines that it looked almost scripted.

Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi’s legend grew thanks to an unprecedented fourth win in the prestigious $50,000 Poker Players Championship. One day later, Japan’s Shiina Okamoto completed a three-year run in the Ladies Championship that will likely never be topped.

While most are exciting stories of triumph and skill, the past fortnight also featured a tentpole event enshrouded in controversy. This year’s Millionaire Maker bracelet was ultimately withheld from the eventual champion as a result of alleged misconduct during the heads-up match.

With the 2025 WSOP main event now underway at the time of publishing, 84 of the 100 live bracelet events have now been completed. More than $318 million in prize money has been awarded across those tournaments, thanks to the nearly 197,000 entries made between them. That amounts to an average field of 2,373. While that number is kept in check by the money small-field, high-stakes events littered throughout the schedule, it is conversely buoyed by the massive no-limit fields like the $300 Gladiators of Poker event that drew an astounding 24,629 entries, the second-largest live field in WSOP history. It trails only the 2019 Big 50, and it’s 28,731 turnout.

For more on the winners from the first month of WSOP action, check out the two preceding issues of Card Player.

Okamoto Goes Second-First-First In Ladies Championship

Shiina Okamoto’s three-year run in the WSOP $1,000 Ladies Championship is the stuff of legends. The Japanese player exploded out of relative obscurity to finish as the runner-up in the 2023 running, which set a record for the largest turnout ever for the event with 1,295 entries. The following year, she one-upped herself, outlasting 1,245 entries to earn her first bracelet. While that back-to-back showing alone is already impressive, Okamoto turned out to be saving the best for last.

This year the tournament set a new field size record with 1,368 entries. Somehow, even with the booming attendance during her spree, Okamoto managed to successfully defend her title. Not only did she win, she closed out the victory in dominant fashion, surging across the finish line to capture her second bracelet and a new career-best score of $184,094.

“I defended,” said in her celebratory Twitter post after wrapping up her latest victory.

The improbable streak of getting to heads-up play three years in a row was made famous by Johnny Chan, who won the 1987 and 1988 main events before finishing second to Phil Hellmuth in 1989. The only other players to put such a streak together in the modern era are Thang Luu, who finished second, first, and first in the $1,500 Omaha eight-or-better events between 2007-2009, and Adam Friedman, who won the $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship three years in a row from 2018-2021.

With this win, Okamoto has now cashed for $474,594 in this event over the past three years, which accounts for the majority of her $877,201 overall tournament earnings.

The record field resulted in a prize pool of $1,203,840. The top 206 finishers made the money, including deep runs from Angela Jordison (35th), three-time bracelet winner Barbara Enright (34th), Robbi Jade Lew (30th), bracelet winner Allyn Shulman (28th), and the player who beat Okamoto heads-up in 2023, Tamar Abraham (20th). Jessica Cai (16th), poker photographer and player Katerina Lukina (14th), and Joanne ‘J.J.’ Liu (13th) all made it down to the final few tables.

2018 WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Southern Indiana main event champion and 2019 Dealer of the Year Heather Alcorn finished runner-up, adding $122,654 to her bank account, the second-largest score of her playing career.

Shaun Deeb Seizes WSOP POY Lead, Seventh Career Bracelet

Shaun Deeb took down the first-ever $100,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event at the World Series of Poker, overcoming a stacked final table to earn a record-setting top prize of $2,957,229. In addition to the massive payday, Deeb also scored his seventh career WSOP gold bracelet with the win.

As if that wasn’t enough, the 39-year-old poker pro from New York also moved into first place in the WSOP Player of the Year race standings with this triumph. The 2018 POY award winner and perennial contender in the race clearly had it on his mind when closing out this victory. Before this win, Deeb had already finished third in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better championship and second in both the $1,500 razz and a $600 no-limit hold’em event online during this year’s series.

“I’m going to multi-table the shit out of the rest of the series,” Deeb admitted. “I got the money to do it. I just want another banner, to join my friends, and to tie Daniel [Negreanu].”

Deeb has now climbed into a nine-way tie on the all-time WSOP titles leaderboard at seven bracelets. He is one of just 16 players in the history of the game to have gotten to seven.

This is the single largest payout ever awarded in a pot-limit Omaha tournament, topping the previous record of $2,340,000 that was set by Sergio Martinez Gonzalez, who took down a $100,000 PLO high roller at the Triton Jeju festival in South Korea earlier this year. That tournament drew 91 entries. Deeb beat out a field of 121 entries inside the Horseshoe Las Vegas to lock up the POY points and the payout of nearly $3 million.

The massive turnout for this event resulted in a $11,676,500 prize pool, with the top 19 finishers making the money. Plenty of PLO and tournament heavyweights ran deep, including two-time bracelet winner Lou Garza (18th), recent $5,000 no-limit six-max champion Andjelko Andrejevic (17th), two-time bracelet winner Bryce Yockey (16th), seven-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (15th), two-time bracelet winner Ben Lamb (8th), rising PLO tournament star Sean Rafael (7th), three-time bracelet winner Alex Foxen (6th), 11-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey (5th), PLO specialist Lautaro Guerra (4th), Arthur Morris (3rd), and two-time Super High Roller Bowl winner Isaac Haxton (2nd).

Rafael climbed to 12th in the 2025 Card Player Player of the Year race after this, his 11th final table of the year. Foxen has now made 13 POY-qualified final tables himself, with three wins along the way. He now sits in second place in the overall standings presented by Coin Poker.

Incredibly, Deeb was not yet done racking up POY points. Just a couple of days removed from that huge win, he finished second from a field of 1,873 in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event, adding another $154,906 and crucial points across several POY races. He extended his lead in the WSOP standings while climbing to 18th on the Card Player leaderboard. He now has one win, three runner-up finishes, and one third-place showing at this year’s series.

26-year-old Czech backgammon grandmaster Zdenek Zizka ultimately defeated Deeb in that no-limit event, earning $232,498 and his first bracelet as the champion.

Cummings, Zerjav, Wang, Kabrhel, Pan, And Gorodinsky Add Bracelets

So nice, he won it twice. Aaron Cummings defeated a field of 635 entries to successfully defend his title in the $1,500 deuce-to-seven triple draw lowball event for $157,172 and his second gold bracelet. The Spokane, Washington resident bested 574 entries in the same tournament in 2024 for his first piece of WSOP hardware. He now has more than $405,640 in career tournament earnings, with $303,688 coming from his pair of triumphs in this lowball tournament.

The title defense put Cummings in elite company, becoming the first to have done so since Dan ‘jungleman’ Cates won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship in both 2021 and 2022, and just days ahead of Okamoto’s accomplishment in the Ladies Championship.

Blaz Zerjav earned his second bracelet of the summer, with his pair of wins coming in two markedly different events. While his first triumph saw him show off his no-limit hold’em chops against an elite high roller field in the $25,000 six-max, his second victory came in the comparatively low-cost $1,500 stud eight-or-better tournament.

Zerjav defeated a field of 615 entries, overcoming four-time bracelet winner Huck Seed heads-up to scoop the hardware and the top prize of $153,487. The former soccer standout, who also has a WSOP Circuit ring, now has $3 million in career earnings and is ranked first on Slovenia’s all-time money list.

Michael Wang took down a $1,600 buy-in at the Wynn Summer Classic in mid-June, outlasting 2,405 entries for a career-best score of $555,528. That personal record only stood for 18 days. Less than three weeks removed from that triumph, Wang overcame a field of 874 entries in the WSOP $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship for his third career bracelet and the massive top prize of $1,394,579.

This victory saw the 36-year-old poker pro from New Jersey grow his lifetime tournament earnings to more than $9.1 million. More than a third of that has come from his success at the WSOP, which includes wins in the $5,000 no-limit event in both 2015 and 2022 for $466,120 and $541,604, respectively.

Martin Kabrhel has drawn a lot of attention throughout the summer. The polarizing Czech pro is a common hot topic on social media, with frequent video clips of his antics going viral. Posts have documented the clock being repeatedly called on him until his allotted time was cut to just 10 seconds, or his high-volume recitation of budding catch phrases such as, “Not like that!” A video even showed him being given a one-round penalty with 18 players remaining during his latest deep run.

But as has often been the case in the past, Kabrhel has also balanced the drama with undeniable performance on the felt. The 42-year-old has cashed six times so far at the series, with four final tables made along the way. The most recent performance was also the most impactful yet, outlasting nearly 11,000 entries in the $1,000 Mini Main Event, earning his fourth career bracelet and the top prize of $843,140. He now has more than $15.4 million in career tournament earnings.

Kabrhel has cashed for more than $2.1 million over his half-dozen scores at the series this summer. He finished third in a $5,000 pot-limit Omaha event just a few days into the schedule for $288,775, then survived to seventh place in the $250,000 Super High Roller for $674,359 a few weeks later. Ten days after that, he finished fifth in the $10,000 super turbo bounty event for another $212,926.

He also has a couple of previous final tables from before the WSOP. With the 4,552 total POY points, Kabrhel has been catapulted into seventh place on the overall leaderboard.

Qinghai Pan held the chip lead at the end of day 2 of the $10,000 stud eight-or-better championship with 15 players left. When bags came out at the end of day 3 of the tournament, Pan once again led, with four players remaining. And when the final hand was dealt on an unscheduled fourth day of play, Pan had all of the chips.

The end result was a third career bracelet for Pan, and his first live WSOP win. Pan’s previous bracelets came in the 2022 and 2023 WSOP Online series. This was the California-based pro’s most significant tournament cash ever. He outlasted a record-setting 186-player field for this tournament to earn $411,051.

Mike Gorodinsky overcame a heads-up chip deficit and being under the weather, taking advantage of an unscheduled extra day of play to get a good night’s rest. He was then able to mount a comeback and close out the win in the $10,000 Eight-Game Championship.

He ended up defeating bracelet winner Eric Wasserson to earn $422,421 and his fifth career gold bracelet. This score helped push Gorodinsky’s career tournament earnings past the $5.5 million mark.

“It’s tough being sick the whole day, especially when you’re focusing and playing,” Gorodinsky said. “So yeah, I was just kind of hoping to make it through the last hour and get out of there. So I’m glad I did

Gorodinsky added the bracelet to his 2015 Poker Players Championship victory, a $2,500 stud and Omaha eight-or-better mixed win in 2013, the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship in 2023, and a $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship at WSOP Paradise in 2024.

Kempe And Katz Get The Monkey Off Their Back

The 1,168-entry turnout for this year’s $5,000 six-max no-limit event resulted in a prize pool of $5,527,120, with the top 176 finishers making the money. After four days of action, it was Serbian-born poker pro Andjelko Andrejevic who emerged victorious from the stacked field with his first bracelet and the top prize of $855,515. The 2016 WPT Amsterdam winner now has more than $6.8 million in recorded scores to his name.

Andrejevic wasn’t the only player to get the monkey off his back at the series this summer. Rainer Kempe bested a field of 809 entries in the $10,000 super turbo bounty event, earning $892,701 and the long-awaited hardware after coming out on top in the fast-paced affair.

The 35-year-old German pro’s first cash at the series came a decade earlier. In the intervening years, he grew his WSOP in-the-money count to over 70, making six final tables along the way but never closing one out until now.

Kempe now has more than $22.6 million in lifetime tournament earnings after adding this triumph to his record. His top score remains the $5 million he secured as the champion of the 2016 Super High Roller Bowl.

After a handful of top-five finishes in bracelet events, including three runner-up showings, longtime high-stakes tournament regular Cary Katz also finally broke through with a win at the series, scratching his name off the ‘best without a bracelet’ list.

The 55-year-old founder of businesses like College Loan Corp and PokerGO defeated a field of 1,299 players in the $2,500 no-limit hold’em freezeout to earn the top prize of $449,245 and his long-awaited hardware. Katz now boasts nearly $41 million in recorded tournament earnings.

“It feels amazing. I was really present throughout the tournament. I just wanted to enjoy every moment,” said Katz after coming out on top. “I wasn’t even supposed to play it. I was going to rest and get ready for the main. But I said, ‘I have a feeling. I kind of want to play this. I’m going to go late reg the freezeout and see what happens.’ And boy, it was a good decision.

Nearly $7.8 million of Katz’s total earnings come from his 67 cashes in bracelet events, including a fifth-place finish in the 2016 Big One for One Drop Invitational for $1.9 million and a runner-up finish in the 2023 $100,000 high roller for $1.6 million.

A Baker’s Dozen Bracelet Breakthroughs

Robert Wells captured the $3,000 nine-game title for a career-best $228,115. The Welsh pro outlasted a field of 409 players to lock down his first bracelet.

Every few years, the WSOP rolls out a new wrinkle on the traditional no-limit hold’em format. Only time will tell where the new Battle of the Ages will fall in the annals of WSOP history. The new event, which split the fields into ‘under 50’ and ‘over 50’ sections for day 1, was certainly an entertaining exercise.

Sebastiaan de Jonge was one of seven players from the younger flight to make the final day, standing against Joseph Roh, the lone player from the ‘over 50’ segment to survive to day 3. While Roh held the overnight chip lead, and de Jonge had just five big blinds when the tournament resumed for its final day, the Dutch pro whose surname fittingly translates as ‘the young one’ ultimately prevailed. De Jonge earned a first-place prize of $335,390, outlasting a combined field of 3,074.

Moshe Gavrieli, a house painter from Oakland, California, outlasted 343 players to win $200,303 and the gold bracelet in the $3,000 six-max limit hold’em event.

The victory was made all the more impressive as Gavrieli took down one of the 2025 WSOP Player of the Year frontrunners, Scott Bohlman, heads up. Bohlman already had a win in a $2,000 no-limit hold’em event, three final tables, and 12 WSOP cashes overall.

The $500 no-limit hold’em freezeout drew 5,082 players to generate a $2.1 million prize pool. Craig Savage of Plano, Texas was the last one standing among that crowd, claiming $229,628 and the hardware.

The $1,000 Super Seniors event drew 3,338 entries, all of whom were at least 60 years old. From this vast field of seasoned contenders, it was 63-year-old Lonny Weitzel who emerged victorious with the $356,494 top prize and his first bracelet. The Texarkana, Texas resident had a few prior tournament titles to his name, including a WSOP Circuit gold ring earned in a $400 buy-in triumph at Harrah’s Cherokee a few years ago.

While 1,373 teams of players entered the $1,000 no-limit hold’em tag team event, only one could walk away as champions. After three days of communication and co-operation, Kelvin Kerber and Peter Patricio came away as the victors. The friends and longtime poker grinders from Brazil earned a team payout of $184,780. That amounts to $92,390 per player with an even split.

The smallest buy-in tournament of the series packed a mighty punch. The $300 Gladiators of Poker drew 24,629 entrants, a record for this particular event and the second-largest turnout for any live tournament in WSOP history. And at the end of it all, Ian Pelz was the last gladiator standing.

Pelz captured a first-place prize of $420,680, which is 1,402 times as large as the $300 buy-in he put up. The $6,058,734 prize pool doubled the $3 million guarantee. Pelz’s first career bracelet came in his second major cash of the week, having placed third in the $3,000 six-max limit hold’em event only a few days prior.

Another $3,000 hold’em event soon followed. Yilong Wang defeated 2,338 in this full-ring version, earning his first bracelet and the top prize of $830,685. This was a new top tournament score for the Chinese player..

Alex Wilkinson won the $10,000 Triple Draw Championship, besting 141 entries for $333,054. Alex is the son of California Grand Casino owner and longtime WSOP regular Lamar ‘Wil’ Wilkinson, who has more than $1 million in career earnings at the series with cashes dating back to the late 90s. The elder Wilkinson had previously finished third in this event twice, making his podium showings in 2016 and 2021.

Now Alex has managed something that his father has not yet achieved, taking down a title at the series. The 33-year-old had also come close to doing so before, finishing third in the 2024 $1,500 buy-in version of this same event for $64,256.

Seven-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman ended up finishing third for $144,431. This deep run came just 18 days removed from taking down the $10,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Championship. He now has over $24 million in career tournament earnings to his name and has climbed to sixth place in this year’s POY standings with two titles and 14 POY-qualified final tables.

Romania’s Narcis Nedelcu seized the hardware in the $1,500 eight-game event, earning $184,862 after outlasting a record field of 789 entrants, which generated a total prize pool of $1,047,398.

Aaron Kupin took down the $2,500 mixed big bet event, besting a field of 458 entries to walk away with $206,982. He overcame a stacked final table, including the likes of four-time bracelet winner Jeff Madsen (5th), seven-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (4th), and two-time bracelet winner Marco Johson (2nd).

This was the fourth final table of the series for Johnson, who also finished third in the $10,000 Big O Championship, fifth in the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship, and seventh in the $1,500 PLO eight-or-better.

Negreanu has made the same number of final tables this summer, with his best showing being runner-up in the $10,000 Omaha Eight-or-Better Championship. The Poker Hall of Famer has two titles and 11 final tables overall in 2025, which is good enough to put him inside the top 25 in the POY race.

The $600 PokerNews Deepstack Championship attracted 5,667 total entries, resulting in a final prize pool of $2,856,168. The event had 50 seats awarded to players based on their performance in the $200, $250, and $400 buy-in daily deepstack events run at the WSOP. In the end, it was Nick Ahmadi who took down the bracelet for this event, along with the top prize of $302,165.

Giuseppe Zarbo defeated 7,078 total entries in the Summer Celebration, securing $504,180 for finding the winner’s circle. Jonathan Stoeber, who won an $800 buy-in event earlier this summer for his bracelet debut, finished fourth in this event for $186,650. His previous victory had been for $352,610.

By the time the next issue of Card Player goes to press, this year’s WSOP will have completely wrapped up, including the main event. Make sure to check out our fourth and final recap to learn all about this year’s world champion, their road to victory, and more.

• Photos by PokerGO, WSOP, Card Player, Poker.org