As incredible as it may sound, it's true - just a few days ago, the all-time winningest player in the WSOP series, Phil Hellmuth, achieved a beautiful feat when he added another one to his incredible 16 bracelets. Today, let's ask ourselves a question - is it possible for anyone to surpass Phil Hellmuth and his 17 WSOP bracelets in his career?
While 17 bracelets is an inherently great achievement, it should be viewed carefully. Hellmuth had a significant advantage when hunting for bracelets. He was one of the first players to obsess over this award back in the days when the fields were smaller and much, much, easier. Phil won nine bracelets before the poker boom, which will never happen again - field sizes were only in the hundreds (sometimes even less). Today, the fields in NLH events, with the exception of High Rollers, are in the order of thousands of entries, and the overall player level is much higher.
Of course, we can't deny him success, because what he was able to do, no one will probably ever be able to repeat. During four decades of the game, Phil cashed a total of 197 times at the WSOP, and appeared at the final table 75 times. Among other things, Phil is also the record holder in second places, as he narrowly missed the bracelet 14 times. Although he won most of the bracelets long ago, back in the days when tens of players played in tournaments, he actually has four pieces of jewelry from tournaments that had 400+ entries (the record is the $1,500 event from 2007, which had 2,628 entries).
So it stands to reason that in order for someone to be able to catch up or even surpass Hellmuth, one has to be relatively young (it will take years) and skilled especially in mixed games where the fields are smaller. A huge plus will be the ability to play High Roller tournaments where only a handful of players meet regularly. Likewise, two facts play in favor of the challengers today. The first is the WSOP Online festival, thanks to which there are more opportunities to get a bracelet in online events, and the second is the WSOPEurope festival, which offers anyone willing to travel outside the US the opportunity to get a bracelet in significantly smaller fields than in Vegas.
When looking at the ranking of bracelets, Phil Ivey automatically comes to mind - he already has 10 bracelets, he is a great player who plays well in all formats, and he is not afraid of the most expensive tournaments. The downside is that Ivey is clearly not chasing bracelets, preferring good cashes, but even though many agree that he could beat Hellmuth, this is clearly not Ivey's goal.
Johnny Chan with ten bracelets and Erik Seidel with nine bracelets fit nicely into our list, but their older age and the associated number of events played play against them. So we have to go further in the table and stop at the three hottest candidates, all of whom have six bracelets - Daniel Negreanu, Brian Hastings and Shaun Deeb.
Negreanu may be the oldest (48 years old), but he's still in good shape and seems to really care about the bracelets. He is not the biggest online grinder, but he does not resist it, he is also happy to turn on Super High Roller tournaments or travel to Europe. Hastings is 34 years old and knows his way around the online game, but he doesn't appear in Super High Rollers often and he also doesn't travel to the WSOPE.
Well, that brings us to the last name, which is Shaun Deeb. According to many, he could be the one who has the hope of dethroning Hellmuth - he is the best online player of this trio (he has 10 COOP titles in all possible formats), he cares about the title of Player of the Year, due to which he always plays the whole festival including the European series. He is still only 37 years old, which means he could have at least 20 years of playing at the highest level ahead of him. He even publicly stated that he wants to surpass Hellmuth and that he cares about this ranking.
Adding to all of this the current weight-loosing bet Deeb made with millionaire Bill Perkins could significantly increase his chances. If Deeb can win this bet, he could return next year healthier, fitter and full of energy ready for a serious grind. What do you think, will we see someone who can dethrone Hellmuth in our lifetimes? If so, who do you think it would be? Let us know in the comments!
Source: PokerStrategy, WSOP, PokerNews
