PokerNews Op-Ed: WSOP Opens Door for "New" Poker Triple Crown
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For years, poker’s Triple Crown has remained consistent. A player must win titles on the three major poker tours: the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the World Poker Tour (WPT) and the European Poker Tour (EPT).
However, the recent announcement from the WSOP of three festivals in 2021 opens the door to the possibility of a new or perhaps just a different Triple Crown.
PokerNews Executive Editor Will Shillibier breaks down what this might look like.
Check out all the details as the WSOP announces its return to the Rio in 2021
From Gavin Griffin to 2021
The Triple Crown is one of the most elusive accolades in poker. In fact, more men have walked on the surface of the moon than have won poker’s Triple Crown.
Triple Crown Winners: Gavin Griffin, Roland De Wolfe, Jake Cody, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Davidi Kitai, Mohsin Charania, Harrison Gimbel, Niall Farrell & Roberto Romanello.
Gavin Griffin’s victory in the 2008 WPT Borgata Winter Open didn’t just net him a cool $1.4m in prize money. He wrote his name into poker history as the first Triple Crown winner after winning the EPT Grand Final in 2007 and a $3,000 Pot Limit Hold’em WSOP bracelet in 2004.
Fast forward 13 years and Roberto Romanello became the ninth player to achieve the feat; to date the only player whose Triple Crown included an Online WSOP bracelet.
The WSOP Trifecta
Online bracelets have been held alongside the WSOP in Las Vegas every summer since 2015. From 2015 to 2019, a total of 18 players have won their bracelets this way. However, 2021 was the first time online bracelets were won in a festival all of their own, both on WSOP.com and GGPoker.
So what does this have to do with Triple Crowns? Well, this year features three separate festivals where poker players can hope to get their hands on the most coveted poker prize - a gold WSOP bracelet.
| Festival | Dates | Location |
|---|---|---|
| WSOP Online | July 1st onwards | WSOP.com & GGPoker |
| WSOP | September 30-November 23 | Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, United States |
| WSOP Europe | November 19-December 8 | King’s Resort, Rozvadov, Czech Republic |
Who's In With a Chance?
It would truly be amazing to see a player win a bracelet at each festival in 2021, although the chances of this may be astronomical!
Therefore it's far more likely that we see a player complete the Triple Crown of winning a live, online and Europe WSOP bracelet. By our counts, there are currently 40 players who are one bracelet away from becoming the first to win the WSOP Triple Crown.
| # of Players | |
|---|---|
| Needs Online | 23 (incl. Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Bertrand Grospellier) |
| Needs WSOP Europe | 16 (incl. Chance Kornuth, Upeshka De Silva, Kristen Bicknell, Fedor Holz) |
| Needs WSOP | 1 (Anson Tsang) |
Here is a full table of players and which bracelet they require to complete the Triple Crown. It should be noted that both Daniel Negreanu and Jeff Lisandro have won WSOP APAC bracelets, so in theory, have already completed a live version of the WSOP Triple Crown.
| Online | WSOP | WSOPE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nipun Java | X | X | |
| Chance Kornuth | X | X | |
| Josh Pollock | X | X | |
| Upeshka De Silva | X | X | |
| Taylor Paur | X | X | |
| Nathan Gamble | X | X | |
| Joe McKeehen | X | X | |
| Kevin Gerhart | X | X | |
| Tony Dunst | X | X | |
| Nick Binger | X | X | |
| Juha Helppi | X | X | |
| Yuri Dzivielevski | X | X | |
| Kristen Bicknell | X | X | |
| David Peters | X | X | |
| Fedor Holz | X | X | |
| Michael Gathy | X | X | |
| Jesper Hougaard | X | X | |
| John Juanda | X | X | |
| J. P. Kelly | X | X | |
| Barry Shulman | X | X | |
| Jeff Lisandro | X | X | |
| Michael Mizrachi | X | X | |
| Steve Billirakis | X | X | |
| Elio Fox | X | X | |
| Antonio Esfandiari | X | X | |
| Phil Hellmuth | X | X | |
| Adrian Mateos | X | X | |
| Daniel Negreanu | X | X | |
| Barny Boatman | X | X | |
| Kevin MacPhee | X | X | |
| Jonathan Duhamel | X | X | |
| Chris Ferguson | X | X | |
| Dominik Nitsche | X | X | |
| Asi Moshe | X | X | |
| Hanh Tran | X | X | |
| Timur Margolin | X | X | |
| Norbert Szecsi | X | X | |
| Dash Dudley | X | X | |
| Bertrand Grospellier | X | X | |
| Anson Tsang | X | X |
What Do You Think?
So what do you think? Will you be cheering on Dnegs to WSOP Online success in 2021? Will you be hoping Anson Tsang heads to America to grab his third bracelet? Or do you think the idea is a load of rubbish. Let us know in the comments below!
Based in the United Kingdom, Will started working for PokerNews as a freelance live reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time staff in 2019. He graduated from the University of Kent in 2017 with a B.A. in German. He also holds an NCTJ Diploma in Sports Journalism.
