WSOP 2025: Week #1 News and Notes

Phil Hellmuth – Fake News?

Earlier this month we made 10 predictions for this year’s WSOP, and the first one was Phil Hellmuth having a change of heart and deciding to play in the Main Event later this summer. 

Originally, the 60-year-old owner of 17 WSOP bracelets said that the Main has become a marathon that “I just can’t do anymore”.  Once the series began, we felt that Phil would get the adrenaline running through him and realize the draw of playing in the main among the thousands of other poker players. 

Before the series began, Phil posted a poll on his social media account asking fans if he should boycott the main, or fork over the $10k and battle it out in the ultimate marathon. That poll ended in favor of Phil sitting this out – over 12,000 people chimed in, giving Phil a 54% approval to skip the main – but mysteriously that poll has disappeared, and Phil appears to be leaving the door open for him to jump into the biggest $10k poker tournament in the world.

This prompted a feud to develop of sorts with one of the owners of The Lodge Card Club – Doug Polk.  Polk publicly cried foul on Phil’s “publicity stunt” as he calls it, insinuating that Hellmuth never intended to skip the main event – a tournament he has not mossed since the late 1980’s. 

Doug pointed out that Phil took a screenshot of the early results – which pointed overwhelmingly to Hellmuth jumping into action on July 2^nd, but once the poll swung the other way, it vanished into thin air.  Polk added that:

Regardless of Polk’s opinion, we are expecting Phil to play the main event in early July, making a grand entrance as he is famously done for the past several years.  Wouldn’t it be something if Phil sat down, only to see Doug smiling next to him at his table?  Stranger things have happened now.

Marin Kabrhel – Poker’s New Villain?       

Several years ago, poker was introduced to a new villain of sorts when William Kassouf took table talking to a whole new level, agitating every single player that dared win a pot against him through the 2016 World Series Main Event. 

William was recorded over and over berating his opponents, asking a steady stream of questions to them, and poking and prodding them at every moment to get them to expose any little piece of information in the hand. 

Some applauded the energy and enthusiasm he brought, while many others thought he crossed the line over and over again. In the end, he was front and center, with him and Benger tangled in one of the most played hands in WSOP history.

Since then, the title of the poker bad boy has essentially lived on with William – until now. As it turns out, Martin Kabrhel’s approach to a hand is to literally do nothing.  Sit and wait, and then wait some more – wait so much that it might bore his opponents into folding. And when he’s not sitting silent, he’s probing and prodding his opponents in any way he can. It’s a role he loves, and considering his success rate at it, we don’t expect his approach to change anytime soon. 

However, in Event #5 – the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event, Kabrhel’s tactics angered a lot of players at his tables, most notably Shaun Deeb – who exposed his hand strength on Day 2 when facing an all-in bet; had the clock called on him two hands in a row by Shaun and called Shaun out for calling the clock on him – twice.

Martin needled Nick Schulman as many times as he could, applauding the short stack when he gained chips. But in the hand where Schulman shoved a bluff into Martin, and ended up folding, he went silent and got mad. Mad at the dealer for being reprimanded. Mad at Shaun for calling the clock when he wasn’t in the hand at all – and requested an apology from him that never came. Thankfully for the others at the table, they eventually moved on.

With this, Martin may have just set a record for having the clock called on him no less than 10 times since play started on Day 2. At this point, the floor was already sick of dealing with him, so they made the decision to shorten the Czechia pro’s clock down to 10 seconds. We’re still waiting for Martin’s comment on this.

In the end of it all, Martin finished in 3^rd place, denied the bracelet by Caleb Bruno Furth but given the $288k boost into his bankroll. We expect Martin to run deep again at this year’s WSOP and maybe even break his own record for the number of times he gets the clock called on him.

$25,000 Heads-Up Championship

Moving onto more cheerful topics, the 2025 WSOP started with a bang as Event #7 – the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship began on the 30^th of May. A total of 64 poker pros put down $25k each to battle for the bracelet, giving them the best initial odds of most WSOP tournaments to win that coveted bracelet – and a $500k payday. For the first time, the tournament sold out with ease, even having an alternate line ready to jump in if the numbers presented themselves.

The first round produced some interesting matches – Artur Martirosian battled Jeremy Ausmus with Martirosian faltering early on before battling back to win. Chance Kornuth had to take on heads-up specialist John Smith, but eventually won with just ace high in the final hand. Senior Edward Sebesta took out cash game phenom Alex Keating, setting up a second-round match with Kornuth, which Chance took down. 

A potential Foxen-Foxen quarterfinal was dashed when Richard Green defeated Kristen in the second round, but Alex was able to take out Phil Ivey in one of the more watched matches in the round.  Alex’s run for the bracelet ended just shy of the money when Thomas Eychenne got the better of him, cashing the event.

The marquee match-up had to be Artur Martirosian against Kevin Rabichow – another heads-up specialist.  Like the first round when John Smith lost to Chance, Kevin got the short end of the stick, falling to Artur

The quarterfinals saw Patrick Leonard continue his winning ways, getting the W against Mike Shi to set-up a semi-final match with Artur who fought Chance Kornuth tooth and nail to make his way to the final four. Artur didn’t lead the match until late, and once he had the lead it took him only a few hands to get the win. 

The bottom half of the bracket saw Aliaksei Bolka send Harvey Castro to the showers, while David Chen cut Thomas Eychenne’s dream of a win, setting up their semi-final.

In the semi-finals, Patrick Leonard came up against Artur Martirosian and a failed bluff early on put Leonard behind and never was able to recover despite fighting hard for over an hour, giving the victory to the Russian.  Aliaksei Boika took on David Chen and after several hands the players got it all in on a four-bet pre-flop and a club on the turn gave Bolka the nut flush and eliminated Chen.

The final saw Boika get an early advantage, and it took Artur almost a half an hour to win a sizable pot, and well over an hour to finally snag the lead.  The turning point may have been Boika going passive in a three-bet hand pre-flop with Artur having pocket eights, and Boika holding Ath. The passiveness post flop allowed Artur to spike a set on the river, grabbing a significant lead, which he took to victory, the bracelet, and $500k for his first in-person bracelet in Las Vegas.

WSOP App – A Game Changer With an Asterisk

The biggest news going into the 2025 World Series was the introduction of the WSOP App – a tool to allow players to seamlessly register for tournaments – not just bracelet events – and keep players engaged and updated throughout the tournament ending long lines at the cashier. 

So far, the reviews have been mostly positive as players are welcoming the information and the tools at their fingertips – but there has been one significant catch.  Players need to be verified, and this cannot be done in the app. What transpired in the first days of the 2025 series were pictures of players standing in lines for up to 4 hours waiting to complete the 2-3 min verification process. 

The good news is players only need to do this once – but if you still need to go, try going after tournaments are underway; first thing in the morning or late at night. The window is open 24 hours a day in Paris, so if you can head at 5am, your 3–4-hour wait will be non-existent. And since this is the only significant line players need to wait through, the experience should be better and efficient for the tens of thousands of players at the series.

A Chip and a Chair…and a Bracelet

Caleb Furth turned a single 100,000 chip at the 40k / 80k blind level with 10 remaining and spun it all the way up to his second bracelet, winning Event #5 – the $5k PLO event for $620k. 

Not only did Caleb have to spin 1.25 Big Blinds up but he also had to battle Martin Kabrhel at the final table (see above). Caleb entered the final 9 with a 2.95 million chip stack after Aaron Mermelstein was eliminated in 10^th – the spot Caleb has resigned himself to before performing wizardry at the table. Turning 100k in chips to a title, while battling the antics and the other pros at his table!

The stories are just going to keep coming, so if you are not in Las Vegas taking the experience in first-hand, stay with us as we continue to bring you all the sights and sounds of the series all through June and July.