Every other bracelet winner seems to be a household name despite record fields. We look at the ‘Year of the Pro’ at the WSOP.
The defining characteristic of the 2024 World Series of Poker has been how many big names have won bracelets this year.
In most cases, the players in question have added to already impressive bracelet hauls.
Phil Ivey won his 11th, Daniel Negreanu and John Hennigan won their 7th, Scott Seiver won his 5th, 6th and 7th, Robert Mizrachi, Yuri Dzivielevski and Nick Schulman won their 5th, Phillip Hui won his 4th, Sean Troha, Tony Dunst and Timur Margolin won their 3rd, Bryce Yockey, Nick Guagenti, David Prociak, John Racener, Richard Ashby, Santhosh Suvarna and James Obst all won their 2nd.
Of the players winning their first bracelet there were also lots of household names including Asher Coniff, Dario Sammartino, Chris Hunichen, Daniel Sepiol, Dylan Weisman and Sergio Aido.
A mature market
We have had a lot of record fields in the high thousands so it seems strange that we recognise so many winners.
The main reason for this is clearly that poker is a mature market. We’ve had so many big names win bracelets simply because there are so many big names in poker. We are more than 20 years into the poker boom and most of these winners have been around for most of it.
Poker is also an ageing demographic. We are simply not getting young players in huge numbers any more. It makes sense that experience would be the deciding factor in these victories without an influx of energetic young talent.
Overrepresented formats
Most of the above winners took down non-NLHE events. The WSOP is not representative of the broader poker market because formats other than No Limit and PLO are significantly overrepresented.
It’s incredibly hard for new players to learn games like Stud, Razz, Badugi, Stud Hi/Lo and Triple Draw. They rarely run outside of Vegas and PokerStars is the only site that runs them online. It’s actually a surprise GGPoker, with its superior traffic, have not catered for these niches.
That’s the other reason why we are seeing so many established names win bracelets. It’s simply too hard for new players to master niche formats that only really get spread at the WSOP once a year.
All of this has been good for the fans but it’s probably a bad sign for the game that it’s much harder for young players to get a foothold in some of these formats. As a writer, it has made my summer very easy and it’s never to struggle to find something to write about.
Why have we seen so many big names win bracelets in 2024? Let us know in the comments: