button in SafariWhy This Seven-Time WSOP Champ Who Crushes Top Pros Flies Under the Radar
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There are only two players who've won five World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets since 2023 — Nick Schulman and Calvin Anderson.
The former is a Poker Hall of Famer who, deservedly so, receives plenty of poker media and social media attention. The latter has kept a low profile and mostly stays off the radar despite crushing some of the toughest fields. But that doesn't seem to bug Anderson, who is competing in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
"It doesn't bother me," Anderson told PokerNews on Monday. "A lot of the players have been around a lot longer than me. If I was 10 years older, I think I'd be up there with a lot of the guys."
Anderson, who has two bracelets already this summer, has been around for quite some time. His results stack up to many of the best in the game over the past decade. He's won seven bracelets since 2014 and took down the WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas for $1,388,280 in 2023, the largest score among his $7.7 million in cashes recorded by The Hendon Mob.
How He Became a Poker Star
The Oklahoma native began grinding low-stakes online games when he was just 18, making small deposits on PokerStars and would "just keep depositing and losing, depositing and losing."
"I remember I got an overdraft fee because I pulled money out that I didn't have," Anderson said of his early poker days.
Anderson struggled early in his poker career, but he took an interest in mixed games as he felt he'd have a bigger edge in those games than no-limit hold'em. That turned out to be a wise decision. He's won seven bracelets in six different variants, two in the $10,000 Razz Championship.
"When I was younger, I looked up to guys like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey because they knew how to play all the games, and so in the very beginning, I just wanted to learn all of them," Anderson said.
Can He Win WSOP Player of the Year?
The under-the-radar poker star is one of two players to have won multiple bracelets this summer, Naoya Kihara being the other. He's now in the WSOP Player of the Year race, but he admits Alex Foxen will be tough to beat.
"(Alex Foxen) has a pretty big lead," Anderson said. "He has a whole tournament lead win over everyone else, and he's got the money and momentum, I guess. He's willing to go for it and he wants to win it, and I think will win it."
Anderson doesn't chase the spotlight. He doesn't vlog or wear a bunch of sponsorship patches, and that's why he doesn't get the recognition like his peers, some he's outperformed.
The 38-year-old poker pro isn't just a live tournament crusher. He has 10 PokerStars online SCOOP titles, previously a record that was surpassed by Benny Glaser in recent years. Glaser has continued to grind those prestigious online events, while Anderson hasn't played in eight years.
But despite a resume most poker players could only dream of achieving, he still hasn't reached mainstream poker attention.
"My style isn't as controversial. I'm not as cocky, and I don't know the word for it, flamboyant, as a lot of the other pros are trying to just steal the show. That's never really been me. I've never wanted to be like that necessarily," Anderson explained.
"I guess if you're thinking about sponsorships, it would be nice to represent somebody. But I'm the type of person that would only really want to represent something that I really believe in."
You won't see Anderson boasting about winning seven bracelets on social media, berating opponents for poor play at the poker table, or telling Ralph Perry to "get on your bike." You will, however, see him stacking chips in some of the toughest World Series of Poker events this summer.
