The 2026 WSOP produced a rare bit of symmetry when two of the game’s most accomplished tournament players each picked up their ninth career bracelet during the same series. Michael Mizrachi won the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship for $1,350,203, while Shaun Deeb captured the $1,500 8-Game Mix for $181,625, and both results pulled their winners level with Benny Glaser at nine bracelets apiece, trailing only Phil Hellmuth’s record haul of seventeen.
Mizrachi Adds Another PLO Title to His Résumé
Mizrachi’s win came in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, a buy-in level and format that has become closely associated with his career over the years. He topped a field that eventually came down to a heads-up battle against Zarvan Tumboli, who earned $900,088 for the runner-up finish. The title-deciding hand saw Mizrachi get his stack in holding pocket aces, and the board ran out with a straight on the river. It was not enough to save Tumboli’s run, and Mizrachi’s ninth bracelet was locked up on the spot. For a player already regarded as one of the sharpest Pot-Limit Omaha minds in the game, the win reinforces a reputation built over nearly two decades of high-stakes tournament results.
Deeb Breaks a Painful Runner-Up Streak
Deeb’s path to his ninth bracelet carried more emotional weight. He arrived at Event #74, the $1,500 8-Game Mix, having finished runner-up in three straight tournaments earlier in the series, a stretch that would test the patience of even a player with Deeb’s track record. He also had to survive a brutal short stack, dropping to just 300,000 chips nine-handed before grinding his way back into contention. “I know the variance in poker. I could’ve easily lost this heads-up match,” Deeb said afterward, a fitting reflection on a tournament where his margin for error had been razor thin for long stretches. He ultimately defeated Dean Joe heads up, with Joe collecting $120,570 for second place, in a field of 766 that also saw Fu Wong take third for $81,530, Blaz Zerjav fourth for $56,230, Itsuko Yoroi fifth for $39,570, and Patrick Mahoney sixth for $28,420.
A Repeat Title for Deeb in a Familiar Event
The win was not Deeb’s first in this specific event. He had already claimed the $1,500 8-Game Mix bracelet back in 2023, making this his second title in the same tournament and adding a layer of familiarity to an otherwise grueling run through three consecutive near-misses. Mixed-game events like 8-Game Mix tend to reward players with broad-based skill across multiple poker variants rather than specialists in a single game, and Deeb’s résumé across both hold’em and mixed formats has made him one of the more well-rounded threats in any field he enters, regardless of the specific game on the schedule.
Joining an Exclusive Club
With both results now final, Mizrachi and Deeb sit alongside Benny Glaser at nine career WSOP bracelets each, a group that trails only Phil Hellmuth’s all-time record of seventeen. Reaching nine bracelets puts a player firmly into the conversation about the greatest tournament résumés of all time, and having two players cross that threshold in the same series, in completely different formats and buy-in levels, speaks to how deep the pool of elite mixed-game and Omaha talent has become at the WSOP. Both wins also carried significant financial weight on their own, with Mizrachi’s $1,350,203 dwarfing Deeb’s $181,625 largely as a function of buy-in size rather than field strength, since both events drew fields stacked with experienced regulars.
Two Very Different Paths to the Same Number
What stands out about the pairing of these two results is how differently Mizrachi and Deeb arrived at the same milestone. Mizrachi’s win came in a single, decisive heads-up hand against a player who had otherwise run well enough to reach the final confrontation, the kind of clean, direct path that high buy-in Omaha events often produce when a short-handed table collapses quickly. Deeb’s route was the opposite: a grinding, attritional campaign that included three separate runner-up finishes before he even reached the 8-Game Mix bracelet, plus a near-elimination at 300,000 chips nine-handed that could easily have ended his tournament well before the money bubble. Both paths ended in the same place, but the contrast is a reminder that there is no single template for building a nine-bracelet résumé.
What Comes Next in the Chase for Seventeen
Neither Mizrachi nor Deeb is likely to slow down after reaching nine bracelets, and both have shown over the years that a milestone win tends to fuel rather than satisfy their appetite for more. Hellmuth’s record of seventeen remains a distant target, but the gap has narrowed meaningfully as more players cross into the eight-and-nine bracelet range across recent WSOP series. For players studying how mixed-game specialists build that kind of longevity, understanding a wide range of formats rather than leaning on a single specialty is often the common thread. Poker Pro Academy’s poker hand rankings guide is a useful starting point for anyone looking to branch out from straight hold’em into the kind of rotating formats that built both Mizrachi’s and Deeb’s reputations.
