Images courtesy of PokerGO
‘The Best to Never Do It’, ‘Best Player Without Bracelets,’ ‘Cursed WSOP Players,’ you name it, Darren Elias was on the list.
A week ago, he fought for eight hours to finally end his long wait for a WSOP bracelet against Nick Schulman, only to lose the longest heads-up battle for gold in Vegas this summer.
Seven days on, Darren Elias took part in the $888-entry Crazy Eight WSOP Online event and 14 hours later had the gold he has craved his whole career. We spoke to the four-time World Poker Tour Main Event winner to discuss his achievement and what’s next for the man no-one will want to face at the live felt now.
Breaking the Duck
A week ago, Darren Elias walked away from Las Vegas having come second in a WSOP bracelet event again. While he’d always planned to fly home after the $10,000-entry Event #30, the No Limit 2-7 Single Draw Lowball 7-Handed event, ending that epic heads-up battle in second place for $336,421 was tough to take.
That heads-up with Nick was special and it was going to be emotional for me win or lose because of how the tourney went, Darren tells us.
It was the biggest deuce event of all time. Nick’s one of my favorite players. I have a lot of respect for him, and I’ve been playing him since I was 18 years old. Either way it was going to be emotional, I was playing to win but I’m happy for him.
A week later, Darren returned to the felt in the 14th event of the 2025 WSOP Online series. Taking part in the $888-entry Crazy Eights event, he spent 14 hours at the felt in the basement at his family home and ended the winner of the $170,208 top prize. After so many near misses, deep runs not ending with gold, relief was the overriding emotion.
It feels good to get the monkey off my back, to get off all those lists! Darren laughs. I hadn’t played poker since I got second to Nick [Schulman] in that bracelet event. It was Sunday and I saw the bracelet event I figured I’d hop in and play… and ended up winning!
With 1,182 entries and a prize pool of $945,600 in the Crazy Eights event, Elias, who plays on the WSOP site as ‘arrakeen’ was delighted to finally end his long wait for gold. With over $13.8 million in live ranking tournaments, he finally has the bracelet that had eluded him.
How Did Elias Claim Gold at Last?
It was a family affair at Chez Elias, as Darren sat down to play the event early on Sunday evening.
It’s funny, my office is in the basement, so I play online down there. My older daughter likes to sit with me. The tournament started at 5pm Eastern time, and she was there, and then she wandered down at 6.30am in the morning asking me ‘Are you still playing?!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, there’s four left, go get some breakfast!’
Despite booking the win, Darren tells us that he doesn’t usually swap the live felt for the keyboard and mouse.
I don’t usually play a lot of online events, it’s not the schedule I’m trying to keep these days but I will play the special bracelet events.
When he finally ended his long wait for gold – banking over $500,000 in a week in the process – it was a family celebration.
I came up to the kitchen, said ‘I won it,’ got some hugs, had a quick celebration… and went to bed!
BetMGM Championship on the Horizon
Darren won’t have too long to rest before he back in Las Vegas. As he tends to these days, Darren splits the WSOP and after his mid-Series break, heads back to Sin City on Saturday.
I’ll play the Bet MGM Championship at ARIA, then the WSOP Main Event and maybe the $50k No Limit and the $10k 6-Max. So probably four or five events. Why not try to win the Main?
With his recent record, no reason at all. In fact, Darren’s passion for poker, both online and live, seems as strong as it’s ever been.
With BetMGM, the shared liquidity getting Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey all connected has really helped our games. With record guarantees, record tournaments and trying to add to that network, the more players we can get playing together at the same time on the same network creates bigger and better games.
To Darren, helping players who are state-to-state neighbors play online poker together in big tournaments is what connects us all as poker players.
It brings the magic to online poker, says Darren. It’s been tough for the American online poker player, playing on questionable sites. To be able to offer a regulated, safe, protected network at BetMGM has been great.
Players feel comfortable playing, we have security and the site is regulated by the government. It’s nice to be able to play. Around Black Friday nobody could and its better now.
What Constitutes a Triple Crown?
With Darren already having won a record number of WPT Main Events and breaking his WSOP duck this week, could he enter a European Poker Tour in the aim of being the 12th person ever to win the fabled ‘Triple Crown’?
I don’t make it to Europe too much anymore but it would be cool to win all three to get the Triple Crown. Maybe Triton is Triple crown nowadays, too. I think that would be more realistic [to play] than EPT these days.
As Darren details, the tournament schedule of EPTs and Triton events are problematic with his need to keep travel reasonable with a family and young girls.
The Bahamas and Las Vegas are easiest for me, he says. Korea and Montenegro are more difficult; they’re beautiful venues but it is tough to get there. The time change means it can be a 20-day trip with all the travel.
In the days after his bracelet win, Darren hasn’t watched much poker. When he’s at home, he is in rest mode, enjoying time in the swimming pool with his kids and kicking back in 100-degree heat, quite different from the ice-cold atmosphere of the Horseshoe or Paris casinos.
I generally don’t look at a lot of poker stuff while I’m home. I guess if people I know make the final table in the PPC or there are interesting hands, I might take a look but there probably won’t be too much poker work. I’ll start to log back in on Saturday, poker-wise.
When he left Las Vegas just over a week ago, Darren Elias was one of the best players in the world without a bracelet win to his name. He returns to Sin City having ended that wait, keen to add more gold to an already glittering summer.
