Category Archives: WPT

WPT Career Records

[RR] “What about career WPT records?” Roderick the Rock inquired.

[SS] “Here you go”, Stan the Stat offered. “The current1 Top Ten for Career Player of the Year Points, Career Earnings, Tournaments Played, Cashes, Final Tables, Wins, Cash Rate, Final Table Rate, Win Rate, and Earnings Per Event, with rate statistics requiring a minimum of 30 events.”2

WPT Career Player of the Year Points

Rank Player POY Points
1 Daniel Negreanu 6,100
2 Antonio Esfandiari 5,650
3 Gus Hansen 5,300
4 Phil Ivey 5,250
5 Erick Lindgren 4,850
6 Carlos Mortensen 4,750
7 Hoyt Corkins 4,675
8 Michael Mizrachi 4,450
9 Jonathan Little 4,400
10 David Pham 4,300

[SS] “I know they changed how POY points are tabulated along the way, but the totals are still an interesting career scoreboard. Esfandiari is very highly ranked (2nd) compared to his career earnings (18th). Lindgren (5th) is also relatively high (15th in earnings).”

WPT Career Earnings

Rank Player Earnings
1 Carlos Mortensen $6,733,506
2 Daniel Negreanu $5,743,899
3 Michael Mizrachi $4,667,683
4 Tuan Le $4,514,063
5 Gus Hansen $4,110,801
6 Alan Goehring $3,942,344
7 Joseph Bartholdi $3,760,165
8 Jonathan Little $3,714,750
9 David Chiu $3,680,511
10 Nick Schulman $3,548,956

[SS] “Mizrachi and Negreanu are the only two who are also currently in the Top 20 in World Series of Poker earnings, at #14 ($7,339,923) and #15 ($6,851,500), respectively. Along with Phil Ivey, Mortensen, J.C. Tran, Chiu, and Erick Lindgren, they’re the only seven players who have won three million dollars on both the WPT and WSOP (Antonio Esfandiari and David Williams are each one medium WPT cash short). Esfandiari, of course, leads the combined earnings list by far because of his $18,346,673 Big One for One Drop win in 2012, with Phil Hellmuth, Negreanu, Jamie Gold, and Mizrachi rounding out the Top 5.

A total of sixteen players have won over three million dollars on the WPT, 42 over two million, and 158 at least one million.”

WPT Tournaments Played

Rank Player Events
1 Kathy Liebert 124
2 Erik Seidel 118
3 Barry Greenstein 117
4 Allen Kessler 114
5 Lee Markholt 110
6 Daniel Negreanu 105
Steve Brecher
8 John Juanda 102
Curt Kohlberg
10 Gavin Smith 99

[SS] “A total of 206 WPT events have been held through Season XII, so Liebert has played in just over sixty percent of them. Season I had the fewest events, 11, while Season XI had the most, 24. Four events have been held every season: the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, the Legends of Poker, the L.A. Poker Classic, and the WPT World Championship. Three missed only the first season: the Borgata Poker Open, Grand Prix de Paris, and Bay 101 Shooting Star. One lasted through the first ten seasons: the World Poker Finals.”

WPT Cashes

Rank Player Cashes
1 Lee Markholt 24
2 Erik Seidel 20
Barry Greenstein
Allen Kessler
Jonathan Little
6 Daniel Negreanu 19
John Juanda
Hoyt Corkins
9 Kathy Liebert 18
Erick Lindgren
Carlos Mortensen

WPT Final Tables

Rank Player Final Tables
1 Phil Ivey 9
2 Scotty Nguyen 8
3 Daniel Negreanu 7
David Pham
Gus Hansen
6 John Juanda 6
Hoyt Corkins
Kathy Liebert
Erick Lindgren
Nam Le
J.C. Tran
Antonio Esfandiari

WPT Titles

[SS] “Darren Elias is the only player to win four events.3 Hansen, Mortensen, Rheem, and Zinno have each won three, while 19 players have won two: Mohsin Charania, Cimpan, Scott Clements, Corkins, Freddy Deeb, Esfandiari, Randal Flowers, Giannetti, Goehring, Greenstein, Le, Lederer, Lindgren, Little, Mizrachi, Negreanu, Rettenmaier, Tran, and Vedes.

Ten players have won multiple WPT titles and multiple World Series of Poker bracelets: Corkins, Deeb, Esfandiari, Greenstein, Lederer, Lindgren, Mizrachi, Mortensen, Negreanu, and Tran.4

No woman has won an open event, although Van Nguyen took down the 2006 WPT Invitational charity event.

{ February 15, 2017 update: Canada’s own Ema Zajmovic captured the 2017 WPT Playground Main Event in Kahnawake, Quebec to etch her name in the record books and take home $200,769. }”

WPT Cash Rate

Rank Player Cash %
1 Joe Serock 34.1%
2 Vivek Rajkumar 32.3%
3 Mohsin Charania 31.8%
4 Byron Kaverman 31.4%
5 Matt Salsberg 29.4%
6 Dave Ulliott 27.0%
7 Christian Harder 26.2%
8 Keven Stammen 25.7%
9 Nenad Medic 25.4%
10 Justin Young 25.0%
Roy Winston

[SS] “Joe Hachem has cashed in 42.9% of the 21 events he’s played and Abraham Gray in 56.3% of 16.”

WPT Final Table Rate3

Rank Player Final Table %
1 Gus Hansen 14.9%
2 Marvin Rettenmaier 10.5%
3 Phil Ivey 10.3%
4 Vivek Rajkumar 9.7%
5 Scotty Nguyen 9.3%
6 Matt Salsberg 8.8%
7 Ted Forrest 8.6%
8 Byron Kaverman 8.6%
Keven Stammen
10 Humberto Brenes 8.3%
Tommy Vedes

[SS] “Jared Jaffee has final tabled 16.0% of the 25 events he’s played; if he goes 0-for-his-next-5 that only drops to 13.3%, which would rank him second. Alessio Isaia has final tabled 27.3% of 11.”

WPT Win Rate3

Rank Player Win %
1 Gus Hansen 6.4%
2 Tommy Vedes 5.6%
3 Marvin Rettenmaier 5.3%
4 Cornel Cimpan 5.1%
5 Chino Rheem 4.5%
6 Carlos Mortensen 4.1%
7 Matt Giannetti 3.8%
8 Howard Lederer 3.4%
9 Vivek Rajkumar 3.2%
10 Roy Winston 3.1%
Eric Hershler
Tuan Le

[SS] “Jordan Cristos has two victories in 18 events (11.1%), so if he played in a dozen more events without winning, he’d still be at 6.7%, which would rank first. Likewise, Randal Flowers has two victories in 21 events (9.5%).”

WPT Earnings Per Event3

Rank Player Average Earnings
1 Vivek Rajkumar $93,627.13
2 Eric Hershler $88,667.44
3 Carlos Mortensen $88,328.22
4 Gus Hansen $86,208.13
5 Martin de Knijff $79,680.62
6 Tuan Le $70,532.23
7 Cornel Cimpan $67,431.51
8 David Chiu $63,315.10
9 Elky Grospellier $61,995.24
10 Chino Rheem $61,850.75

[SS] “Vanessa Selbst is the top woman, at $30,570.10. Joseph Bartholdi has an average of $170,916.59 in 22 events. If he failed to cash in his next eight events, that would only drop to $125,338.83, which would rank first. Yevgeniy Timoshenko has an average of $77,398.14 in 29 events, which would drop to $74,818.20, good for sixth.”

[LL] “Just…” {counting on fingers} “ten lists?” Leroy the Lion teased.

[SS] “I have some others that I didn’t think were interesting enough. Here are some of the leaders though:”

  • Highest Career Earnings Without a Final Table: Glenn Lafaye, $721,378 (Jimmy Tran, $718,056)5
  • Highest Career Earnings Without a Title: Hasan Habib, $2,750,597 (David Pham, $2,355,611)
  • Most Tournaments Without a Cash: Narendra Banwari, 39 (Juan Mortenson, 27)
  • Most Tournaments Without a Final Table: Tony Cousineau, 100 (Tom McCormick, 88)
  • Most Tournaments Without a Title: Kathy Liebert, 124 (Allen Kessler, 114)
  • Most Cashes Without a Final Table: Casey Kastle, 18 (Jimmy Tran, 15)
  • Most Cashes Without a Title: Allen Kessler, 20 (John Juanda, 19)
  • Most Final Tables Without a Title: David Pham, 7 (Kathy Liebert and John Juanda, 6)
  • Most Consecutive Cashes: Daniel Negreanu and Kirk Morrison, 4 (both in 2007)

Footnotes:

  1. Data is updated through the end of Season XII (April 2014). For the latest midseason information, see the official WPT Career Stats. {May 5, 2015: Sorry, this doesn’t seem to be updated anymore.}
  2. The 30-event minimum comes from Daniel Negreanu, who tabulated some of these numbers in 2009 but doesn’t seem to have kept his data up to date.

    Career Player of the Year Points only tabulated through Season XII, as the system changed for Season XIII to use data from the Global Poker Index.

  3. Anthony Zinno became the third three-time WPT winner on March 9, 2015. Amazingly, he’s never reached a WPT final table he didn’t win, taking down his third title in one fewer final table than Mortensen and Hansen. Zinno also joined Darren Elias and Marvin Rettenmaier as the only players to win consecutive events, and jumps to the top of the WPT Final Table Rate and Win Rate boards (both 18.75% [3 out of 16]) as well as the Earnings Per Event rankings.

    { April 21, 2016 Update: Chino Rheem became the fourth player to win three WPT Main Events by defeating 341 opponents in the Seminole Hard Rock finale, earning $705,885. }

    { February 25, 2017 Update: Darren Elias became the fifth player to win three WPT Main Events by defeating 488 opponents in the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event, earning $335,436. }

    { May 23, 2018 Update: Darren Elias became the first player to win four WPT Main Events by defeating 161 opponents in the inaugural Bobby Baldwin Classic, earning $387,580. }

  4. J.C. Tran became the tenth member of the double-multiple list on March 15, 2014. 55 players have won at least one WPT and one WSOP title.
  5. Lafaye and Tran have played in 2 and 71 events respectively.

    The official site lists Chris Moorman with no cashes at the same time it says he won the 2014 L.A. Poker Classic. The latter is the truth. Daniel Perper’s stats are also inconsistent. The WPT has been contacted about these discrepancies.

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WPT World Championships


[RR] “So what kind of World Poker Tour lists do you have?” Roderick the Rock asked Stan the Stat.

[SS] “Well, since the WPT World Championship was just last week, let’s start with that”, Stan replied. “Congratulations to Keven Stammen for joining the list of champions. In 2009, he had captured the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em at the World Series of Poker for over half a million dollars, but this was by far the biggest win of the Buckeye’s eight-year tournament career.”

[LL] “Do you know why Ohio residents are called Buckeyes?” Leroy the Lion interjected.

[SS] “It’s a local tree, right?”

[LL] “Yes, the Ohio buckeye tree, which is related to a variety of horse chestnut trees. The Ohio buckeye is smaller, so I guess it resembles a deer’s eye more than a horse’s. But while horse chestnuts are edible, buckeyes are poisonous!”1

[RR] “Especially to University of Michigan fans…”

WPT World Championship Winners2

Season Winner Prize Entrants Cashed Runner-Up
1 Alan Goehring $1,011,886 111 28 Kirill Gerasimov
2 Martin De Knijff $2,728,356 343 50 Hasan Habib
3 Tuan Le $2,856,150 453 100 Paul Maxfield
4 Joe Bartholdi $3,760,165 605 100 Davidson Matthew
5 Carlos Mortensen $3,970,415 639 100 Kirk Morrison
6 David Chiu $3,389,140 545 100 Gus Hansen
7 Yevgeniy Timoshenko $2,143,655 338 50 Ran Azor
8 David Williams $1,530,537 195 18 Eric Baldwin
9 Scott Seiver $1,618,344 220 27 Farzad Bonyadi
10 Marvin Rettenmaier $1,196,858 152 18 Philippe Ktorza
11 David Rheem $1,150,297 146 15 Erick Lindgren
12 Keven Stammen $1,350,000 328 36 Byron Kaverman
13 Asher Conniff $973,683 239 27 Alexander Lakhov

[SS] “Some interesting factoids from the event:”

  • Only two players have reached more than one WPT World Championship final table (last six players); Hasin Habib finished 2nd in Season II and 3rd in Season III, while Phil Ivey finished 3rd in Season I and 6th in Season III. Justin Young and Scotty Nguyen came very close, both finishing 6th (Season IX and Season VI) and 8th (Season VII and Season VIII).3
  • Carlos Mortensen is the only player who has won both the World Series of Poker Main Event (2001) and the WPT World Championship (2007). Alan Goehring and David Williams both just missed; each won the WPT World Championship (2003 and 2010, respectively) and finished second at the WSOP Main Event (1999 and 2004). David Rheem final tabled the 2008 WSOP Main Event (7th place) then won the 2013 WPT World Championship. Doyle Brunson won the WSOP Main Event in 1976 and 1977 and placed 4th in the first WPT World Championship in 2003. Scotty Nguyen won the WSOP Main Event in 1998 and was the first to bust from the 2009 WPT World Championship final table.
  • Nine players have cashed four times: David Grey (III, IV, VI, VIII), David Williams (III, IV, VIII [1st], IX [14th]), Jeff Shulman (I, II, III, VI [all in top 20 except II]), Jennifer Harman (II, III, IV, VII [11th]), Jimmy Tran (I [12th], III, V [10th], VII), Justin Young (V, VII [8th], IX [6th], XII [15th]), Matthew Hyman (VI, VII, IX, XI [4th]), Phil Hellmuth (I, IV, V [18th], VIII [7th]), and Ross Boatman (II, IV, V, VII [all in Top 20 except V]).
  • Fifteen other players have cashed three times: Billy Baxter (IV, VI, VIII [5th]), Bob Stupak (III, V, VI), Daniel Negreanu (II, VI, XI [7th]), David Kim (II, IV, VI), Doyle Brunson (I [4th], IV, IX), Farzad Bonyadi (VII, IX [2nd], X), Johan Storakers (III, IV, V), Kenny Tran (IV, VI [10th], IX), Martin De Knijff (I [15th], II [1st], VI), Mikael Thuritz (IV, V, VI), Phil Ivey (I [3rd], III [6th], VII), Shawn Buchanan (IV, V, VIII [3rd]), Surinder Sunar (I, III, IV), Thomas Wahlroos (IV, V [7th], VI), and Tom McCormick (VI, IX [18th], X [14th]).4
  • Four of those players cashed in three consecutive years: Shulman (I-III), Harman (II-IV), Thuritz (IV-VI), and Wahlroos (IV-VI).

[SS] “The WPT World Championship ends the WPT season. Here are the hands that ended each of the championships.”

WPT World Championship Final Hands

Season Winner Hand Value Runner-Up Hand Value Board
1 Alan Goehring 8♥5♦ Full house,
8s over 5s
Kirill Gerasimov 8♦6♠ Straight,
8-high
4♦5♥8♣7♦8♠
2 Martin De Knijff T♠T♦ Pair of Tens Hasan Habib A♣5♣ Pair of 5s 4♥5♥2♣Q♦7♠
3 Tuan Le K♦J♦ Pair of Jacks Paul Maxfield K♠5♦ King-high J♥T♥3♠Q♥7♥
4 Joe Bartholdi 9♦5♥ Two Pairs,
Aces over 9s
Davidson Matthew T♥4♥ Pair of Aces A♥9♣8♥2♦A♦
5 Carlos Mortensen K♥J♥ Two Pairs,
Jacks over 3s
Kirk Morrison A♠4♦ Two Pairs,
4s over 3s
7♣4♥3♣J♣3♦
6 David Chiu A♠9♠ Three Aces Gus Hansen T♠8♥ Two Pairs,
Aces over Tens
A♣T♣8♠5♠A♥
7 Yevgeniy Timoshenko A♠3♣ Straight,
Ace-high
Ran Azor Q♣T♦ Two Pairs,
Queens over Tens
Q♠J♠7♦K♣T♠
8 David Williams 2♦2♣ Three 2s Eric Baldwin A♥5♥ Pair of Aces A♦7♣6♠2♥4♣
9 Scott Seiver J♠9♦ Straight,
King-high
Farzad Bonyadi Q♠T♥ Two Pairs,
Queens over Tens
T♣6♦2♠Q♣K♠
10 Marvin Rettenmaier K♠K♣ Two Pairs,
Aces over Kings
Philippe Ktorza J♥J♦ Two Pairs,
Aces over Jacks
A♠9♦3♣T♣A♥
11 David Rheem K♦9♣ Ace-high,
King kicker
Erick Lindgren Q♦9♦ Ace-high,
Queen kicker
A♣J♣4♥3♥8♠
12 Keven Stammen A♣8♠ Pair of Aces Byron Kaverman 4♠4♦ Pair of 4s Q♥9♣6♣3♥A♥
13 Asher Conniff A♠Q♥ Ace-high Alexander Lakhov T♥6♥ King-high 7♥5♦2♠4♠K♠

[SS] “Some final hand notes:”

  • The money has gone all-in before the flop every year except Seasons I and IV (flop), VI (turn), and IX (river).
  • 2014 marked the fifth time in the twelve years that the champion has rivered the winning hand, all with eight or fewer outs; Season I: Goehring filled his boat (3 outs), VI: Chiu hit a third Ace (8 outs, as he also could have hit a higher two-pair), VII: Timoshenko hit an inside straight (3 outs), IX: Seiver hit an open-ended straight (8 outs), and XII: Stammen rivered a higher pair (6 outs).
  • The best winning hand and the best losing hand were both in the first season, when Goehring’s boat overcame Gerasimov’s straight.
  • The worst winning hand was Rheem’s Ace-high in Season XI, when he outkicked Lindgren’s Ace-high, which was the second worst losing hand behind only Maxfield’s King-high in Season III.4
  • A flush has never appeared in the final hand (despite four hearts on the board in Season III).

Footnotes:

  1. See this eHow article about the difference between buckeyes and horse chestnuts.
  2. In 2014, the event moved from Las Vegas’s Bellagio to Atlantic City’s Borgata, and the buyin was reduced from $25,000 to $15,000. That’s why the number of entries more than doubled while the payouts barely increased. Also known as the 2014 Borgata Spring Poker Open, the event promised five million dollars in payouts guaranteed, but Poker News reported only $4,852,400 while listing 36 prizes totaling $4,892,254. Where did the other hundred-plus thousand dollars go?

    The event was known as the WPT Championship for the first eight seasons.

    April 30, 2015 update: Asher Conniff won the Season XIII WPT World Championship.

  3. Two players joined this list in 2015. Carlos Mortensen added a 4th place finish to his Season V victory, while Tony Dunst joined Hasan Habib as the only back-to-back final tablists, finishing 6th this year and 3rd last year.
  4. Alexander Lakhov’s King-high, Ten kicker in 2015 is now the worst losing hand as Maxfield had a Queen kicker in 2005.
  5. Carlos Mortensen added his third WPT World Championship cash in 2015.

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