Unsurprisingly, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi finished the job of winning the WSOP ME last night in 22 hands, after going into the final 4 with over 75% of the chips in play.
He did this in the same WSOP series in which he won the Poker Players Championship for the 4th time, which is a fairly astonishing achievement.
A few of the big name pros had made a case for him to be immediately inducted into the Poker Hall Of Fame if he won (avoiding the usual annual vote process), and this happened at the presentation ceremony.
So, in the grand scheme of things, where does this rank in terms of WSOP achievements, or any poker-related achievement?
Johnny Chan's 2 consecutive wins and a 2nd place is the often-quoted all-time best, but done in the days prior to the huge fields of almost 10k players in the Main Event. Surely Mizrachi's series has to top everything else?
If the question was does this beat Chan, then think of course it does. Beating 150 runner fields is just too easy.
But think Glaser and Mizrachi's achievements this year are both amazing, and wouldn't like to pick one. But Deeb had a first, a couple of seconds and a third, or something similar, so deserved player of the year. Think we can celebrate them all, and wouldn't even want to pick a best from all 3, and that is just one year.
Think Hellmuths has stood the test of time. Could even bring in Moorman here. Crushing online for years isn't worse or better than winning 18 bracelets, just different. And of course Glaser has done both, but maybe not as much as either of the other too.
Think everyone I mentioned has achieved more than Chan. Think in 10 years time, will we agree on Glaser, or does he need a PPC or main event? Would be interesting. Maybe even Pads will have 10 by then?
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