Benny Glaser is one of the best tournament mixed game poker players in the world, by any measure. He’s an eight-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, the most of any player from Europe and tied for seventh-most all-time. Although his biggest career cash came in no-limit hold’em, all of Glaser’s bracelets were won in mixed games. In total, he’s racked up nearly $10 million in tournament earnings.
This summer, the UK pro joined another elite fraternity in poker, becoming just the eighth player in more than 50 years of WSOP history to win three bracelets in a single summer.
But even with three new pieces of gold and the inside track for induction to the Poker Hall of Fame, the 2025 WSOP ended bitterly for the 36-year-old. Glaser missed out on one of his most coveted career goals, WSOP Player of the Year honors, by the narrowest of margins and a cruel twist of fate.
“If I’m going to be honest, I would say winning POY would have been a much more satisfying way to celebrate this summer,” said Glaser. “Especially in terms of just one specific thing which I’ve been working towards for a lot of my career. I think it would have been quite a big achievement for me.”
Glaser gave his all, through the very last day of the summer. He played no-limit hold’em events, high rollers, and as many online events as he could squeeze in, and fought through exhaustion and sickness. But ultimately, Shaun Deeb pipped him by a handful of points. In talking to Glaser in the aftermath of the WSOP, it’s clear the absolute slog he fought through took its toll.
Chasing History
It’s extraordinarily difficult to have long-term staying power in tournament poker. The challenge of keeping on top of an ever-evolving game requires a tremendous amount of time, energy, and focus. Even then, the greatest players in the world are still subject to the same factors of luck and circumstances beyond their control when it comes to competing for titles, accomplishments, and awards.
By most any measure, in almost any other year, or in any number of different scoring systems, Glaser could have been a no-doubt WSOP POY. In 2024, when Scott Seiver became the first player in 15 years to win three bracelets in a summer, the POY title was the feather in his cap.
Glaser’s three 2025 bracelets came in three different mixed game formats. Two of those wins, in the $1,500 dealers choice and $1,500 mixed Omaha event, happened within the first week of June, in the earliest stages of the series. Later that month, Glaser added the $2,500 mixed triple draw title.
But could he get to four? There was still nearly half a series left, and at the very least, he could put the finishing touches on a stellar POY résumé.
“Those runs for sure, were a big deal in terms of how I was feeling,” said Glaser. “A couple of them went on to an extra day four, and in between the second and third win, I had another 16th-place finish as well. That was another three days of tournament poker.”
It wasn’t simply a matter of how much poker Glaser was playing. He’d had plenty of busy summers since winning his first bracelet back in 2015. Each of those runs to victory had taken a particular, cumulative toll as the pressure mounted.
“For a lot of reasons, deep runs are exhausting,” said Glaser. “One is that adrenaline is naturally higher at the later stages of the tournament, and it’s tougher to just keep your system as together and relaxed as you would like it to be. Pressures are definitely higher at later stages of the tournament, from any kind of external sources, like media, as well as really pushing focus as hard as you can when it matters most.”
“And then you’re really trying to push yourself to play your best, in whatever capacity that is. Maybe you’re taking some extra caffeine and things like that, which is then going to potentially make the aftermath a bit more difficult in terms of recovery.”
Running On Empty
At a certain point, there’s simply nothing left in the tank to draw from. The first few days after the third win were a bit of a blur, and Glaser granted himself some grace after a job well done.
“There were one or two days after that where I was planning to play, but just ended up deciding to take the day off, just feeling too depleted,” said Glaser. “I knew I was not going to be playing or feeling my best. Sometimes during the summer, I allow for those kinds of days to naturally happen.”
But the pull of the POY race grew stronger. There were a bevy of other contenders pushing towards the top. First, it was Scott Bohlman. Then Martin Kabrhel broke through with a win, starting his own charge. And of course, Michael Mizrachi still needed to put his stamp on an incredible summer.
But in the end, there was Deeb. The 2018 POY winner, two-time POY runner-up, and perpetual contender specifically builds his personal schedule around maximizing his chances for the award, often playing multiple events at the same time. Tweaks to the scoring system, including a 10-result cap, were built specifically with Deeb and his volume in mind.
After a summer of close calls, Deeb got exactly what he was looking for in the $100,000 pot-limit Omaha high roller. With that victory, Deeb earned the seventh bracelet of his career and moved past Glaser for the overall lead with just 20 live events to go. Tired or not, Glaser was ready for a final push.
“When I had the space and time for those one or two days off I took it once or twice in the first three or four weeks of the summer,” said Glaser. “I felt like I needed them later in the summer, too, but at that point I just didn’t allow myself to take them, unfortunately, because of the POY chase. And it was really tough. I was not enjoying the last couple of weeks for a lot of reasons. I was just having to play tournaments that I didn’t really want to be playing, like these $800 no-limit tournaments when I’d rather be playing mixed games. It was just not very good for the morale and the mindset, especially when things were not going very well.”
The primary reason for playing the big-field no-limit hold’em events was the way points were awarded. Deeb was especially plugged in when it came to maximizing on every point-scoring opportunity.
“We were communicating semi-frequently, probably every other day,” said Glaser. “There was a bit of a rivalry, but it was mostly good natured. In another way, there was some camaraderie. We’re friendly anyway, and he was even recommending which tournaments I should play for POY, what was just better in terms of the point system. That was something I hadn’t looked into before this year. It’s quite a unique point system for WSOP POY.”
Disaster At The Finish Line
There was something of a bond forged as each player followed a nearly identical schedule trying to scratch out the points to make the final difference. Then, as Glaser made a couple of runs in the last few no-limit events, a misunderstanding of the rules may well have made the difference between first and second.
“There was actually one really sick situation where Shaun informed me incorrectly for something,” said Glaser, “And genuinely, that difference might have cost me the POY race. I was on my second cash of a tournament, and he thought that they would be combined to make an extra point jump. While that had been the rule previously, that wasn’t the case for POY this year. It was just your best score of the two.”
At a moment when he could’ve sat and whittled down his stack, along the lines of trying to survive a money bubble or pay jump, Glaser’s misinformation altered his potential outcome.
“I played it differently, in a way,” said Glaser. “I was trying to gamble harder, because I didn’t think that I needed to make this one point jump for an extra 50 points, basically. I ended up losing POY by 40 points. That was a tough situation, and he was regretful for misinforming me.”
Deeb won by less than 1 percent of their points totals; 4,194.1 points for Deeb, 4,153.66 for Glaser.
Even more disheartening, in the aftermath of the chaotic race, Glaser’s case for being robbed as 2025 POY wasn’t even the loudest complaint from critics in the poker community. Although many had grievances with Deeb’s second POY win, the majority of them centered around Mizrachi, following his wins in the two highest profile events on the schedule. Mizrachi’s fourth career Poker Players Championship and his victory in the main event landed him a distant third in the race.
Ultimately, Glaser finished the 2025 WSOP with 11 live cashes, six online cashes, three bracelets, and four final tables. As much as he appreciated how his summer played out, he was honest about where a triple victory lies in his hierarchy of best possible outcomes.
“Do the specific events in which you win the bracelets matter?” said Glaser. “For example, one PPC title, even if it was just that one bracelet, would be more satisfying and meaningful to me than winning three different ones, as wild as that might sound.”
On top of the disappointment, Glaser felt as run down as he’d ever been at the end of a summer in Las Vegas.
“It was just more extreme. The last three weeks of the series I was forcing myself to play every day and took no days off. So understandably, the aftermath was tougher. It was quite a tough adrenal dump. I was just feeling pretty dead for the last couple of weeks, and afterwards, both physically and mentally. Not really wanting to do much of anything after the series. I basically stayed in Vegas for two weeks after, and did not do very much. I saw some friends, and then went off for a holiday after that, for another week and a half. I ended up mostly just resting there, too.”
There is no discounting how Glaser’s sacrifice was well-earned, regardless of the POY results. With eight career bracelets, every player ahead of Glaser on the all-time list – Hellmuth, Ivey, Brunson, Chan, Seidel, and Moss – is a Poker Hall of Famer. At just 36, if Glaser wants it, he’s a favorite to become the sixth player to reach a double-digit bracelet count.
A Kinder Future
Even before the 2025 WSOP grind, Glaser was contemplating what his coming years in poker might look like.
“The WSOP is still generally my most important time of year,” said Glaser. “I do definitely still keep planning to play it for the foreseeable future, whilst I feel that I’m still somewhat enjoying it, and whilst I’m, of course, still profitable in it. But the capacity in which I will play might start changing. To be honest, that might be the last series where I go as hard as I did. I might start backing off and start playing more casually, give myself some breaks. I need to be a bit kinder to myself.”
Glaser has aspirations of traveling more without a poker event in mind, an experience as far away from the intensity of a final table.
“Everything else goes on the back burner,” said Glaser. “Anything else that you are trying to do in those couple of days, whether it’s related to friends or other tasks, it falls by the wayside. Life gets put on hold for another time when your whole focus is on poker for those two or three days. It’s not in your best interest really, to be focusing on anything else.”
After some time for decompression post-WSOP, Glaser returned to action at EPT Barcelona. He returned from Spain with a spade trophy in his luggage, for winning a €5,200 T.O.R.S.E. during the festival.
The aftertaste of the ending to his summer might take a while to fully fade away. But for all of the tough breaks that happened afterwards, Glaser’s rightly claimed himself a swath of poker history.
“I’m very aware of how big those fields were, and how statistically unlikely it is to happen, winning three times,” said Glaser. “And how amazing of an achievement that is in one summer.”
- Photos by PokerGO – Enrique Malfavon, Miguel Cortes, Antonio Abrego