The second week of the 2025 WSOP included a couple of big events and major milestones. English pro and mixed-game specialist Benny Glasser secured his sixth WSOP bracelet and joined the Six-Timers Club when he shipped Event #8 $1,500 Dealer's Choice for $150,246. Brad Ruben won his fifth bracelet in five years when he took down Event #12 $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw. Fan-favorite Daniel Negreanu had a shot at winning bracelet #8 in Event #9 $10,000 Omaha 8 Championship, but he'd finish in second place after losing to Ryan Bambrick heads up. Artur Martirosian secured his third bracelet with a victory in Event #7 $25,000 Heads Up Championship when he picked off Aliaksei Boika for $500,000. Michael Wilklow banked a cool million by outlasting 19,654 players to win Event #1 $1,000 Mystery Millions.
The 2025 WSOP is still kind of fresh at the start of the second week of action in Las Vegas. There's no shortage of complaints about logistics and dealers and other issues -- both small and large, new and evergreen -- that have plagued this year's WSOP at the Paris and Horseshoe Casino on the Strip. But there's also still a bit of excitement for many players before the life and soul gets sucked out of Sin City. Yet, there was still a lot of buzz, excitement, and a little bit of history going down. Mixed-game guru Benny Glasser won his first bracelet only ten years ago in 2015, and he's now racked up six pieces of bling in a decade. He was a double-winner in 2016 when he shipped two Omaha 8 titles. He joined the Five-Time Bracelet Club in 2023 and now he's among a special group of 26 players who won six or more bracelets.
WSOP Event #8 $1,500 Dealer's Choice attracted 597 runners. The prize pool was $792,518 and the top 90 places paid out. The final table included Benny Glaser, Matthew Schreiber, Andrew Park, Scott Bohlman, Scott Jacewiczokelly, and Stephen O'Dwyer (California's S-O'D). Among the familiar faces who cashed in this dealer's choice affair included... Eric Baldwin, Justin Liberto, Daniel Zack, Adam Owen, Nathan Gamble, Chris Vitch, Allan Le, Tomasz Gluszko, Shawn Buchanan, Andres Korn, Brad Ruben, Naoya Kihara, Owais Ahmed, Dylan Smith, Mike Leah, Andrey Zaichnko, Noah Bronstein, David Prociak, Jason Gola, Yuval Bronshtein, Matt Vengrin, Jon Turner, Andrey Zhigalov, Dennis Eichhorn, Carol Fuchs, and Dzmitry Urbanovich.
Glasser and Matthew Schreiber were heads up for the bling, but Glasser was the last one standing. He banked $150,246 and slapped a sixth gold bracelet around his wrist.
At the start of the 2025 WSOP, only 25 players won six or more bracelets. Glasser becomes the 26th player in history with six. He joins a group of 15 players who currently have with six. Glasser won bracelets in five different events and none of them were exclusively NLH. Three of them were $10,000 buy-in Championship events. His first bling was Triple Draw Lowball, then he won back-to-back Omaha 8 bracelets, a Razz, a Deuce to Seven Triple Draw, and now a Dealer's Choice.
WSOP Event #9 $10,000 Omaha 8 Championship attracted 217 entrants and a prize pool worth $2,018,100. Only the top 33 places earned a piece of the pie. With 20 to go, Daniel Negreanu held the chip lead while gunning for bracelet #8. Play was suspended with five remaining. Viktor Blom held the lead with 4M and Negreanu was third in chips with 3.2M. Blom busted in fourth, Ofir Mor went out in third which set up a heads-up joust between Ryan Bambrick and Daniel Negreanu. Bamrick held an edge when heads up began and he denied Negreanu a bracelet. Bambrick won his second piece of hardware and banked $470,437 for first place.
WSOP Event #12 $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw attracted 532 runners and a prize pool worth $706,230. Only the top 80 places paid out. Phil Hellmuth cashed but busted in 63rd place. Other notable players who went deep and cashed included Sean Yu, Tomasz Gluszko, Huck Seed, Ray Henson, James Chen, Owais Ahmed, Adam Owen, Ryan Depaulo, Lok Chan, Steve Z, Barry Greenstein, John Monnette, Ismael Bojang, and Frank Kassela. The final table included Brad Ruben, Han Liu, Yueqi Zhu, Jun Weng, Brian Yoon, Tyler Phillips, and Eric Moum. Ruben defeated Liu heads up for the title. Ruben won $130,080 and secured his fifth bracelet... in five years! It's a truly rare feat that happened only 10 other times in history before his run. Ruben also joins the exclusive Five-Timers Club.
WSOP Event #1 $1,000 Mystery Millions finally concluded. There were 19,654 runners who generated a prize pool worth $17,295,520. The top 1,045 players cashed in this first event. The final table included Michael Wilklow, Michael Acevedo, Daniel Strelitz, Yu Hsiang Huang, Elliott Kampen, Wesley Fei, Linda Ngo, Jeffrey Hong, and Michael Marks. Wilklow held off Dan Sterlitz in third place and picked off Mike Acevedo in second place to become the last man standing. For his grit and determination, Wilklow won $1 million. Among the noteworthy players who cashed in the Top 150 included... Stephen Song, Guoliang Wei, Malcolm Trayner, Kyna England, Valentino Konakchiev, Pierre Fromage, Timur Margolin, Ryan Hughes, Thomas Skaggs, Ryan Otto, Max Lykov, Vitor Dzivielevski, Ap Garza, Craig Varnell, and Dan Matsuzuki.
WSOP Event #7 $25,000 Heads Up Championship was capped at 64 players. The prize pool topped $1.5 million and only th top eight places paid out. Mike Shi, Harvey Castro, Chance Kornuth, and Thomas Eychenne busted in the quarterfinals and min-cashed for $86K each. David Chen and Patrick Leonard were knocked out in the semifinals. Aliaksei Boika took down Chen in fourth place, which paid out $180,000. Artur Martirosian knocked out Leonard in third place, which also paid out $180,000.
Artur Martirosian and Aliaksei Boika squared off in the finals. Martirosian came out on top and was the last player standing. He won $500,000 and added his third bracelet. Boika busted and settled on a runner-up finish. Second place paid out $300,000. Not too shabby, eh?
WSOP Event #10 $600 NLH Deepstack attracted 6,090 players who generated a prize pool just shy of $3.07 million. The top 918 places paid out. The final table included Kenneth Kim, Alex Paredes, Daniel Muniz, Gary Blackwood, Jared Anderson, Raul Melendres Cruz, Edgar Antezana, Luis Diaz Moreno, and Chad Cullimore. When the dust settled, Kim secured his first bracelet and $318,842. Among the notables who went deep and cashed in the Top 200 included John Reading, Darren Rabinowitz, Benjamin Ector, Jeremy Wien, Blair Hinkle, Vincent Moscati, and Alexander Livingston, Long Ma, Kevin Song, and Martin Kabrhel.
