The 2025 World Series of Poker is off to a great start, as expected, and with the first week of the series in the books, it’s a great time to look back at some of the biggest moments so far.
It is still early days, so things may not be as exciting as we expect them to get later down the line, but we’ve already seen a fair share of thrilling moments, a couple of smaller controversies, and the WSOP+ app living up to and exceeding expectations.
So, let’s dive into it and recap the biggest and most interesting moments that marked the very first week of the summer series in Las Vegas.
First Bracelets of 2025 Awarded
Let’s start with one thing the World Series of Poker is primarily all about – WSOP bracelets. Over the course of the first week, a few of these found new owners.
Most winners already had the taste of claiming a bracelet before, but some, like David Shmuel, managed to win their very first WSOP gold, which is always a special moment in any poker player’s career.
Below is the list of events completed at the time of writing this article, with names of the winners and prize amounts:
- Event #2 – $500 Industry Employees Event – Phovieng Keokham ($64,369)
- Event #4 – $5,000 8-Handed NLHE – Antonio Galiana ($582,008)
- Event #4 – $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better – David Shmuel ($205,333)
- Event #5 – $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha – Bruno Furth ($620,696)
- Event #6 – $1,500 Seven Card Stud – Dan Heimiller ($106,840)
Event #1 – $1,000 Mystery Million is still ongoing, but the tournament was an absolute record-breaker in terms of attendance, attracting 19,654 entries. This resulted in a massive prize pool of $18,000,000, and 1,045 players made it to Day 2, which kicks off later today (June 1).
Phil Hellmuth’s Main Event Attendance Officially Confirmed
Despite his earlier announcements that he was likely to skip this year’s WSOP Main Event, The Poker Brat had a change of heart, deciding that he would be playing after all.
Hellmuth posted a poll on his X/Twitter, letting fans decide if he should enter or not. There was a little bit of controversy surrounding poll results and accusations of “tampering with results,” but that may be a story for another day.
The important thing is that following the voting, Phil decided that he will be in the mix for this year’s Main, making it official during Daniel Negreanu’s traditional $25k Fantasy Draft. And, he’s promised us another one of his legendary entries, this time around in the 80’s rock star style.
WSOP+ App Lives Up to the Hype
After being tested in the Bahamas and receiving high praise from the players, we expected the WSOP+ App to be a valuable addition to the main series, but it actually outperformed on most everyone’s expectations.
The app made the entire World Series experience much smoother and more enjoyable across the board, providing all the information, making registering for tournaments as simple as a few taps on the screen, and creating a very fun and vibrant social space for the players to share their thoughts, updates, and more.
The app is used even when breaking tables and reassigning players to new seats. Once a table breaks, the TD enters the information, and a few seconds later, all players receive their new seat assignments in the app.
So far, things could have hardly gone smoother, with only an occasional complaint about payments not getting through, but this likely has more to do with particular payment methods (especially credit cards) than the app itself. After all, when you get a seal of approval even from Allen Kessler, you have to be doing something right!
The WSOP+ app is giving us glimpses into the future of tournament poker, and there is no denying it in this instance – technology is making things better, and we love to see it.
From the Felt: Ivey Faces an All-In with Perfect Information, Kabrhel at It Again
When there is a situation with thousands of players and hundreds of tables playing at the same time, it’s impossible to avoid some unusual situations. Most of them go unnoticed, but when they happen to involve high-profile players, the word gets out.
They don’t come much higher profile than Phil Ivey, who found himself in a rather peculiar spot in Event #4. Namely, on the board of K♣J♦J♠3♠10♠, Ivey placed his last two remaining $5,000 chips on the felt in front of him.
Justin Zaki, his opponent in the hand, interpreted this move as a bet and quickly made the call with K♠7♠ for a backdoor flush.
Confusion ensued, as it turned out Ivey didn’t actually bet; he was just following the dealer’s instructions to place his chips in front of him instead of holding them in his hands. The floor was called, and it was decided that Phil wouldn’t be forced to put his chips in.
Instead, he was now facing a bet for his tournament life with the perfect information, allowing him to fold trips as he held J-9.
In a different situation, this could have been quite a controversial hand, but given the fact Ivey only had a couple of big blinds, everyone moved on quickly, and Phil busted a few hands later.
In other news from the felt, Martin Kabrhel, who’s become quite accustomed to the role of a poker villain by this point, was at it again. The Czech pro was doing his usual tanking routine in Event #5, taking excessive time to act on almost every single hand.
Things really escalated with ten players left and the final table approaching, so his tablemates decided they wouldn’t tolerate this behavior. They started calling the clock on him after just ten or so seconds on every hand, but this didn’t seem to bother Martin too much.
Kabrhel loves to get under his opponents’ skin and get them off their game, and he doesn’t care if that makes him unpopular with other players or the fans. However, this time around, his antics didn’t help him quite close the deal as he eventually busted in third, still picking up almost $290k.
2025 WSOP Rolls On
We are barely one week into the World Series of Poker, and the atmosphere is already electrifying at Paris and Horseshoe. Fields are big, action is good, and there is no lack of “side” stories to keep us entertained, either.
From everything we’ve seen so far, it will be another great summer in Las Vegas, creating the kind of hype we expect from the world’s largest and most popular poker festival. And we are all here for it!
