Top Senior Moments

With the $5,000 Seniors High Roller starting today, and the $1,000 Seniors (6/15) and $1,000 Super Seniors (6/22) coming up, here are some highlights from a quarter-century of the tournaments.

2001: "The Oklahoma Johnny Hale Seniors World Championship of Poker" for players 50 and older joined the WSOP. For its first three years, the Seniors World Championship of Poker had been a stand-alone tournament paired with the Seniors Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Jay Heimowitz outlasted a field of 340 for $115,430 and his sixth bracelet.
2005: Paul McKinney became the oldest player to win his first bracelet and the second oldest bracelet winner (a younger 80 than Johnny Moss), defeating a Seniors field of 825 for $202,725.
2006: Ron Rose became the first player to reach the final table of the Seniors Championship twice, falling in 6th for $37,710 three years after winning the bracelet and $130,060. His feat would later be matched by 2008 Main Event third place finisher Dennis Phillips (2012 2nd place for $372,895 and 2014 5th place for $153,883), Bill Stabler (2012 5th place for $147,605 and 2018 2nd place for $409,456), and Dan Heimiller (2014 1st place for $627,462 and 2017 9th place for $53,817).
2006: Clare Miller became the first woman to win the Seniors Championship, defeating a field of 1,184 players for $247,814.
2012: Allyn Jaffrey Shulman defeated a then-record 4,128-player field to win the Seniors Championship for a then-record $603,713, joining her husband Barry as the fourth married couple to both own bracelets.
2015: John Andlovec won the debut $1,000 Super Seniors Championship (65 years and older), defeating a field of 1,533 for $262,220.
2017: James Moore won his second straight Super Seniors Championship, defeating a field of 1,720 for $259,230 a year after outlasting a field of 1,476 for $230,626.
2018: Farhintaj Bonyadi became the first female to win the Super Seniors, defeating a field of 2,191 for $311,451. Despite the WSOP lowering the minimum age from 65 to 60 this year, Bonyadi became the oldest WSOP bracelet winner at 83, breaking Johnny Moss's thirty year-old record (a couple weeks shy of 81, still the open record). Farhintaj and her son Farzad Bonyadi became the first mother and son to win bracelets.
2023: The Seniors Championship set a record with 8,180 entries (players could enter twice on each of two starting days). With a record 1,227 paid, Lonnie Hallett became the event's first foreign winner, taking home a record $765,731 (from a record $7,280,200 prize pool) to Canada as he denied Billy Baxter his eighth bracelet heads up.
2023: Dan Heimiller became the first player to reach the final table of the Seniors Championship three times: 2014 (1st place for $627,462), 2017 (9th place for $53,817), and 2023 (3rd place for $356,166). James Moore has a Seniors final table (2020) to go with his two Super Seniors wins. Bill Stabler reached the Seniors final table twice (2012 & 2018 Seniors) and the Super Seniors once (2021).
Mitch Garshofsky has a record 13 cashes in Seniors events, one more than John Esposito. Allyn Shulman and Marsha Wolak-Barnett share the female lead with 9 cashes.
Only one player has topped a million dollars in career Seniors winnings, Dan Heimiller at $1,054,703. Allyn Shulman is the women's leader at $633,901.

Dubbed the "World's Greatest Unknown WSOP Historian," Robert Jen has been researching, analyzing, and writing about the world's greatest game, and especially the World Series of Poker (WSOP), since 2013.