The craziest stories from the 2016 WSOP
We look back at another summer of bracelets, bad beats, huge scores and shenanigans at the World Series of Poker.
Howard and Chris return
As some of us predicted after an unusually timed apology, Full Tilt villains Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer returned to the tables this summer.
Both men were confronted several times and refused to speak to the media, but for the most part were able to go about their business without incident.
Ferguson actually had an amazing series. He cashed ten times for $253,519, including making the final table of the $10,000 Six Handed Championship (where he was heckled by the rail).
This hand
From the same event, it's not very often a bracelet is won without a heads-up match and even less rare when it's won with Quads:
Aaron Paul plays in the Cube
Away from bracelets one of the great mainstream stories during the WSOP was Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul playing for the LA Sunset in the Global Poker League, in a best-of-three match against Fabrice Soulier of the Paris Aviators.
No spoilers, you can watch the battle right here:
Fedor Crushes
There is always somebody who runs like god in the high roller events during the WSOP and this year it was Fedor '' Holz.
It started this summer when he came second in the Super High Roller Bowl for $3.5 million. He went on to win three more High Rollers at the Aria, one on June 3 for $637,392, one on June 10 for $393,120 and another on June 17 for $276,012. He also cashed in another for $407,310. Finally he defeated a field of 183 of the toughest No Limit Hold'em players in the $111,111 One Drop High Roller for his first bracelet and $4,981,775.
The staggering thing about this success is that Fedor is only 22-years-old, yet he is now the biggest ever German winner with $18,495,174 in cashes and this also puts him in the top ten of the all-time money rankings.
Well, that isn't the most amazing thing about all this.....
Fedor retires
Talk about quitting while you are ahead. After making almost $10 million this summer, Fedor shocked everyone by announcing professional poker was no longer for him.
Is he done with the game or does he have even bigger ambitions elsewhere? We may have seen the last of him at the tables but it will be fascinating to see what he does next.
THAT drunken prop bet
Had the bet come in it would have been the biggest story in poker for years, but the fact it came close still makes it a huge WSOP piece of history.
The poker world was surprised to hear that Vanessa Selbst had made two drunken six-figure bets that Jason Mercier and Dzmitry Urbanovich could not win three bracelets in one series. Urbanovich bricked most of the series, but Mercier managed to bag two early on, setting up the most epic sweat witnessed at the WSOP since Phil Ivey's infamous bracelet bets.
Despite coming close several times, Mercier had to settle for WSOP Player of the Series, just under $1 million in prize money, even more in separate bracelet prop bets, two bracelets and his girlfriend accepting his marriage proposal. So, still a pretty decent WSOP.
What crazy story did we miss? Let us know in the comments.
