Top Stories of 2025, #1: Michael Mizrachi Historic WSOP Double
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Those of you who have been following PokerNews' Top Stories of 2025 series may be left scratching your heads, wondering where Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi's incredible summer was going to feature. Scratch no more because Mizrachi dominating the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) ranks as the number one poker story of 2025; here's why.
The live poker world has seen several players enjoy sun-runs over the years. One only needs to look at Fedor Holz's amazing 2016 results or Justin Bonomo's superb 2018 to see some relatively recent epic runs, but what Mizrachi achieved at the 2025 WSOP stands alone, even heads and shoulders above the rest. Additionally, it is a pair of results that will likely never be seen again.
Taking on the Role of Poker's Ambassador
Whoever wins the WSOP Main Event automatically becomes poker's unofficial ambassador, at least for the next 12 months. Some players prefer to shy away from the limelight, while others grab the opportunity with both hands and do what they can to promote the game. Mizrachi falls into the second camp.
PokerNews' Connor Richards spoke exclusively to Mizrachi during the 2025 WSOP Paradise festival and asked "The Grinder" about him being one of the more active Main Event champions in recent times.
"I've been just traveling around, going everywhere around the world," he told PokerNews. "I've just been to Panama, Estonia, Israel, Cyprus, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden, Estonia, I don't know, everywhere, all over the world. I came in from Colombia, flew to Miami one day, and came here."
"I've played a few tournaments here and there. In Colombia, I was playing some cash games. Just non-stop, just enjoying my time and enjoying my family. I mean, I love traveling, and my son keeps me sane. It's hard when you're alone, so it's much better when he comes with me. Now he's 21, he can play poker himself."
It's difficult for poker players to fathom how incredible Mizrachi's double victory was, never mind trying to explain it to those outside of the poker community. What he achieved will almost certainly never be done again in our lifetimes, an achievement more than worthy of top spot in PokerNews' top 10 stories of 2025.
A Record-Breaking Fourth $50,000 PPC Victory
Mizrachi had already cashed in ten bracelet-awarding events at the 2025 WSOP before he entered the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. A 25th place in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Battle of the Ages tournament was his best of a set of otherwise unremarkable in-the-money finishes.
Although the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, awarded to the $50,000 Poker Players Championship winner, is considered one of the most difficult to capture, Mizrachi got his hands on it in 2010, 2012, and for a third time in 2018.
The 2025 edition of the PPC drew in 107 entrants, including Mizrachi. The man affectionately known as "The Grinder" dominated proceedings throughout. Mizrachi bagged up the third-largest stack on Day 1, the second-largest on Day 2, the third-largest on Day 3, before claiming the chip lead with only seven players remaining at the end of Day 4.
"I probably played better than the last three I won..."
Mizrachi eliminated five of his six final table opponents, including runner-up Bryn Kenney, as he got his hands on a record-breaking fourth $50,000 Poker Players Championship trophy and $1,331,322 in prize money, the seventh seven-figure score of his glistening career.
"I probably played better than the last three I won," Mizrachi told PokerNews shortly after his victory. "Everything went my way this tournament. I was always at the top of the leaderboard, never really got short, and probably played my best overall."
"The Grinder" joked that he could find himself in contention for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame if he won the PPC for a fifth time, before calling out Brian Rast, who was tied with Mizrachi on three victories in this prestigious event until Mizrachi forged a lead for himself.
Little did Mizrachi and his legion of supporters know that a Hall of Fame spot would come sooner than they thought.
The Most Dominant WSOP Main Event Final Table Performance Ever
While the $50,000 Poker Players Championship is considered the toughest live event to win, due to the caliber of players frequenting it, the $10,000 WSOP Main Event World Championship is remarkably challenging to take down because of its immense size.
Mizrachi navigated to the final table of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, where he started seventh from nine in chips, and ultimately finished fifth for a career-best $2,332,992. Most players never get the chance to fight it out at the WSOP Main Event final table twice, but Mizrachi is not like most players.
Having bought into Day 1b, Mizrachi bulldozed his way to the top of his flight's chip counts before finishing in the top 10% on Day 2abc. Mizrachi lost almost half of his stack on Day 3, resulting in him bagging up a stack in the bottom third of the counts, but normal business was resumed thereafter. Day 4 saw Mizrachi finish the night in 43rd place out of 522 surviving players, before finishing 48th out of 202 on Day 5 and second out of 57 on Day 6.
Day 7 was another rough one for The Grinder, who finished 19th from the 24 remaining players. The then seven-time WSOP bracelet winner shone brightly on the penultimate Day 8, bagging and tagging 93 million chips, enough for second place at the nine-handed final table, despite being down to only three big blinds at one stage.
"Last time I was seventh of nine; now I'm second in chips out of nine players. I'm in a good spot and have position on the big stack, so I like my situation," Mizrachi told PokerNews after Day 8 concluded.
Anyone who has played against Mizrachi or watched him in action over the years will attest to his ability to wield a big stack with deadly effect. Mizrachi is renowned for putting his opponents under maximum pressure with big bets, his loose-aggressive style seemingly a million miles away from the GTO styles of many of today's top-tier pros.
Mizrachi rode his luck during the 25th hand of the final table's action, four-betting from the small blind with ace-king and calling John Wasnock's shove, which he made with pocket kings. Mizrachi looked to be heading home in sixth place until he found the ace of diamonds on the river to double his stack to 151,400,000 and claim the chip lead.
Five hands later, and with blinds of 1,000,000/2,000,000/2,000,000a, Mizrachi opened to 4,300,000 with ace-king from under the gun, and Adam Hendrix three-bet to 12,000,000 in the cutoff with pocket jacks. Mizrachi responded by moving all-in, and Hendrix called all-in for 56,600,000.
They say you have to win your coin flips if you want to win poker tournaments, and Mizrachi must have received that memo. After a queen-queen-four flop kept Hendrix's fish hooks ahead, Mizrachi spiked a king on the turn to send his rail into raptures. A three on the river busted Alaska's finest in fifth place, and propelled Mizrachi to the top of the pile with almost 215 million chips, and he never looked back.
Twenty-nine hands later, after the 59th hand of the Main Event's final table, Mizrachi bagged and tagged 445,200,000 chips, with John Wasnock's 94,500,000 being the second-largest stack. To put his stack into context, there were 234 big blinds in play, and Mizrachi owned 178 of them!
"I wanted to keep going. I didn't want to stop. We would've been done in an hour if we kept going. I wanted to finish it off today, but I know they can't. They have a schedule," Mizrachi said after bagging up his monster stack.
True to his world, Mizrachi had the 2025 WSOP Main Event wrapped up inside an hour of the tenth and final day. First, he eliminated PokerStars ambassador Kenny Hallaert with king-jack versus ace-queen on only the second hand of the day. He then sent Braxton Dunaway to the rail in third place on the very next hand, his suited ace-ten besting Dunaway's suited ten-six.
Heads-up lasted all but 18 hands. Wasnock min-raised to 5,000,000 with ace-nine, Mizrachi called with ten-three of clubs, and the flop fell ace-nine-seven with two clubs. After both players checked, the dealer put a Mizrachi flush-completing four of clubs on the turn. Wasnock bet 10,000,000, Mizrachi raised to 30,000,000 before snap-calling the 70,500,000 jam from Wasnock. An ace or nine on the river would have spoiled the Mizrachi party, but it was the five of clubs, busting Wasnock in second place, and earning Mizrachi the title of World Champion and a career-best $10 million.
Immediate Induction Into Poker's Hall of Fame
In an unprecedented move, Mizrachi was immediately inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame without the usual voting process taking place. WSOP Vice President Jack Effel, flanked by such luminaries and Hall of Famers as Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Brian Rast, David Oppenheim, Jen Harman, John Hennigan, and Eli Elezra, made the announcement in the aftermath of Mizrchi's Main Event victory.
Thanks to his brace of World Poker Tour (WPT) titles and eight WSOP bracelets, including four in the $50,000 PPC and a Main Event, Mizrachi was already a poker icon. His deserved induction into the Poker Hall of Fame made him a poker legend.
