Five Bracelets in Five Years: Brad Ruben Wins the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw ($138,080)

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Jun 03, 2025 4 min read Last updated Jun 05, 2025

Winning a WSOP Gold bracelet is a dream that most poker players share but very few achieve. Winning five is significantly rarer — before today, only 41 players had accomplished this feat since the inaugural World Series of Poker in 1970.

Brad Ruben became the 42nd player to capture a fifth bracelet today at the 2025 World Series of Poker hosted at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Ruben overcame a 532-entrant field in Event #12: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw to win the top prize of $138,080 alongside bracelet #5. In doing so, he joins an even smaller, more elite group of poker players to have won five bracelets within a five-year span — a list that includes legends such as Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and Doyle Brunson. Ruben is only the eleventh player to achieve this impressive feat.

Final Table Results

Winner's Reaction

"I'm very blessed" an emotional Ruben said following the victory. "I mean, i love all the mixed games so to win another bracelet in another variant is a blessing. I'm honored, and I have a lot of people to thank. First, God, just having a strong connection with him has helped me through some difficult times. And also my girlfriend Sunny, we've been together for a little over two and a half years. She's been very supportive of me and I love her very much."

"Another thing is this sweater is important to me. It's been very lucky for me, but also it's the color of mental health awareness. I'm very passionate about that and want to get a message out: Whatever people are going through, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm happy to talk to anyone, at anytime, about whatever."

When asked what contributed the most to his success at the WSOP over the years, Ruben pointed to his edge in less commonly played formats.

"My wins are in variants where players don't have much experience, so I feel that me being a more experienced player helps. I obviously ran well, I'm 5-0 heads-up so there's obviously some favorable card distribution there."

"I want to compete for the most bracelets this decade" Ruben continued. I think Ausmus has five and a bunch of people have four. So that's a goal of mine that keeps me going. I've loved the WSOP ever since I was a teenager and I'm very passionate about it."

Final Day Action

The third and final day began with just five returning players competing for the lion's share of the $706,230 prize pool. Eventual runner up Han Liu began the day with the largest stack but Ruben made a hero call in the first level—correctly calling with a pair of fours—to bring himself close to even with Liu for the chip lead. Five-time bracelet winner Brian Yoon had the opposite trajectory, beginning the day with the short stack and dwindling down from the start. Yoon managed to double up after getting short but was out in fifth soon after Jun Weng drew into a nine-low leaving Yoon drawing dead to a ten.

Following Yoon's elimination the pace of play slowed considerably with no clear short stacks and a chip average worth well over 100 big blinds. Liu and Ruben swapped the chip lead on several occasions while Yueqi Zhu and Weng saw their stacks trend downwards. Liu was putting relentless pressure on all three opponents with well-timed aggression and by the time Weng bowed out in fourth Liu had a sizable lead with over half the chips in play. Ruben managed to hold with a pat-ten to eliminate Zhu in third but still had a tall order in front of him as Liu held nearly a 2:1 chip advantage over Ruben going into heads-up play.

A series of small pots were exchanged in the early parts of the heads-up duel, with the majority going Ruben's way. As Ruben began to inch closer to Liu, he got paid off two times in quick succession—once with a jack-low and once with a ten-low—to take the chip lead. Liu quickly took the lead back after getting value with a jack-low of his own shortly before the pivotal hand of the tournament.

In a four-bet pot that saw Ruben stand pat and Liu draw one, Ruben picked off a massive all-in bluff from Liu, who had drawn into a pair of sixes. Ruben quickly called with a pat eighty-six in a hand that left Liu with just over ten big blinds. Liu never recovered and soon after was eliminated after getting the rest of his chips in with a ten-low only for Ruben to show down a nine-low. The two players, who Ruben mentioned have a ton of history with each other playing in mixed cash games in Texas, shook hands in a show of respect before Ruben went on to celebrate the victory with his rail.

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