Biggest World Series of Poker Main Event Winners

The World Series of Poker is peeking from the corner with brand new tournaments and more gold bracelets up for grabs. This year the world’s largest and longest running tournament poker series will take place from May 29 to July 17.

The 2018 WSOP will feature 78 official gold bracelet events, including the fourth edition of the now very popular $565 buy-in COLOSSUS. It is also interesting to note that this year the poker festival will feature a record number of 13 tournaments that will kick off after the beginning of the $10,000 Main Event.

And speaking of one of the biggest highlights of the series, the World Championship, it is slated for July 2-14, when its champion will be crowned. This year, for a second straight year, the official nine-handed final table will be played within the series and not in November.

To celebrate the start of what poker fans around the globe hope will be an extremely exciting and successful edition of the WSOP, Casino News Daily has prepared a list of the biggest WSOP Main Event winners throughout the years, or those brave warriors who have outlasted massive fields to eventually scoop the largest prizes to have been awarded in the history of the series. Here they are.

Jamie Gold – $12,000,000

Gold won the 2006 edition of the WSOP Main Event. The player bested a field of 8,773 entries to win the largest ever Main Event prize in the history of the series. It is also important to note that the 2006 World Championship was the largest one by prize pool not just within the WSOP but also within poker history as the amount of $82,512,162 was generated in prize money.

Gold became the last man standing after a heads-up match against five-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Allen Cunningham. His winning hand was [Qs][9c].

Martin Jacobson – $10,000,000

The Swede outlasted the 6,683-strong field of the 2014 WSOP Main Event. As mentioned above, his share of the event’s total prize pool of $62,820,200 amounted to $10 million. In fact, the 2014 edition of the tournament was the first one to feature a $10-million guarantee for the champion.

Jacobson emerged as the victor after an all-Scandinavian heads-up against Norway’s Felix Vincent Stephensen. A winning hand of pocket tens secured the Swede with the sweet victory. It is also interesting to note that top three of that year’s edition of the Main Event was rounded out by another European player – Dutch poker star Jorryt van Hoof.

Peter Eastgate – $9,152,416

Eastgate was the player to outmaneuver the 6,844-strong field of the 2008 WSOP Main Event and walk away with a first-place prize of $9,152,416 from a total prize pool of $64,333,600. Eastgate, who hails from Norway, is another member of the elite club of Scandinavians to have won one of the world’s most prestigious No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments.

The player secured his victory after a heads-up duel against Ivan Demidov. On what turned out to be the final hand of the tournament, Eastgate held [Ad][5s] to be crowned the 2008 Champion.

Jonathan Duhamel – $8,944,138

Canada’s Jonathan Duhamel emerged victorious over a field of 7,319 fellow tournament entries to collect $8,944,138 in prize money. The player took the largest share of a prize pool that amounted to $68,798,600.

Duhamel faced John Racener, quite an accomplished player himself, heads-up. The two players clashed for the title, but on the last hand in action it was the Canadian to table the winning [As][Jh] and bust his fellow contender in second place.

Pius Heinz – $8,715,638

The German claimed the 2011 WSOP Main Event title for a payout of nearly $8.8 million. He was the last player standing from a massive field of 6,865 entrants. They generated a prize pool of $64,531,000.

Heinz ran pretty well over the course of the tournament to eventually become one of the two final players at the official final table. The German clashed against Martin Staszko from the Czech Republic in a final battle for the title. Heinz eventually locked that important title with a winning hand of [As][Kc].

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