Who will one day beat Phil Hellmuth's bracelet record?
A young online mixed games crusher could overtake Phil Hellmuth while he is still an active player, suggests Barry Carter.
The World Series of Poker is just a few days away. The other day, I happened to glance at CardPlayer and saw the current top 10 for the players with the most bracelets.
I probably look at it a few times a year on Wikipedia, but for some reason, seeing it presented like the picture on the right, with the headshots of the players in contention, suddenly made me realise it's a lot closer than people think.
For so long, we have put Phil Hellmuth on a pedestal because he had such an insurmountable lead in the bracelet rankings. I've previously written that players like Benny Glaser and Shaun Deeb would one day overtake him after he retires from the game, but looking at the list, it does seem like they could leapfrog him while he's still very much active in the game.
There are some players who are out of the running for different reasons. We don't see much of Johnny Chan anymore, and both Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss are no longer with us. Phil Ivey doesn't really play that many bracelet events either, which is a shame, because he almost certainly would have overtaken Phil Hellmuth by now if he cared about bracelet legacy.
Young online mixed games crushers
My criteria for who will one day topple Phil Hellmuth come down to three factors: youth, mixed games ability and online poker skills.
Youth is an obvious one. The player needs sufficient time to be able to compete in enough events to win a lot of them.
Mixed games acumen is also self-evident. The fields are too big in No Limit Hold'em events, so knowing how to play the more exotic formats with smaller fields is a must.
Online poker ability is a newer criteria. This is down to the fact that we are seeing more online poker series that award bracelets at the end. In my opinion, this will only grow in importance since GGPoker acquired the World Series of Poker. I can't see them sitting on the asset that is the World Series of Poker bracelet by not hosting more online bracelet events.
Shaun Deeb and Benny Glaser, who both have eight bracelets right now, meet all three of those criteria. They both are relatively young and could have a good 30-year career ahead of them. They both crush mixed games, and all their bracelets have come in a variety of formats. Crucially, they are both excellent at online poker.
They're both in form too. Last year, Glaser won three bracelets in a series, and Deeb won Player of the Year for a 2nd time. They both clearly care about bracelets, which is obviously crucial.
The looming issue of tax
There is a new criterion which I hope won't be a factor in the years to come, tax.
Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill has come into effect and could be particularly punishing to high-volume, high-stakes players in the United States
Indeed, we have seen another contender in the top 10 fall foul of this. Erik Seidel has partially retired from poker because of the aggressive tax regime.
This is not good news for the Americans Shaun Deeb or Michael Mizrachi, who is also in the top ten. It doesn't hurt the chances of Benny Glaser, who is English and therefore pays no tax on poker winnings.
Even if Trump finally sees sense on this silly tax law, my money would be on Glaser being the first player to overcome Phil Hellmuth, and it would not surprise me if he did so while Hellmuth was still competing in World Series of Poker events.
