In 2017, the World Series of Poker Main Event returned to being the world’s best poker tournament, played out from Day 1 to the final day in the heat of a Las Vegas summer. The November Nine era, where the final table of nine players in the World Championship would delay the denouement until November. Play returned to one long sprint to the line as 7,221 players took on the $10,000-entry Main Event, the biggest field since 2010 when Jonathan Duhamel claimed the bracelet.
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Liv and Igor Tag Team a Title
Several big names won gold in 2017 as this iteration of the WSOP became one of the busiest in poker history. A total of 74 events, the most ever, saw David Bach ($1,500 Dealer’s Choice and $10,000 H.O.R.S.E.) and Nipun Java ($1,000 Tag Team No Limit Hold’em with Aditya Sushant and $1,000 WSOP.com Online NLHE Championship) both win two bracelets. It was Java’s honor to be the first player to win a bracelet both live in Las Vegas and online via WSOP.com.
The WSOP hosted three online bracelet events, with a $333 and $3,333 buy-in event, as the poker-playing public was split on the merits of the series. Did the WSOP Online Series dilute the prestige of the bracelets won live in Las Vegas or around the world, or were they added value to grow the series even further and positively influence the expansion of the game to the wider world? Opinion was divided on that front.
An early bracelet went to one of poker’s power couples, with Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov taking home bracelets each for winning the $10,000 Tag Team No-Limit Hold’em Championship and $273,964 after beating Joe Kuether and Ankush Mandavia heads-up. Adrian Mateos took down the $10,000 Heads Up NLHE Championship while still 22 years of age to become the youngest-ever player to win three WSOP bracelets.
‘Jesus’ Rises, Trio Win Triple Crown
Four players won the first WSOP bracelets for their countries, with Java and Sushant’s earlier victory being the first by an Indian player. Venezuelan Joseph Di Rosa Rojas took home the inaugural $2,620 Marathon NLHE title for $690,469, while Romanian Alexandru Papazian won the $888 Crazy Eights NLHE 8-Max event for $888,888.
The fourth country to finally have a WSOP winner in 2017 was Scotland, whose tournament crusher Niall Farrell won the WSOP Europe’s €25,000 NLHE High Roller event for $867,591. In doing so, he completed the third and final leg of poker’s ‘Triple Crown (WSOP, WPT, and EPT titles) along with two other players in a stunning summer, as Mohsin Charania and Harrison Gimbel also completed this feat that to date has only been achieved by ten players over the entire history of poker.
The WSOP Player of the Year banner was won controversially. Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson cashed 23 times but won just one bracelet in the €1,650-entry Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better event in WSOP Europe to claim the Player of the Year title. As one of the fall guys in the Full Tilt Poker scandal that closed down online poker six years earlier, Ferguson ran the gauntlet of fans calling him out in 2017. Min-cashing his way to victory in the POY race saw the eventual changes that were made to the structure in 2024.
Polk Takes One Drop Acclaim
Many other big names won gold in 2017, with Doug Polk winning the $111,111-entry High Roller for One Drop. Beating Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier to the $3.68 million top prize, Polk sealed his third bracelet win in four years, and whilst he hasn’t won any bracelets since, the three titles he has certainly add weight to the argument that Polk is a game-changing poker player as well as a phenomenally popular YouTuber, influencer and commentator on both poker and life in general.
Wins in other events for Adrian Mateos, Chris Moorman, and Chris Ferguson’s closest challenger in the POY race, John Racener, headlined a series where many big names ‘binked’ tournaments. The 2015 world champion Joe McKeehen won the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship to add to the NLHE Championship he took down two years earlier.
The Main Event Begins
The Main Event kicked off on July 8th and continued right through July 17th, with just a single-day break before the final table. Compared to recent years, the former world champions didn’t perform so well, with 2001 winner Carlos Mortensen (984th), 2009 champion Joe Cada (948th), and 1998 Main Event legend Scotty Nguyen (549th) being the only trio to make the money.
After players including Dario Sammartino (43rd for $176,399), Marcel Luske (23rd for $263,532), and Michael Ruane (10th for $825,000) all busted, the final nine were set, with appearances from Ben Lamb, who had finished third in 2011 and Antoine Saout, who reached the same position a few years earlier in 2009.
When the final table kicked off, it was the 25-year-old live tournament grinder Scott Blumstein who led the field with 97.25 million chips, 27% of the chips in play. That was only a slim lead from the much older John Hesp. The British player, whose outrageous hatwear, loud Hawaiian shirts and gregarious personality endeared himself to fans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, began on 85.7 million chips, with Ben Pollak (35.1m) the nearest challenger to the dominant top two.
“I Was Just a Kid Who Loves Playing Poker.”
Coming into the action, many American poker fans were still hoping for a resurgence from Ben Lamb, who began as the shortest stack in the Thunderdome. In just the fourth hand of action, Lamb shoved with ace-nine of hearts and ran into Jack Sinclair’s ace-queen, which sent Lamb to the slaughter with $1 million.
Out in eighth was Lamb’s conqueror, Sinclair. The British player battled manfully, but a whole 60 hands later, was on the rail with $1.2m after running his king-jack into Bryan Piccioli’s pocket aces. While a king landed on the flop, no further paint meant Sinclair went no further.
Perhaps surprisingly, the play ended on day one of the three it took to finish the final with seven players remaining in their seats. Argentina’s Damian Salas would follow, losing a flip to Dan Ott to bust in seventh for $1.42m. Salas was devastated, but his journey to WSOP immortality was not over. Bryan Piccioli was another player whose hopes for the title in 2017 was ended when his ace-seven lost to Ott’s pocket kings as the latter rose up the leaderboard.
Saout slid out in fifth place for $2m when he rivered trip jacks only to fall to Blumstein, who had turned a straight and rocketed back into a big lead. That hand gave Blumstein 232 million chips, almost two-thirds of the chips in play, with Ott closest behind on 80 million. John Hesp was desperately short with less than ten big blinds, and eventually, he was all-in with nine-seven of clubs, losing to Ben Pollak’s ace jack to go home to England with $2.6m.
Three and Easy for Blumstein
After another overnight pause, the final three returned to play down to a winner. Blumstein held a huge lead over his two opponents and put it to good work, calling off both Pollak and Ott with the better hand of ace-queen. Pollak was in huge trouble with the dominated queen-ten and Ott only had king-nine. The board of K-J-3-4-6 was a decisive one for Pollak, sending him home in third place with $3.5m, but it allowed Ott to scoop a huge pot, more than doubling up to go into the heads-up with 128 million to Blumstein’s 232 million.
Leading the way, always the aggressor, Blumstein soon became a massive chip leader. Ott got it in with king-nine again and doubled, hitting the nine to overcome Blumstein’s pocket sixes but he still faced a worse than 4:1 deficit. Looking down at ace-eight, he knew he had to shove and was delighted when Blumstein called it off with the inferior ace deuce.
A flop of J-6-5- kept Ott in line for a massive double-up back into contention, as did the seven on the turn. But a miracle deuce on the river paired Blumstein’s duck, and he erupted with joy, running to his rail in sheer ecstasy, winning the $8.15m top prize while Ott had to be satisfied with $4.7m as runner-up.
“Two weeks ago, I was just a kid who loves playing poker. Somehow, here I am, champion of the Main Event. I was just thinking about the past six or seven years, all the events that lead up to a moment like this this; all the good times and the bad times. I’m living the dream.”
In 2017, Scott Blumstein proved his poker credentials and has continued to do so since. Still winning big in poker, Blumstein has added just another half-million bucks to his 2017 world championship score, his biggest-ever day in poker, but he will never forget the day his poker dreams came true in Las Vegas as he became the champion of the world.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Scott Blumstein | United States | $8,150,000 |
| 2nd | Daniel Ott | United States | $4,700,000 |
| 3rd | Benjamin Pollack | France | $3,500,000 |
| 4th | John Hesp | United Kingdom | $2,600,000 |
| 5th | Antoine Saout | France | $2,000,000 |
| 6th | Bryan Piccioli | United States | $1,675,000 |
| 7th | Damian Salas | Argentina | $1,425,000 |
| 8th | Jack Sinclair | United Kingdom | $1,200,000 |
| 9th | Ben Lamb | United States | $1,000,000 |
2016 WSOP Main Event 2018 WSOP Main Event
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.