The top 5 greatest 'poker doubles'
Following the first ever double-EPT champion, Barry Carter ranks the most impressive double-victories in poker. His top choice may surprise you.
5. Daniel Negreanu wins WSOP Player of the Year twice
Mr Negreanu fought off a lot of stiff competition to make it into number five on my list, for several reasons.
He is the only person to win the WSOP Player of the Year twice, having won the first one in 2004 and the most recent one in 2013.
The nine-year gap between titles is interesting in itself, and proof that Negreanu has adapted to how poker has evolved over the last decade. I also like to include the WSOP Player of the Year simply because it's a big sign of consistency because it covers a whole series of events.
But the reason why this one edged its way into the list is because Negreanu's 2013 POY included another unique double. He also became the first person to win both a WSOP APAC and WSOPE title in the same year.
Not only can nobody else claim to have won both types of international bracelets, nobody else will ever be able to do it in the same year again because the WSOP has decided to host them on alternate years.
4. Mad Marvin wins back-to-back WPT titles
There are quite a few double-WPT champions, and even two triple-WPT champions (Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen) so merely winning two World Poker Tour events wasn't going to make this list.
However, in 2012 Marvin 'xcrash154' Rettenmaier did something very rare in the post-boom poker world - a back-to-back victory.
He won the $25,000 WPT World Championship in May 2012 for $1,196,858 and followed that by winning the very next event, the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic in August 2012 for $287,784.
It was a shame for Marvin that he won the last event of one season, and the first of the other, because this feat alone would almost certainly have also won him the WPT Player of the Year were they both in the same season.
3. Michael Mizrachi wins $50,000 Players Championship twice
Some people call the $50,000 Players Championship the 'real Main Event' because it features all the major games, rather than just No Limit Hold'em. It is also an event that is made up almost exclusively of professional players.
You may not become mega famous by winning it, but you will always have the respect of your poker peers. So the fact that Michael Mizrachi has won it twice is really something special.
He won it in 2010 for $1,559,046 and then again in 2012 for $1,451,527 (He also won a WSOPE bracelet and made the November Nine in the break between those two results).
The only reason this is not higher up on the list is that the event gets relatively low runners, 116 in 2010 and 108 in 2012.
2. Vicky Coren wins two EPT titles
You might think I am biased because it is a recent victory, because she is a Brit, or because I clearly have some sort of crush on her, but I genuinely do think what Vicky Coren did last week is about as big as it gets.
For the last couple of years I have been thinking about how big an achievement a double-EPT champion was, in part because every EPT champion I've spoken to has said the same thing.
I have always held the firm belief that the EPT is the toughest tournament series in the world. Since the UIGEA I've felt the Europeans are better players overall because we have had more access to online poker.
As such I also believe the fact that the EPT has so many online qualifiers makes it a much tougher concentration of players than the WSOP and WPT. It also means the fields are always well over 500 players each.
Then finally the simple fact that there are only eight events a year (Compared to about 18 WPT and well over 60 WSOP events per year), it all adds up to making it statistically very unlikely that we will see many double-EPT champions in our lifetime.
1. Greg Merson wins the two toughest No Limit events of the year
This one will surprise a lot of people, but frankly, I think it didn't get anywhere near the attention it should have.
It was probably because the first ever $1 million buy-in One Drop tournament took place the same year that it took attention away from this achievement. That may have been the biggest No Limit event of all time, but it's not the toughest.
The two toughest No Limit events of the year have to be the $10,000 Main Event and the $10,000 Six Handed Championship. The Main Event obviously because it has the biggest field, the Six Handed because it is the most pro-concentrated and is highly coveted by the online players.
And in 2012 Greg Merson won both of them. It is just that the Main Event is so big it managed to overshadow his Six Handed victory, which is a shame because it is a unique double that amazingly didn't get much acclaim.
Accolades which almost made this list included Dan Harrington making back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables in 2003 & 2004, Phil Ivey winning the $250,000 Aussie Millions Challenge twice and Phil Gruissem winning back-to-back WPT Alpha8 events.
What else did I miss out from this list? Did you agree with the order? Let me know in the comments box what you think the most impressive 'poker double' is.
 Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2. He has been working in the poker industry for nine years and in 2013 won the APAT Award for Best Poker Media Provider. You can learn more about his work here.
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