Images courtesy of PokerGO.com
Another edition of the Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) is behind us, and it was one to remember for thousands of poker fans who watched the streams on PokerGO and YouTube and refreshed the live chip counts every 20 minutes for two months straight.
Michael Mizrachi made poker history by winning the Main Event, while the likes of Will Kassouf and Martin Kabrhel divided the poker community and created some amazing storylines.
This year’s WSOP had its heroes, its villains, and its scandals, and will likely go down in the history of the game as one of the most memorable festivals ever played.
Now that it’s over, we take a look at the two months behind us and all the things we learned about the Series and the poker world this summer.
The WSOP Is Only Getting Better
In the past, we have seen many tournament poker series launch, but none have lasted as long as the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
While the likes of the World Poker Tour (WPT) have remained competitive many years after their launch, many others never lived up to their potential, with quite a few forced to shut down altogether.
Unlike them, the WSOP has continued getting better over the years, and the 2025 edition may have been the best organized one yet.
Despite some technical difficulties at the Las Vegas venues, this year’s WSOP saw the registration lines significantly shut thanks to the WSOP+ app, which made the entire experience so much more enjoyable for the players.
Beyond registration, the WSOP was able to provide good tournament structures, fair rake, and a great player experience at the tables for the most part.
Having been acquired by GGPoker’s parent company in 2024, the WSOP took a step forward in 2025 and showed the world that tournament poker can get even better than it already is.
Poker Villains Make for Good TV
Despite all the amazing stories of success at the Series, two most talked-about players this summer were Martin Kabrhel and Will Kassouf, the two trash-talkers whose table antics divided the poker community down the middle.
For Kabrhel, the 2025 WSOP was one of the most successful of his life, which meant he would get a lot of TV time throughout the coverage.
For the first few weeks of the Series, we kept seeing Kabrhel on TV tables, and this meant seeing a lot of talking and a lot of stalling.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse than Kabrhel, a well-known villain from the past made another deep run in the Main Event, reminding us of his initial run in 2016.
Will Kassouf took things to a whole new level, shamelessly stealing every second of time he could, getting into confrontations with other players, and throwing everyone off their game.
Things ended badly for Kassouf, who was eventually escorted off the premises, but both him and Kabrhel made some stories that will be remembered for years to come.
While the opinions of the poker fans remain split on these two players, there is no denying that their antics made for a more entertaining WSOP from a viewer’s standpoint, which is likely what matters the most for the future of tournament poker.
Intuitive Poker Play Isn’t Dead
2025 will go down in the poker history books as the year of Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, as one of the best “old school” players showed the world he still has what it takes not only to compete, but to crush.
The Grinder won the $50k Poker Players Championship and the Main Event in a single summer for the first time ever, and got the poker elite to honor him with an emergency Hall of Fame induction, which was an unprecedented development.
Mizrachi wasn’t the only “feel” player to have a great summer either, as Shaun Deeb had the best WSOP of his career, winning the Player of the Year title for the second time in his life.
Both Deeb and Mizrachi are known for playing poker their own way and using unconventional strategies to play tournament poker in an era where solver-approved strategies seem to be dominant.
These two proved that intuition still matters in poker and relying simply on computers and GTO strategies isn’t the only way to play the game.
Never Underestimate the Ladies
Last year, we witnessed Kristen Foxen make a deep run in the Main Event and almost make it to the final table, before she was eliminated after making a gutsy bluff in the deepest stages of the tournament.
This time around, Spaniard Leo Margets outdid Foxen and all the ladies that came before her by actually making the final table and being the first female player to do so in modern poker history.
After outlasting nearly 10,000 players, Margets eventually lost a coin-flip to bust out in seventh place, but she showed that the ladies definitely have what it takes to compete in elite poker tournaments.
With some luck, Leo’s final table appearance will give wings to new generations of young female poker players, one of which could eventually become the Main Event champion.
Poker Legends Belong in the Hall of Fame
The Poker Hall of Fame is the most elite club in the poker world, made up exclusively of the best players in the world, and it stands to reason that becoming a part of this elite club is a difficult feat.
However, there are players out there who simply belong in the Hall of Fame, and Michael Mizrachi was one such name leading up to 2025.
Despite his fame and success in the poker world, the current HOF rules have made it so that he was not even nominated for induction this year, a somewhat scandalous turn of events.
Yet, The Grinder decided to show the world he more than belongs among the poker elite, and his performance at the 2025 WSOP was so notable that his peers decided to induct him without voting.
A unanimous decision by the living HOF members meant Mizrachi would become a part of the HOF without having to wait for next summer to be nominated.
His induction has also opened the door for some other players to potentially become HOF members by posting exceptional results of their own, as the idea of “one player per year” is no longer set in stone.
