We count down the five biggest luckboxes in WSOP history…
1. Darvin Moon
Moon finished runner-up to Joe Cada in the 2009 Main Event. The bearded logger famously shunned sponsorship deals as he ‘didn’t want to answer to anybody’. However, with less than $15k in cashes since he might regret his moral stance.
2. Jamie Gold
Poker’s ultimate buffoon won the biggest ever WSOP Main Event in 2006 for a whopping $12 million. Gold embraced the spotlight, but his cringe-inducing table talk and fishy play just highlighted how lucky he’d been to ever claim the title of poker’s ‘World Champion’.
3. Barry Shulman
Daniel Negreanu seemed destined to win the 2009 WSOPE main event in London. But media magnate Barry Shulman got in the way and luckboxed his way to the title, leaving Kid Poker to wait four more years for another bracelet.
4. Robert Varkonyi
On Day 3 of the 2002 WSOP, Phil Hellmuth said Varkonyi was so bad he vowed to shave his head if he somehow went on to win. A few days later we had an amateur world champ and a bald Poker Brat.
5. Jerry Yang
Yang knew he wasn’t the best player in the 2007 Main Event and saw that the only way he was going to win was through uber-aggression, praying vociferously and kissing a photo of his kids. It somehow worked.
