The 2025 World Collection of Poker (WSOP) wrapped up in Las Vegas this month, delivering one other summer time of historic achievements and memorable moments.
On this column, we recap 4 of essentially the most impactful tales from this 12 months’s collection in Las Vegas.
4. Desk Discuss Frenzy
It wouldn’t be a correct poker record with out a little bit of controversy.
Czech professional Martin Kabrhel took middle stage for your entire eight-week collection together with his incessant chatter and fast wit. Media shops swarmed his tables to catch the subsequent viral Kabrhel second—or to catch a second of his tablemates lashing out at him.
Kabrhel has been a chatterbox on the poker desk for many years, nevertheless it wasn’t till this 12 months that his outlandish habits introduced him international discover. It didn’t harm that he made a number of deep runs on the collection, giving him most livestreaming and social media publicity. He received a bracelet, made a number of last tables and completed fourth on the Participant of the Yr leaderboard.
Whereas Kabrhel was the media darling of the collection, it was a unique talkative professional who made headlines because the summer time drew to a detailed. Will Kassouf, already recognized for his “speech play” antics on the poker desk, took it to a different stage throughout his deep run within the Primary Occasion.
Kassouf acquired a number of penalties through the match for his abrasive desk speak. On Day 7, after being eradicated in thirty third place, he was knowledgeable by WSOP workers that he was banned from collaborating in one other match for the rest of the 12 months. That set Kassouf off right into a tirade, resulting in him being escorted out of the venue by safety whereas media adopted to seize the scene.
3. Okamoto Almost Pulls Off the Three-Peat
Japan’s Shiina Okamoto pulled off an unimaginable feat on the 2024 WSOP, profitable the $1,000 Women Occasion only one 12 months after ending in second place.
Then in 2025, she did the unthinkable. Okamoto went the space and received the match for the second straight 12 months. The efficiency is mathematically inconceivable when you think about the turnout for these tournaments:
2023: 2nd place in a area of 1,295 gamers for $118,768
2024: 1st place in a area of 1,245 gamers for $171,732
2025: 1st place in a area of 1,368 gamers for $184,094
All eyes will likely be on Okamoto when the Women Occasion comes round subsequent 12 months.
2. Leo Margets Ends the Drought
Okamoto wasn’t the one girl to make historical past on the poker tables this summer time. Leo Margets achieved one thing on the WSOP that hadn’t been finished in 30 years, changing into the primary girl since Barbara Enright in 1995 to succeed in the $10,000 Primary Occasion last desk.
It’s a storyline that has change into a mainstay at each Primary Occasion: Would the “Final Lady Standing” lastly break by way of and earn a seat at poker’s most prestigious last desk? Margets had already been the Final Lady Standing as soon as earlier than, ending twenty seventh in 2009, and he or she leveraged that have into her historic last desk run in 2025.
Her subsequent try at historical past was to change into the primary girl to win the Primary Occasion, however her run led to seventh place for $1.5 million.
1. Michael Mizrachi’s Historic Summer season
In what’s going to go down as arguably the best WSOP efficiency ever, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi captured each the $10,000 Primary Occasion and the $50,000 Poker Gamers Championship in 2025. Many high execs take into account these two tournaments to be essentially the most prestigious in all of poker, and “The Grinder” received each throughout the span of a month.
Not solely that, Mizrachi has now received the Poker Gamers Championship a complete of 4 instances—greater than some other participant.
Mizrachi’s feat shocked his friends. The residing members of the Poker Corridor of Fame stunned him after his Primary Occasion victory by circumventing the traditional Corridor of Fame election course of and inducting him proper then and there.
On the younger age of 44, Mizrachi’s poker match résumé is perhaps essentially the most spectacular within the historical past of the sport.