5 best players who have never won a WSOP bracelet

Winning a World Series of Poker bracelet isn’t easy.

Players have to navigate large tournament fields full of landmines or small fields packed with the world’s best players. Oh, and they have to avoid bad luck from the deck, as well.

Here are five of the best players never to win a tournament at the WSOP:

5. Rainer Kempe — He has multiple titles to his credit, including the 2016 Super High Roller Bowl for $5 million, and is one of Germany’s most successful players. Kempe’s WSOP results show a handful of final tables, but he’s never finished better than fourth place in a WSOP event.

4. Christoph Vogelsang — The German is often ridiculed as a human rain delay for his deliberate decision making during a hand. But he’s earned more than $9 million in his WSOP career, including a second-place finish in the 2022 $25,000 buy-in Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship.

3. Sean Winter — The high-stakes professional from Jacksonville, Florida, continues to climb the all-time money list and ranks in the top 25. His closest call for a bracelet came when he finished second in the 2018 $50,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em High Roller for more than $1 million.

2. Steve O’Dwyer — One of the most successful tournament players of all time with close to $37 million in earnings, O’Dwyer stopped playing the WSOP in Las Vegas a decade ago. His last cash came in 2013, though he did finish in the money of a high roller event at WSOP Europe in 2018.

1. Cary Katz — The founder of subscription streaming service PokerGO and a regular on the high-stakes scene, Katz ranks in the top 15 of poker’s all-time money list. He has three runner-up finishes at the WSOP, including the 2023 $100,000 buy-in High Roller No-limit Hold’em event.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.