[LL] “I’ve dreamt of playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event”, Leroy the Lion repeated, “but not even in my craziest fantasies have I considered dropping everything to play in the Big One for One Drop.”

[FF] “You’d have to sell everything you own,” Figaro the Fish commented, “which wouldn’t even be nearly enough in my case.”

[RR] “Even the best pros can’t enter the event at the drop of a hat”, suggested Roderick the Rock. “Most had to line up backers to lower their risk. Even the wealthy businessmen probably needed to shuffle their assets to arrange for a million dollars to enter.”

[FF] “It’s still incredible to me that those rich guys can drop a bundle to enter like it’s just a drop in the bucket to them.”

[LL] “Most of us would struggle just to come up with the deposit, which was $50,000!”

[SS] “Andrew Robl dropped a hint that he would play, but his early confirmation was premature as he dropped out without reserving his spot”, Stan the Stat noted.

[LL] “On the other hand, Bobby Baldwin, Fabian Quoss, and Vivek Rajkumar had promised to play but didn’t, so I think they all lost their deposits. They dropped $50,000, nearly the median household income in the U.S.¹ to not play in a tournament. Quoss was last seen trying to satellite in during the event where Erick Lindgren and Connor Drinan won their seats.”

[RR] “And because the event sold out last time, they increased the cap from 48 players to 56.”

[LL] “Alas, though the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino may have changed its signage to the ‘Dew Drop Inn’, nobody dropped in at the last minute to play, even with late registration open for six hours after the tournament started. That left a field of just 42 players, a drop of six from two years ago.”

[SS] “A little disappointing, but in the end the event still raised nearly five million dollars for the One Drop foundation.”

[RR] “Talk about disappointing… I feel really bad for David Einhorn, who was drop-kicked out of the tournament by Sam Trickett just 45 minutes in! The businessman’s set of Jacks was done in by the 2012 runner-up’s Six-high straight.”

[LL] “No need to shed a single tear drop for Einhorn; he’s a hedge fund manager worth well over a billion dollars.”²

[SS] “It cost him $370 for every second he was in the tournament! But that jumpstarted Trickett on his way to ending Day One with the chip lead.”

[RR] “Which didn’t last long, as he dropped back to the pack on Day Two and was felted in 15th place when his pocket rockets were cracked by Negreanu’s trip Nines.”

[SS] “Then things got slow. With eight places being paid, they tried to play through the bubble on the middle day but eventually gave up with nine players remaining.”

[RR] “When the final day began, Negreanu was knocking people out like drop targets in a pinball game; he eventually ended the hopes of seven other players³, including bubble boy Tom Hall on the very first hand of the day, Cary Katz in 8th place, Scott Seiver in 6th, Tobias Reinkemeier in 5th, and Christoph Vogelsang in 3rd, who all dropped like flies within a few orbits of each other.”

[LL] “Fittingly, Negreanu made it to heads up, in a Duel of the Daniels against 24-year-old Daniel Colman. Colman had the drop on Negreanu with a 68,550,000 to 57,450,000 chip lead, but Kid Poker would grab the lead and soon have two-thirds of the chips.”

[SS] “Then Colman fought back and eventually built a big lead when his Ace-Four rivered a full house. Shortly thereafter, on the 46th heads-up hand, it would be Negreanu’s turn to hold Ace-Four.⁴ His two pairs had the lead on the flop when Colman dropped him to the canvas with a Ten on the turn to fill his inside straight, leaving the Canadian drawing unsuccessfully to four outs for a full house.”

[LL] “The 2014 Big One was definitely good to the last drop.”

[RR] “As much as I was rooting for Negreanu, I’m also happy that Colman won. He’s from Massachusetts, a small town called Holden near Worcester.”

[FF] “Maybe they should rename his home town from Holden to Holdem in his honor!”

[LL] “He wouldn’t want the publicity. He dropped a bombshell after winning by refusing interview requests.”

[SS] “Colman issued a statement⁵ but would just as soon drop out of sight.”

[LL] “Negreanu may have lost the heads-up battle, but he could teach the kid some a thing or two⁶ about handling fame.”

[SS] “Meanwhile, Negreanu’s own big payday moved him to the top of the all-time career tournament earnings list, dropping 2012 winner Antonio Esfandiari into second place.”

[SS] “Some other tidbits:

• Only 17 players from the 2012 event returned in 2014. Five of them cashed the first time and five others the second time.
• Of the ten amateur businessmen who entered the event, three cashed: Rick Salomon (4th), Paul Newey (7th), and Cary Katz (8th).
• Germany was well-represented in the event. Five German pros played, and two cashed (Vogelsang in 3rd and Reinkemeier in 5th).
• The all-time career earnings list is now headed by Negreanu (2nd place in 2014 One Drop) and Esfandiari (1st place in 2012 One Drop). Six of the top ten cashed in one of the two Big Ones (Colman jumped from 267th to 6th and Seiver from 19th to 10th; Trickett remained 5th, and Hellmuth dropped from 6th to 7th).
• While World Series of Poker Main Event champions once dominated the career earnings list, only Hellmuth remains in the Top Ten. Eight former world champs now sit between 11th (Jonathan Duhamel) and 25th (Joe Cada).”⁷

Footnotes:

1. The median annual household income in the U.S. was $51,017 in 2012.
2. David Einhorn’s Wikipedia page says that he was worth $1.25 billion as of March 2013.
3. Daniel Negreanu eliminated three more players than Ivey, Katz, and Salomon (4 each) and four more than Trickett and Colman (3 each).
4. Third place finisher Vogelsang also busted out holding Ace-Four.
5. Colman’s statement is quoted in this CardPlayer article.
6. Negreanu commented at length in his blog (no longer online).
7. The others: Jamie Gold (13th), Joe Hachem (14th), Scotty Nguyen (15th), Carlos Mortensen (18th), Peter Eastgate (20th), and Gregory Merson (21st).

[SS] “Do you two”, began Stan the Stat, addressing Mildred the Mouse and Deb the Duchess, “think it’s sexist that there’s a Ladies event at the WSOP or that we talk about the ‘Last Woman Standing’ in the WSOP Main Event?”

[MM] “No, why would we think that?” Mildred suggested.

[DD] “The topics themselves aren’t sexist, but how you talk about them could be”, added Deb.

[MM] “I’d love to play in a poker tournament with just women. I don’t think I’d have any better chance to win, but it would be more fun.”

[DD] “Yeah, I’m glad they finally figured out a practical and legal way to get those loser men out of the Ladies event.”¹

[MM] “Like ladies’ night at a bar. I’m really surprised they didn’t figure it out sooner.”

[DD] “They’ve had a Women’s World Chess Championship since 1927, and I don’t remember any uproar about sexism there.”

[SS] “What about ‘Last Woman Standing’?”

[MM] “Someone has to be.”

[DD] “Until a woman wins the Main Event, it’s a reasonable thing to discuss. Once it happens, and it will happen, it won’t be very interesting anymore.”

[RR] “I’d even go so far as to say that some company should sponsor a prize for Last Woman Standing”, Roderick the Rock contributed. “If they can have a Jack Links Beef Jerky Wild Card Hand…”

[SS] “There was a Wicked Chops Last Woman Standing Cup, but that only lasted from 2009 to 2011.”

[DD] “Now that is a sexist poker site.² I can see why that didn’t last. How about Go Girl, which sells a device to allow women to pee standing up?” Deb joked.

[RR] “And why isn’t it Last Woman Sitting anyway?”

[SS] “It’s just a twist on an old idiom, unfortunately of unknown origin.”

[RR] “But nobody stands up when they’re playing poker.”

[DD] “A lot of players stand up when they’re all in.”

[RR] “I stand corrected.”

[DD] “Glad to fix your misunderstanding.”

[MM] “I can’t stand any more of this.”

[SS] “Then it’s time for me to stand up and deliver. Here’s every Last Woman Standing and runner-up:”

Last Woman Standing at the WSOP Main Event³

Year	Last Woman	Place	%	2nd to Last Woman	Place	%
1986	Wendeen Eolis	25	17.7%
1993	Marsha Waggoner	19	8.6%	Wendeen Eolis	20	9.1%
1994	Barbara Samuelson	10	3.7%	Annie Duke	26	9.7%
1995	Barbara Enright	5	1.8%
1996	Lucy Rokach	26	8.8%
1997	Marsha Waggoner	12	3.8%
1998	Susie Isaacs	10	2.9%	Kathy Liebert	17	4.9%
2000	Annie Duke	10	2.0%	Kathy Liebert	17	3.3%
2003	Annie Duke	47	5.6%
2004	Rose Richie	98	3.8%	Lucy Rokach	159	6.2%
2005	Tiffany Williamson	15	0.3%	Sarah Bilney	63	1.1%
2006	Sabyl Cohen-Landrum	56	0.6%	Annie Duke	88	1.0%
2007	Maria Ho	38	0.6%	Kelly Jo McGlothlin	95	1.5%
2008	Tiffany Michelle	17	0.2%	Lisa Parsons	76	1.1%
2009	Leo Margets	27	0.4%	Nichoel Peppe	75	1.2%
2010	Breeze Zuckerman	121	1.7%	Dorothy Von Sachsen	273	3.7%
2011	Erika Moutinho	29	0.4%	Amanda Musumeci	62	0.9%
2012	Gaelle Baumann	10	0.2%	Elisabeth Hille	11	0.2%
2013	Jackie Glazier	31	0.5%	Beverly Lange	86	1.4%
2014	Maria Ho4	77	1.2%	Mikiyo Aoki	83	1.2%
2015	Kelly Minkin4	29	0.5%	Diana Svensk	83	1.3%
2016	Gaelle Baumann4	102	1.5%	Melanie Weisner	127	1.9%
2017	Yuan-Yuan Li4	105	1.5%	Jessica Ngu	108	1.5%
2018	Kelly Minkin4	50	0.6%	Natalie Teh	120	1.5%

[SS] “Some notes:

• No women played in the World Series of Poker Main Event until Barbara Freer broke the ice in 1978.
• In 1979, Betty Carey joined Freer, and in 1980 Colette Doherty made it a trio. That year’s field of 73 was 4.1% female, a level that wasn’t surpassed until 2013, when 298 of the 6,352 players (4.7%) were women.
• Wendeen Eolis became the first woman to cash, partly because they went from paying only 9 players out of 140 in 1985 to 36 of 141 in 1986; she only won her entry fee back. There followed a drought of six years before she and Waggoner cashed in 1993 (albeit for just $12,000).
• Enright and Isaacs both won the Ladies World Championship (in Seven-Card Stud) the year before they were the Last Woman Standing, and it was the second title for each (having also won in 1986 and 1996, respectively).
• No women cashed in 1999, 2001, or 2002, which is the last year that will ever be true.
• Annie Duke’s four appearances on this list are the most cashes for any woman in Main Event history, one more than Kathy Liebert (1998, 2000, and 2006), Jackie Glazier (2010, 2012, and 2013), and Kristy Gazes (2009, 2011, and 2013).
• Erika Moutinho outlasted her then-boyfriend Doc Sands by one spot. They got married in 2013.”

[SS] “Barbara Enright’s fifth place finish in 1995 was the highest ever and the only final table for a woman, but as a percentage of the field, Gaelle Baumann’s tenth place finish in 2012 was the best and matched Elisabeth Hille for the largest cash. That gives us three ways to look at the best female results in the Main Event:”

Top Female Main Event Finishes by Place

Rank	Year	Player	Place	Field	%	Prize
1	1995	Barbara Enright	5	273	1.83%	$114,180
2	2012	Gaelle Baumann	10	6,598	0.15%	$590,442
	2000	Annie Duke		512	1.95%	$52,160
	1998	Susie Isaacs		350	2.86%	$40,000
	1994	Barbara Samuelson		268	3.73%	$26,880
6	2012	Elisabeth Hille	11	6,598	0.17%	$590,442
7	1997	Marsha Waggoner	12	312	3.50%	$33,920
8	2005	Tiffany Williamson	15	5,619	0.27%	$400,000
9	2008	Tiffany Michelle	17	6,844	0.25%	$334,534
	2000	Kathy Liebert		512	3.32%	$39,120
	1998			350	4.86%	$30,000

Top Female Main Event Finishes by Percent

Rank	Year	Player	Place	Field	%	Prize
1	2012	Gaelle Baumann	10	6,598	0.15%	$590,442
2	2012	Elisabeth Hille	11	6,598	0.17%	$590,442
3	2008	Tiffany Michelle	17	6,844	0.25%	$334,534
4	2005	Tiffany Williamson	15	5,619	0.27%	$400,000
5	2009	Leo Margets	27	6,494	0.42%4	$352,832
6	2011	Erika Moutinho	29	6,865	0.42%4	$242,636
7	2015	Kelly Minkin	29	6,420	0.45%	$211,821
8	2013	Jackie Glazier	31	6,352	0.49%	$229,281
9	2007	Maria Ho	38	6,358	0.60%	$237,865
10	2006	Sabyl Cohen-Landrum	56	8,773	0.64%	$123,699

Top Female Main Event Finishes by Prize

Rank	Year	Player	Place	Field	%	Prize
1	2012	Gaelle Baumann	10	6,598	0.15%	$590,442
		Elisabeth Hille	11		0.17%
3	2005	Tiffany Williamson	15	5,619	0.27%	$400,000
4	2009	Leo Margets	27	6,494	0.42%	$352,832
5	2008	Tiffany Michelle	17	6,844	0.25%	$334,534
6	2011	Erika Moutinho	29	6,865	0.42%	$242,636
7	2007	Maria Ho	38	6,358	0.60%	$237,865
8	2013	Jackie Glazier	31	6,352	0.49%	$229,281
9	2015	Kelly Minkin	29	6,420	0.45%	$211,821
10	2005	Sarah Bilney	63	5,619	1.12%	$145,875

Footnotes:

1. After all these years, the solution was amazingly simple: make the event a $10,000 buy-in with a 90% discount for women. The Ladies World Championship started as a $100 Seven-Card Stud event in 1977, with the buy-in increasing to $1,000 by 1992. In 2000, the event switched to half stud and half Limit Hold ‘Em. In 2005, the tournament finally became No Limit Hold ‘Em.
2. Wicked Chops Poker’s current tagline is “A daily dose of all things poker + girls”, and the header says, “Poker News, Gossip + Hot Girls”.
3. The Last Woman Standing title is traditionally only bestowed if the player has made the money. The percentage columns are the percent of the field remaining.
4. Table updated on July 13, 2014, as Maria Ho duplicated her 2007 feat and became the third woman to earn the crown twice (after Marsha Waggoner and Annie Duke). Updated July 15, 2015: Kelly Minkin settled for a $211,821 score. Updated July 17, 2016: Gaelle Baumann took home the crown for a second time. Updated July 17, 2017: Yuan-Yuan Li edged Jessica Ngu by just three places. Updated July 15, 2018: Kelly Minkin won her second crown in four years.
5. Margets edged Moutinho out for the fifth spot, 0.416% to 0.422%.

[SS] “You know what else will probably be polarized?”¹ Stan the Stat teased. “The payouts for the Main Event.”

[SS] “Because they decided to guarantee $10,000,000 for first place, a larger percentage of the prize pool goes to a single player. If we’re close to last year’s 6,352 players, it won’t matter much ($1,640,768 more to first at the expense of a little from every other prize). Despite the nearly steady drop from a peak of 8,773 entries in 2006, I think they took a fairly safe marketing gamble. The four-year trend² said that we’d have just over 6,000 players this year, which is safe enough. With the extra attraction of the ten million dollar prize, they may have managed to stop the slide.”

[LL] “But even if the number of players bounces back, we’ll never know why”, Leroy the Lion argued. “It could be because people got their Full Tilt Poker funds back.”

[RR] “Or the economy in general”, Roderick the Rock suggested.

[SS] “True enough. It’s almost impossible to analyze anything with a sample size of one.”

[LL] “And no control to compare against.”

[SS] “At least the winner will be happy! If the field size doesn’t rise or fall, everyone but first place will win 3.3% less, with the places 19 and below being hurt a little less and 2nd to 18th place hurt a little more (16th to 18th get the worst of it at -7.3%).”

[RR] “I don’t like it at all. One player gets more at the expense of every other player who cashes.”

[SS] “But it’s only recently that first place paid so little percentage-wise. Until 1977, the WSOP Main Event was a winner-take-all tournament. For the next eight years, first prize was half of the prize pool. The percentage remained in the forties through 1993, then wandered lower to 25.2% in 2001 before rebounding to 33.7% in 2002 and 32.0% Chris Moneymaker’s year. Only with the following boom in field sizes did first prize drop to just over 20% before ranging from thirteen and fifteen percent ever since.”

First Prize as Percentage of Main Event Prize Pool³

Year	Winner	Prize Pool	1st Prize	%
1971	Johnny Moss	$30,000	$30,000	100.0%
1972	Amarillo Slim Preston	$80,000	$80,000	100.0%
1973	Puggy Pearson	$130,000	$130,000	100.0%
1974	Johnny Moss	$160,000	$160,000	100.0%
1975	Sailor Roberts	$210,000	$210,000	100.0%
1976	Doyle Brunson	$220,000	$220,000	100.0%
1977	Doyle Brunson	$340,000	$340,000	100.0%
1978	Bobby Baldwin	$420,000	$210,000	50.0%
1979	Hal Fowler	$540,000	$270,000	50.0%
1980	Stu Ungar	$730,000	$365,000	50.0%
1981	Stu Ungar	$750,000	$375,000	50.0%
1982	Jack Straus	$1,040,000	$520,000	50.0%
1983	Tom McEvoy	$1,080,000	$540,000	50.0%
1984	Jack Keller	$1,320,000	$660,000	50.0%
1985	Bill Smith	$1,400,000	$700,000	50.0%
1986	Berry Johnston	$1,410,000	$570,000	40.4%
1987	Johnny Chan	$1,520,000	$625,000	41.1%
1988	Johnny Chan	$1,670,000	$700,000	41.9%
1989	Phil Hellmuth, Jr.	$1,780,000	$755,000	42.4%
1990	Mansour Matloubi	$1,940,000	$895,000	46.1%
1991	Brad Daugherty	$2,150,000	$1,000,000	46.5%
1992	Hamid Dastmalchi	$2,010,000	$1,000,000	49.8%
1993	Jim Bechtel	$2,200,000	$1,000,000	45.5%
1994	Russ Hamilton	$2,680,000	$1,000,000	37.3%
1995	Dan Harrington	$2,730,000	$1,000,000	36.6%
1996	Huck Seed	$2,950,000	$1,000,000	33.9%
1997	Stu Ungar	$3,120,000	$1,000,000	32.1%
1998	Scotty Nguyen	$3,500,000	$1,000,000	28.6%
1999	Noel Furlong	$3,930,000	$1,000,000	25.4%
2000	Chris Ferguson	$5,120,000	$1,500,000	29.3%
2001	Carlos Mortensen	$5,946,100	$1,500,000	25.2%
2002	Robert Varkonyi	$5,936,400	$2,000,000	33.7%
2003	Chris Moneymaker	$7,802,700	$2,500,000	32.0%
2004	Greg Raymer	$24,229,400	$5,000,000	20.6%
2005	Joe Hachem	$52,818,610	$7,500,000	14.2%
2006	Jamie Gold	$82,512,162	$12,000,000	14.5%
2007	Jerry Yang	$59,784,954	$8,250,000	13.8%
2008	Peter Eastgate	$64,333,600	$9,152,416	14.2%
2009	Joe Cada	$61,043,600	$8,546,435	14.0%
2010	Jonathan Duhamel	$68,799,059	$8,944,310	13.0%
2011	Pius Heinz	$64,531,000	$8,715,638	13.5%
2012	Greg Merson	$62,021,200	$8,527,982	13.8%
2013	Ryan Riess	$59,708,800	$8,359,531	14.0%
2014	?	$59,708,800	$10,000,000	16.7%

[SS] “With 6,352 players, the winner would take home one-sixth of the prize pool. It would take a major jump to 7,000 entries for the winner to get just 15% of the prize pool, which would be the highest in the last decade but still lower than every year before that. On the other hand, the field would have to drop to an unlikely low of 5,200 players for the winner to take over 20%.”

[SS] “Doesn’t look so bad when you put it in historical context now, does it?”

[RR] “I guess we’re just going to have to live with our polarized opinions on this.”

Footnotes:

1. See the previous discussion on the 2014 WSOP Schedule, with its polarized buyins.
2. Main Event entries from 2010 to 2013: 7,319, 6,865, 6,598, and 6,352.
3. In 1970, the first year of the WSOP, Johnny Moss was given a silver cup and got to keep his winnings from playing. The 2014 prize pool and 1st place percentage are hypothetical based on 6,352 entries.

[SS] “Speaking of streakers. I don’t think there’s ever been one at the Major League Baseball World Series¹, but there was one at the 2008 College Baseball World Series. I wonder if anyone’s ever done it at the World Series of Poker?”

[LL] “Plenty of people have lost their shirts playing poker.”

[RR] “I’ve lost way more than my shirt playing strip poker.”

[LL] “So glad I wasn’t there to see that.”

[SS] “Poker may not be famous for streakers, GoldenPalace.com notwithstanding,² but here are a few Hold ‘Em players famous for their Main Event streaks.”

Consecutive WSOP Main Event Wins

[SS] “I already mentioned this; four players have won the Main Event in consecutive years: Johnny Moss (1970-71), Doyle Brunson (1976-77), Stu Ungar (1980-81), and Johnny Chan (1987-88). Obviously, Ryan Riess can join them this year, which would be a phenomenally more impressive achievement.”

Consecutive WSOP Main Event Final Tables

[SS] “Technically, lots of players reached multiple consecutive final tables in the early years of the event, but let’s be stricter and restrict this list to the winners until 1977 (when the event was winner-take-all), the top five from 1978 to 1980 (when only the top five cashed), the top six from 1981 to 2000, and the top nine since 2001 (when the final table expanded from six to nine players).”

[SS] “Under these rules, only Jesse Alto (1984-86) and Johnny Chan (1987-89) have reached three consecutive final tables. Seven players have reached back-to-back final tables: Berry Johnston (1985-86), Bill Smith (1985-86), Dan Harrington (2003-04), Doyle Brunson (1976-77 and 1982-83), Jay Heimowitz (1980-81), Johnny Moss (1970-71 and 1979-80), and Stu Ungar (1980-81). Ryan Riess and the other 2013 November Niners can become the first to repeat since Harrington in 2004.”

Update: July 15, 2014

Mark Newhouse made the 2014 November Nine to join this list of Final Table repeaters. His impressive back-to-back runs were in fields of 6,352 and 6,683 players.

Consecutive WSOP Main Event Cashes

[SS] “Ronnie Bardah set a new record by cashing in his fifth consecutive Main Event in 2014.³ Six players have cashed in four in a row: Robert Turner (1991-94; 6th in 1994), Bo Sehlstedt (2004-07), Theodore Park (2005-08), Chris Bjorin (2008-11), Diogo Borges (2008-11), and Christian Harder (2010-13). Only 34 players have cashed more than four times in their entire careers (41 more have cashed exactly four times).⁴”

Consecutive WSOP Main Event Tournaments Played

[SS] “Howard Andrew has played in 40 consecutive Main Events (since 1974), which is also tied with Doyle Brunson for the most Main Events total (every year since 1971 except 1999-2001; Brunson also played in 1970 when there was no Main Event per se).”

Footnotes:

1. Even Morganna, the Kissing Bandit, never crashed the World Series; she was arrested after jumping onto the field at an All-Star game, however.
2. Online poker site GoldenPalace.com ran a streaker marketing campaign and stayed in the news in early to mid 2000s by purchasing various random items at auctions.
3. Updated on July 11, 2014, when Bardah reached the final 693 players. {July 9, 2015: He failed to cash in 2015.}
4. See the Hendon Mob’s career cashes list. Bjorin is tied for 5th place with seven. Bardah and Harder are incorrectly listed with just three cashes, however [before the 2014 Main Event].

Related Links:

• Wikipedia’s World Series of Poker has a records section, but it’s missing most of the cash streaks.