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WSOP Records That Will Likely Never Be Broken

In sports, there are records that seem unbreakable. Lou Gehrig‘s streak of consecutive games played was a record that was supposed to stand for all time until Cal Ripken, Jr broke it.

Roger Maris‘ 61 homers was another that was supposed to be next to unbreakable. However, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds have all hit more in a single season than Maris. Babe Ruth‘s all-time home run record has fallen twice. The only baseball record to not fall, yet, is Joe DiMaggio‘s consecutive games with a hit record.

Thinking about this, there are a few records in poker that are likely never to be matched or broken. With the 2018 WSOP Europe now in the books, let’s take a look at some records that are likely to never be broken and in some cases never matched again.

Three Main Event Titles – Johnny Moss and Stu Ungar

Johnny Moss and Stu Ungar both hold three main event titles. Technically, Stu is the only man to “win” three as Moss won one of his titles by a vote. There are three men that have three Main Event titles, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Hellmuth. However, Hellmuth’s second Main Event title was a WSOP Europe Main Event title.

Odds are that this is as close as we will ever get to a DiMaggio type record with Hellmuth being the only player with a realistic chance of winning three Main Events in their career. Joe Cada came close to getting #2 this year but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Fifteen Bracelets – Phil Hellmuth

This is going to be the equivalent of the Home Run record in Major League Baseball. The difference is that we won’t have a steroid controversy to cloud the record of one of the holder. You have to give Hellmuth monumental props for being able to continue winning bracelets at 54, and you have to wonder if anyone has a shot to ever catch him.

Phil Ivey is the only player with any realistic chance of catching Hellmuth but his game needs to improve. Ivey has been so tied up with legal matters in recent years that it has impacted his game. Of course, all it would take is Ivey dedicating himself to the game to turn things around, but is Ivey hungry enough to make another run towards Hellmuth?

Three Bracelets in a Year – Most recently achieved by George Danzer

Out of all the records on this list, this is the one that has a chance of falling due to the number of players that have come close in recent years. George Danzer was the last person to win three WSOP bracelets in a single year, doing so back in 2014.

However, players such as Shaun Deeb and Jason Mercier have won two bracelets in a year and had multiple near-misses in the same year. In 2018, Deeb won two bracelets, finished runner-up in an event, and third in another. In 2016, Jason Mercier won two bracelets and finished third in another.

It’s not unfathomable for a pro to go on a hot run at the WSOP and somehow manage to win four bracelets in a single year, especially since that the number of bracelet events continues to go up each year. At some point, a player is going to stay hot and become the first-ever four-time bracelet winner for a single series.

Back to Back Main Event Titles

A few years back, I would have never have imagined a player even making back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables due to the massive fields involved. However, Mark Newhouse was able to do so in 2013 and 2014.

However, in Newhouse’s case, he only managed ninth place finishes both times and effectively dropped off of the Earth poker-wise. It is a monumental achievement to make the final table and a career-defining moment to take down the WSOP Main Event. There are simply too many factors in play to ever see this record beaten again. Much like Pete Rose’s record for most career hits, I don’t see any player in poker coming close to ever touching this record.

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