Three Most Impressive WSOP Records

From 1970 to 2024, the World Series of Poker has managed to set records more than once. In this article, we’re mentioning three of the most impressive ones.

#1 The Oldest Player at the WSOP Main Event

In 2010, U.S. poker player Jack Julian Ury played his last WSOP Main Event as a record holder. He was the oldest participant at the age of 97 years and 3 months. That was also the year he broke his own record for the fourth time in a row. At the tournament, Ury was accompanied by his grandson who helped because of Jack’s problems with hearing and eyesight.

Unfortunately, Ury passed away the same year but continued to hold this record for 13 years postmortem. That is, until 100-years old Eugene Calden took the torch as a participant of the WSOP 2023 Main Event. Calden also had a sidekick of sorts for this tournament, his daughter Sue.

Earlier that year Eugene won the $500 Moneymaker Mulligan NLH on the Moneymaker Tour. He outplayed a field of 25 entrants and took $5,160 of the $10,750 prize pool. In January 2024, Eugene celebrated his 101st birthday in Palm Beach Kennel Club — dealers and staff congratulated him with cupcakes.

#2 The Most Record-filled Main Event

The World Series of Poker Main Event is always the hottest event of the year. However, in 2006 it wasn’t just hot, it was sizzling because the event was record-breaking three times in a row.

1. It attracted the largest field in WSOP history — 8,773 entries.
2. It collected the biggest prize pool in WSOP history — $82,512,162.
3. The Main Event champion Jamie Gold won the biggest prize in WSOP history — $12,000,000.

All three records were broken only 17 years later during WSOP 2023 where Main Event hit all three biggest milestones again:

• The field — 10,043 entries
• The prize pool — $93,399,900
• The champion’s prize — $12,100,000

The winner was U.S. professional poker player Daniel Weinman who later confessed to hiding his bracelet and returning to his regular development job, still showing up in high roller events from time to time.

To celebrate renewing of Main Event records, WSOP also ran a unique lottery Main Event Seat for 30 Years with one winner — 42-year-old real estate agent from Canada Jason Clarke.

#3 The Most Expensive $1,000,000 Buy-In

In 2012, the $1,000,000 The Big One for One Drop event on WSOP set the record of highest buy-in in live poker ever.

The event was created as a result of the partnership between WSOP and Guy Laliberté, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil and passionate poker player. It had a charitable goal to collect donations for an eponymous non-profit organization specialized in ensuring unconditional access to safe water and sanitation in the most struggling regions of the world.

The first The Big One for One Drop didn’t have a fee and $111,111 of each buy-in was contributed towards charity. It collects in total:

• 48 entries
• $42,666,672 in prize pool
• $5,333,328 in donations

U.S. professional poker player Antonio Esfandiari won the event, gathering the biggest single payout in the history of poker $18,346,673 and a unique platinum WSOP bracelet.

Later, The Big One for One Drop expanded its format to “for One Drop” with different buy-ins:

Event	Year
$100,000 High Roller for One Drop	2013, 2015, 2016, 2017
$111,000 Alpha8 for One Drop	2023 (twice)
€1,000,000 Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza	2016
$1,000,000 Big One for One Drop	2014, 2018, 2023
$1,000 NLH One More for One Drop	2022

Interestingly, in 2023 this event moved from WSOP to WPT and set the anti-record for itself gathering the smallest field of 17 entries. This little event was won by Belarussian super star Mikita Badziakouski, he got a prize of $7,114,500.