The WSOP by Numbers: $555,475 the average 1st prize!

(Photo: AP)

Despite the doom-mongers who seem to revel in telling us that poker is a dying game, the World Series of Poker in Vegas broke all sorts of records – proving once again the old saying ‘news of my death has been greatly exaggerated’!

For only the 2nd time in its history the series attracted over 100,000 entries across its various events, paying out the phenomenal sum of $220,000,000+ to those lucky enough to cash. There were almost 16,000 of those lucky poker players – and nearly 95% of all those participating were male.

USA, USA!

Despite there being 107 countries represented, as usual it was the USA which provided the majority of players, some 84,027 of them. And they topped the total cashes league, taking the first seven spots – led by the New York resident Georgian Roman Israelashvili with 13 cashes totalling almost $150,000. He was followed closely by the well-known pro Michael Mizrachi with 12 cashes, a number equalled also by Dan Kelly and Ryan Laplante.

In the contry-by-country earnings table, the US scooped $128,323,903! This dwarfed the 2nd spot United Kingdom with a measly $11,362,356 who finished ahead of Germany and their $8,922,121 haul.

Bracelet chasing

Although most of the gossip this year surrounded Jason Mercier’s attempt to win three bracelets and thus secure a fortune from his prop-bet with Vanessa Selbst, eventually he got stuck on two bracelets and was matched in this by fellow American Ian Johns and Englishman Benny Glaser.

The average field size reached an all-time record high, with an average of 1563 per event, and the average win amounted to $555,475 as the headline says. This, of course, is skewed by the huge payouts for the Main Event and events such as the Big One-for-One Drop, but it’s still a mighty impressive number regardless!

Women in the money

Three women won bracelets this summer, Courtney Kennedy, Kristan Bicknell and Safiya Umerova, but it was Floridian kindergarten teacher Lisa Meredith who topped the female money list, scooping $500,000 for her 3rd place finish in the $1500 Millionaire Maker tournament. The married mother-of-two was playing her first-ever World Series of Poker!

Jamie Kerstetter was the woman with most cashes – an impressive eight – and she was closely followed by Svetlana Gromenkova and Natasha Barbour, both with seven. Maria Ho and Cate Hall both managed six while Vanessa Selbst could only make four cashes this year – doubtless worried about other things!

14 millionaires!

Fedor Holz may have topped the list with just over $5,000,000 in WSOP earnings this summer, but there were 13 other players who snagged $1million+ during the 6-week series.

Californian Garrett Greer was one of the surprise millionaires, taking advantage of the Millionaire Maker event guaranteeing not one, but two millionaires! His second spot quadrupled his previous WSOP cashes.

Austrian student Koray Aldemir had previously cashed for $100K over the last two years, but third time was very lucky for him as he not only pocketed $252,805 for his second spot in the Summer Solstice $1500 event, but followed it up with a 3rd place worth over $2million in the High Roller for-One Drop, thereby justifying the $111,111 buy-in!

The usual suspects also got I on the miillionaire act, with Dan Smith ($3,593,697), Justin Bonomo ($1,363,044) and Brian Rast ($1,334,622) all having great WSOP’s.

Old timers?

The seniors (that’s 50+ nowadays, which doesn’t seem particularly ‘senior’ to this 48-year old!) put in a good showing, taking six bracelets from the series. Apart from Israelashivili, both Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson and Eli Elezra had 12 cashes each – and no doubt a slew of people following them to the cashier’s cage!

Close but no Cigar!

Always a dubious honor (who ever remembers the runner-up?) and this year it was shared by Justin Bonomo and Michael Gathy with two 2nd spots each. Bonomo, strangely enough, also had the most 3rd place finishes, again with two and again sharing the top spot, this time with Californian John Monnette.

And so, with the exception of the ‘November Nine’ Main Event final table, the 2016 WSOP has been wrapped up – and the numbers show that there is certainly life in the old dog yet!