When he won the WSOP $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship back in early June, beating a field of 197 players, Scott Seiver said with a seemingly joking tone, “I think I’d be happy if I hit, say, 200 bracelets. I feel like if I can like rattle off five or six per year for the next decade, I’ll then be on a good path to really get a few hundred.”
Then he became the first player with two WSOP bracelets in 2024 when he captured the $1,500 Razz title over 546 others, pushing his career total to six and into rarefied air. On Sunday night, Seiver hit another mark few players have ever achieved by putting on a master class in a come-from-behind victory for his third WSOP bracelet of the summer, capturing the $10,000 No Limit Deuce-to-Seven Championship.
Seiver is only the sixth player in history to win three WSOP bracelets in a year in Las Vegas, and the seventh to win three bracelets in a calendar year. With more than 25 live events and a handful of online chances left, Seiver is perhaps the most well-positioned player to ever have a chance at a four-bracelet summer.
While Seiver has 99 live events and another 30 chances online, more than anyone who preceded him in such an attempt, he also had to run through larger fields than most of the other players on this list and have the stamina to keep firing almost every day of a seven week stretch. If he makes a deep run in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event, which kicked off Wednesday, it might limit his other chances, but otherwise his 20-plus opportunities to come is the most of any player following a third WSOP bracelet win.
To this point in 2024 Seiver’s cashed 11 times, and all three of his final table appearances have ended in victories. Presuming the WSOP Main Event isn’t where Seiver makes his next run, a handful of live events stand out as Seiver’s best chances to win his eighth career bracelet and No. 4 of the summer.
- If the Main Event goes awry quickly, the $1,500 8-Game event on Sunday falls right into a sweet spot for Seiver’s skill set. He has titles in Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold’em, Razz, Omaha Hi-Lo and No Limit Deuce-to-Seven, all of which could come in handy with that mix. It drew 789 players in 2023, more than any of the events Seiver has won in 2024.
- If the $1,500 edition of the 8-Game doesn’t go Seiver’s way, the $10,000 8-Game Championship follows on July 10. This event is a new addition to the schedule, and it’s tough to say exactly how many players might turn out. But with two $10,000 Championship titles this summer, Seiver’s already proved he’s capable of navigating through a collection of the best poker players in the world.
- If we’re talking about limiting field size, the $50,000 No Limit Hold’em High Roller (Event 92) remaining on the schedule is a strong candidate for Seiver to take another shot at No. 4. Seiver has two career No Limit Hold’em WSOP bracelets and a WPT Main Tour title to his credit, as well as a career-best cash of over $5.1 million in a Super High Roller Bowl and is more than familiar with the people he’s likely to be sitting next to.
- If it’s about collecting prestigious Championship-level title, the $10,000 6-Max No Limit Hold’em Championship is arguably one of the toughest such fields on the schedule each year.
- There’s one final event for Seiver to put his mixed games prowess to good use on the schedule, in the $25,000 HORSE. That event brought out 112 entrants in 2023, with six-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh capturing the title.
Seiver is the third player this summer to reach seven career WSOP bracelets, joining John Hennigan and Daniel Negreanu – both of whom are already Poker Hall of Famers.
With deference to George Danzer, who won one of his three titles in 2014 at WSOP Asia-Pacific, for the purpose of this exercise we’ll be looking at the six players who did all of their winning in Las Vegas. Comparing Seiver’s current standing to the other five players in WSOP history, the goal is to offer a better picture of Seiver’s chances of becoming the first player ever to win four bracelets in a year and all but cement first ballot Hall of Fame status once he’s eligible in 2025.
Puggy Pearson
Year: 1973
Total Events on Schedule: 7
Event in Which Bracelet No. 3 was Won: $10,000 Main Event (#7)
Opportunities for No. 4: None
Puggy Pearson was the first player ever to win three times in a single World Series of Poker. Pearson only had to outlast eight players to win a $4,000 Seven Card Stud title, 17 players in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event, and 13 in that year’s $10,000 Main Event. But with only seven events on the schedule in total, it’s an impressive performance in its own right.
With Pearson’s third bracelet victory coming in the final event on the schedule, he had no opportunity at a fourth win that year. His Main Event victory was the fourth, and ultimately final, WSOP bracelet win of his career. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1987
Phil Hellmuth
Year: 1993
Total Events on Schedule: 21
Event in Which Bracelet No. 3 was Won: $5,000 Limit Hold’em (#9)
Opportunities for No. 4: 12
Hellmuth came into the 1993 World Series of Poker with two career bracelet victories, and this was the year in which his total started to balloon. Starting on April 26, Hellmuth put together what might well be described as the most impressive run of his entire career over a three-day stretch.
Hellmuth outlasted 173 players to win a $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event, came back the next day and topped a 284-entry field in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event, and then won his third bracelet in three days in a $5,000 Limit Hold’em event with 63 players.
He cashed only once more that year, but came the closest of any player to win a fourth WSOP bracelet with a second-place finish in the penultimate tournament on the schedule, a $5,000 No Limit Deuce-to-Seven event. Fellow Poker Hall of Famer Billy Baxter denied Hellmuth that victory.
Over the ensuing 30-plus years, Hellmuth’s extended his all-time record for most WSOP bracelets to 17. He was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007.
Ted Forrest
Year: 1993
Total Events on Schedule: 21
Event in Which Bracelet No. 3 Was Won: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo (#13)
Opportunities for No. 4: 8
The only thing more ridiculous than Hellmuth rattling off three bracelets in three days is the fact that he wasn’t the only player to do it that summer, and that both instances happened within a single week. Ted Forrest’s three-in-three run began on April 30, when he won a $5,000 Seven Card Stud event with 57 players.
The next day brought Forrest’s second win in a $1,500 Razz event with 129 players, and that was followed by a third victory in a $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo tournament with 200 players. He would not post another cash during the 1993 WSOP.
Forrest went on to have another multi-bracelet year in 2004, winning twice that year, and pushed his career total to six WSOP bracelets in 2014.
Perhaps most well known for his role in the ultra-high stakes cash games highlighted in the book, “The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King,” Forrest has been nominated multiple times for the Poker Hall of Fame and is once again a finalist in 2024.
Phil Ivey
Year: 2002
Total Events on Schedule: 35
Event in Which Bracelet No. 3 Was Won: $2,000 SHOE (#23)
Opportunities for No. 4: 12
Phil Ivey entered the 2002 World Series of Poker with a single gold bracelet and quadrupled his career total by the time all was said and done that year. It started early in Event 5, with Ivey capturing his second career WSOP title in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud event in a field of 253. Just over a week later Ivey won a $2,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo bracelet with 126 players. One week after that, Ivey made it three wins in a $2,000 SHOE tournament (HORSE without the Razz) with 143 runners.
If there was a WSOP Player of the Year award in 2002 (not instituted until 2004), Ivey most certainly would have won it by most any measure, with two other final tables that year. Following his SHOE win, Ivey cashed only once more in 2002, finishing 23rd in that year’s $10,000 Main Event.
Ivey would go on to win with frequency, and despite several long stretches with limited volume became the fourth player to hit the 10-bracelet mark, which he did in 2014. After a 10-year stretch without such a win, Ivey broke through for No. 11 earlier this summer, and he sits No. 2 all-time behind only Hellmuth. Incredibly, all of Ivey’s WSOP victories have come in non-No Limit Hold’em formats. Ivey was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2017.
Jeffrey Lisandro
Year: 2009
Total Events on Schedule: 57
Event in Which Bracelet No. 3 Was Won: $2,500 Razz (#44)
Opportunities for No. 4: 13
Jeffrey Lisandro got the latest start to a three-bracelet summer of anyone on this list, with his first victory not coming until Event 16, a $1,500 Seven Card Stud tournament with 359 players. Almost two weeks later, Lisandro entered the winner’s circle for a second time in 2009 in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship, which had 164 runners.
After just one idle day, Lisandro entered the $2,500 Razz event and three days later captured his third bracelet of the summer. It was his final cash of the 2009 WSOP, but Lisandro became the first three-times-in-a-year winner to earn WSOP Player of the Year honors.
Lisandro’s victories in 2009 represented his second, third and fourth career WSOP bracelets. That year, he was inducted into the Australian Poker Hall of Fame. He’d go on to win twice more, at WSOP Europe in 2010 and WSOP APAC in 2014.