Everybody Loves Martin Kabrhel: 2025 World Series Preview

Michael Wang wins the $10,000 PLO Championship ($1,394,579).

This is the third bracelet for the Las Vegas grinder (he cashed almost 60 times offline in 2023 and has already cashed 30 times this year, even playing $400 tournaments), the first two bracelets were won in $5,000 Hold'em tournaments.

– "It still doesn't feel real. The first one felt amazing. I didn't expect it because that was the first year I was playing tournaments full-time, and it just happened right away. The second one was more validating in a way, it wasn't just a fluke."

On the second last days, at the 50,000/100,000 level, Michael doubled up Erik Seidel and was left with a stack of 65,000. However, he went into the final day with the third stack out of seven players (8,025,000).

The chip leader at the final table was Kuang Zhou, who had finished 7th in the $50,000 PLO tournament a few days earlier. There he played a hand that raised suspicions among the top regs.

This time, Zhou rose to 3rd place ($650,567).

The 7th to go was Alex Foxen ($182,983), who was multi-tabling at two different casinos during the tournament.

Alex made it to Day 2 of the $10,400 Wynn Summer Classic, which coincided with Day 3 of the PLO tournament. Foxen was focused on the World Series of Poker, where he entered the lunch break as the 12th stack out of 17 players. Instead of grabbing a bite to eat, he headed to the Wynn, which was on the bubble at the time. Alex ran to his seat with 41,000 chips remaining at the 5,000/10,000 level and successfully made the money.

CoinPoker

4.7

$100 GipsyTeam Weekly Freeroll

Overview 125 reviews

GT Bonuses

Registration

Americas Cardroom

4.5

Up to 65% rakeback

Overview 61 reviews

GT Bonuses

Registration

BetOnline

4.5

Up to $1,000 for new players

Overview 105 reviews

GT Bonuses

Registration

Martin Kabrhel won the $1,000 Mini Main Event for $843,140.

As usual, Martin was very active throughout the tournament, constantly communicating with his opponents, dealers and spectators. He completely rejects the idea that anyone might dislike this:

– “In this tournament there were 11 thousand people, and I think exactly seven or eight people didn’t enjoy my play. Everyone else did.”

With 4 players left in the game, John Ishak from Hungary shoved 5 blinds, Kabrhel in his usual manner began to stall in the BB. At that moment, the dealer mistakenly took Ishak's cards. Martin noticed this and immediately made the call.

Floor was called, he thought for a few minutes what to do, and eventually decided that Ishak would give up two blinds – the size of the mini-raise.

This happens quite often at the World Series. The most famous instance was in the 2009 Main Event. After JC Tran raised, Estelle Denis of France three-bet all-in with aces. The dealer took her cards and her hand was declared dead. Estelle had her chips taken away equal to the preflop raise and the rest were returned.

John Ishak couldn't get going and quickly dropped out in 4th place ($426,550). Vadim Lipovka from Belarus took 3rd place ($426,550).

Online regular Qinghai "The Terminator" Pan won the $10,000 Stud Hi-Lo Championship ($411,051).

“I play online so much, so online is really easy for me," Pan said after his victory. "Live is more unique for me.”

Pan already had two bracelets won from online reservations in America.

Andrey Zhigalov ($132,423) was eliminated in 4th place. Of all the Russian mixed-game specialists, he performed the best at this World Series.

Nikolay Fal finished in the early money, taking 24th place for $20,552. Last year, he won a bracelet in a $1,500 buy-in tournament for the same game.

Shaun Deeb wins his 7th bracelet in the $100,000 PLO event ($2,957,229).

– “I’m not like Ike or some of these Triton guys who play for millions of dollars every day,” Deeb admitted following his win. “I grind my low stakes when I can… I shot-took in a $100K, it went perfect.”

In heads-up, Deeb beat Ike Haxton ($1,972,860), Phil Ivey was eliminated in 5th ($715,614), runner-up Alex Foxen in 6th ($539,917), and Ben Lamb in 8th ($336,110).

Ben finished 7th in the $50,000 Players Championship and immediately after his elimination he posted a text message with Shaun Deeb :

– "Was saving this tweet for if I won but Deeb turning down my swap after asking me twice in plo tourneys and me saying yes was quite motivating. Not a very good needle with 7th tho…"

“I’m glad I motivated you,” Dib commented.

The main tournament has started, three of the four starting flights have passed. More than 3,700 people have registered for them.

Phil Helmuth and Dan Cates chose rock star outfits and the song Highway to Hell by AC/DC for their high-profile appearance this time.

Not everyone was delighted.

"The Hellmuth entrance finds a way to be worse every year. Holy shit that was awkward and awful," wrote David Becker .

However, Phil himself is very pleased :

– "The AC/DC song was blasting in the hallway, with Dan Cates and Phillip III doing guitar solos! You can find those all over the internet…
But, we couldn’t play it in the WSOP Main Room…CBS wouldn’t allow it"

Many were also outraged that PokerGo chose to show Hellmuth's table from the main event rather than the final table of the $100k PLO tournament.

"Who is the person who wants this hellmuth table over 100k plo?" asks Chris Brewer . "I want to know if one singular person prefers this."
Oh I could watch some al time poker legends play the first plo 100k at wsop history for 3mm or I could listen to hellmuth talk about weight loss drugs in a 15 dollar wig as sb flats AK v a btn raise.

Day 1C was finished by Andrey Lyubovetskiy from Ukraine with the chip-leader stack. He spun up his starting 60,000 to 392,000.

Traditionally, the most massive 1D day takes place at this moment, with almost 5,000 people registered.

So far this year's figures are inferior to last year's, but registration is still open.

ClubWPT Gold has officially confirmed that they have awarded Jesse Yaginuma a bonus million for winning the Millionaire Maker:

– "A deal is a deal, Jesse Yaginuma. You finished with all of the chips and you had a Gold Rush Ticket. You're getting the $1,000,000 bonus. Congratulations."

Daniel Negreanu also weighed in on the controversial Millionaire Maker heads-up, and in his vlog, he pretty much put all the blame on ClubWPT Gold.

– I don’t blame the players at all, they were driven into unbearable conditions. As mutual friends told me, one of them was in a very difficult financial situation before the tournament. And he had only 10 minutes to decide what to do. According to my information, he now regrets his choice very much. It’s too late, but what can you do. Another important point – the player who took 3rd place was also offered to take part in the deal. He refused. This is for those who claim that they chip dumped in heads-up and it did not affect the other participants in any way. Obviously, if they tried to agree in the top 3, and one refused, then it is advantageous for the remaining two to play against him. It is not even a fact that this will happen intentionally, but it will definitely affect the game. In heads-up, one of the players should have simply left. Then everything would have been obvious, but we would have avoided this farce.
I represent GG, everyone knows that. But I always said that I am for open competition at the WSOP. It is beneficial for the city, the World Series and the players. But I have never seen anything more disgusting than this action in all my 30 years in poker. The organizers could not have failed to understand what this would lead to. And if they did not understand, then they are simply incompetent.
Even ESPN wrote an article about cheating at the WSOP. Who benefits from this? No one. They deliberately put the players who are fighting for the bracelet in a very difficult situation. And I know that James (Carroll) really wanted to win the bracelet. But imagine, for example, in a 4-max $1,500 stud tournament, one of the players offers the others $250k if they let him win the bracelet. It's hard to refuse when the prize for winning is only $130k. So I don't blame the players at all.
The action itself is only harmful to poker. There are no winners. Yes, they attracted attention, but whose? The Nevada Gaming Commission and regulators. We are all losers from this attention. I feel sorry for the players, even though they won $1 million each. But now they will not be able to play at the WSOP and it is unclear how long this ban will last.

ClubWPT Gold creative director Thomas Keeling made a video that combined Negreanu's speech with GG Poker's promotion, in which they promise to pay a bonus million for winning the main event to any player who qualifies through a satellite on GGPoker and plays with a sticker of the room. It turned out as if Daniel mercilessly criticizes his own employers.

Barry Carter also saw some inconsistency in this.