The Milestones and History Within Reach at the 2024 WSOP (2024)

The 2024 World Series of Poker is right around the corner and for players and fans alike, the series brings another opportunity to take part and witness something great in the world of poker. Headed into its 55th year, the history that has been made at the WSOP has made it one of the tentpole institutions of the poker industry. From Brunson to Ungar to Moneymaker and the boom, every summer is seemingly a new chapter of poker greatness ready to be written with major milestones in the reach of some of the game’s most famous names.

When talking about the players who have the potential to make poker history, the WSOP’s list starts with Phil Hellmuth. The current all-time WSOP bracelet record holder with 17 bracelets is the only player who, conceivably, for the next stretch of time realistically, will be able to instantly make history by adding to his record with an 18th (or more) gold bracelet. For all of the undermining Hellmuth receives in the public about how he fares in the modern era of poker, it should be noted that since The Raw Deal host reached double-digit bracelet wins in 2006, he has consistently added to his total by locking up a bracelet victory on an average of every two years, including his 17th that took place last year in the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty for a career Top 5 score of more than $800,000.

2024 marks the 35th anniversary of Hellmuth’s Main Event victory and he continues to perform as one of the most active players of his generation. Just last year Hellmuth cashed 13 times for more than $1.1 million, helping him surpass 2014 Big One for One Drop winner Daniel Coleman on the WSOP’s All-Time Earnings List for third place. It’s the same position he sits in all-time WSOP cashes. While even the most ambitious projections of Hellmuth’s 2024 results wouldn’t see him climbing into the #2 spot on either list, he is just $111,660 shy of eclipsing $18 million and would be only the third player to ever do so.

One of those players who already has that feat under his belt is Daniel Negreanu. Like Hellmuth, Negreanu’s name is synonymous with the WSOP and in 2024 he has multiple opportunities to make a historic impact. Negreanu leads the WSOP All-Time Cashes list with 244 in-the-money finishes, just 5 more than his closest competition – Roland Israelashvili. Both players are on the precipice of recording 250 cashes and both are likely to play ambitious schedules. While nothing in this game is assured, you can count on one or both soaring past that new landmark number this year.

Negreanu though is chasing down a far more important record – the top of the WSOP’s All-Time Earnings List. Antonio Esfandiari has been the WSOP All-Time Earnings king since his 2012 victory in the original Big One For One Drop for $18.3 million, a list-skewing win for sure, but official nonetheless. However, The Magician has been seen at the WSOP less and less in recent years and has only cashed sparingly in bracelet events since 2016. In fact, his last recorded WSOP score came in 2019. During that time, Negreanu has been in the thick of it year in and year out. Grinding, vlogging, earning. And now, the guy who arguably loves the WSOP more than anyone is just $663,290 from passing Esfandiari to become the top dog of the Series himself. Of course, winning more than $600K in any year would be monumental for most, but Negreanu is likely to carve out more than $1 million in potential buy-ins giving him ample opportunity to make something seriously significant happen. He has proved in years past that he knows how to run deep in high rollers where a single score could put him over the top.

It had been nearly 10 years since a player joined the 10-bracelet club before Erik Seidel took down the $50,000 High Roller at WSOP Paradise for more than $1.7 million in 2023. Seidel now joins Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, the late Doyle Brunson, and Phil Hellmuth as the handful of players to ever hit this prestigious double-digit mark. And, simply due to volume of events played, Seidel may be the odds-on favorite to be the be the first player since 2007 to surpass it. In recent years Seidel hasn’t gone crazy at the summer series, but he’s certainly been more consistent than Ivey or Chan, and he, like the others, is proficient in all of the games. With finally another player in the mix, the threat of someone other than Hellmuth breaking out of the 10-time club just went up.

When it comes to milestone bracelets, the next look ahead is to who may be the next player(s) to rocket up the leaderboard. This year’s WSOP has 99 live events and an as yet undetermined amount of online bracelet events – which whether or not they carry the same weight in the minds of the public – all count on the official stats.

The stockpile of talent who have reached six bracelets is begging to be broken up this year with the likes of Shaun Deeb, Brian Rast, Brian Hastings, Jeremy Ausmus, Josh Arieh and Daniel Negreanu among those players putting in the amount of volume that makes it so any given tournament might just be the one in which one of these notables will take their record to the next level. With as many bracelet events as there are in any given year – WSOP, online, WSOP Europe, and possibly more – it very likely won’t take another ten years before the next player to reaches ten bracelets. It could be in half that time, or decidedly less, if someone goes on a run like Ausmus has since 2021. Ausmus won his first bracelet in 2013 and had to wait until 2021 to win his second. Since then, he’s picked up a total of five bracelets in two calendar years and lifted his resume to the point of getting a nomination to the Poker Hall of Fame in 2023.

It’s not just that “group of six” that you should keep your eye on. With that same overload of opportunities in the modern WSOP, you need to watch some of the grinders with five bracelets including Brian Yoon, Adam Friedman, and Benny Glaser all of whom are knocking on the doorstep of not just their own personal history but joining the climb to 10 in earnest.

One step down and there are 34 players with four bracelets to their name and the list includes a who’s who of modern poker greatness. Nick Schulman, David Peters, Calvin Anderson, Ben Yu, Julien Martini, Dominik Nitsche, Kevin Gerhart, and Adrian Mateos are among this group of grinders. Almost all of these players can be found firing in both the live and online WSOP series during the summer as much as anyone. This group of players, many of whom either have or are building a case for a nomination to the Poker Hall of Fame when they reach the age requirement, are setting a new floor for what kind of resume is needed to be considered to be considered elite at the WSOP.

Like Negreanu, Maria Ho is one score away from taking a hard-earned title: WSOP Women’s All-Time Earnings list leader. With $2,255,433 in WSOP earnings, Ho is $524,304 behind China’s Wenling Gao who sits at the top of the list with $2,779,737 in earnings. Gao has only three WSOP cashes lifetime, all online, with the first being her runner-up finish in the 2020 International Main Event for $2,748,605. For Ho to reach that milestone, she needs the equivalent of her current career-high score. In 2023, with both the summer series and WSOP Paradise combined, Ho picked up $295,879 in earnings. If she lands that WSOP bracelet she’s been chasing for a while, perhaps the payday that comes along with it will help her hit the mark.

In addition, both Ho and poker legend JJ Liu sit with 87 WSOP cashes. With the volume the pair regularly play, one, if not both, has the opportunity to join Kathy Liebert as the only women to reach the 100-WSOP cash mark. Liebert is the current all-time cashes leader with 109, reaching the century mark last year in the $1,000 Mystery Millions.

When it comes to the record books for WSOP Player of the Year, only two people really have the opportunity for unprecedented history. Daniel Negreanu, as the only two-time winner, will potentially be chasing a third Player of the Year. He did discuss at the beginning of the year that he’s going for more of a “quality over quantity” approach at this year’s WSOP, which may leave him watching the Player of the Year race from afar. But if, by chance, Negreanu gets off to a fast start, one should expect his desire to put another POY title on his resume to come to the forefront.

There are plenty of players who would love to join Negreanu as two-time POY winners, but only Ian Matakis, as the reigning, defending Player of the Year has the opportunity to do so in back-to-back fashion. Whereas Negreanu has said he’s not gunning for it this year, Matakis has said he does, in fact, have plans to give it another shot in 2024.