As 2025 turns to 2026, we look back on the biggest stories of the year.
The poker world was stunned this summer when Michael Mizrachi followed up a win in the Poker Player's Championship with the ultimate victory in the WSOP Main Event. The unthinkable achievement earned him an instant spot in the Poker Hall of Fame.
Michael 'Grinder' Mizrachi did something at the 2025 World Series of Poker that will never be repeated.
You could have made this statement after he closed out his fourth Poker Player's Championship bracelet in late June, an accomplishment that Jared Bleznick called "the greatest in tournament poker history."
“I can’t explain it,” Mizrachi told PokerOrg after the win. “I’m just very fortunate in this event, and it’s a good one to be fortunate in. You’re playing against the best players in the world in mix, so it’s quite an accomplishment. I’m very excited. I can’t explain it, you’ve got to run good and play your best because you’re playing against the best.”
The Grinder won a memorable PPC that also featured Esther 'E-Tay' Taylor's historic run to third place. Mizrachi would beat Bryn Kenney in heads-up play to win $595K.
And while Bleznick's "greatest accomplishment" claim may be debatable, Blez had no idea what would come next. Mizrachi, who notched his seventh bracelet in that PPC, would add an eighth – and the biggest one of them all – in the WSOP Main Event just a few weeks later. It's a sequence of events no one could have imagined, and it ended with an equally unthinkable honor: immediate ascendance to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Mizrachi's win was punctuated by a final table performance for the ages, but he almost didn't get there. Down to just 2.5 big blinds with three tables left, Mizrachi went on a massive run to enter the finale with the second biggest chip stack. A relatively quick first day of final table action was all Mizrachi, and he entered four-handed play with 178 of the 234 big blinds left on the table.
The final session would be equally swift, sending Kenny Hallaert, Braxton Dunaway, and John Wasnock to the door in a matter of moments to close out the greatest accomplishment in poker history.
"I played the best poker of my life," Mizrachi said afterwards. "It was just fate. I knew I was going to win it. I can't explain the feeling. It's amazing."
WSOP figurehead Jack Effel jumped on stage after the win, joined by several other Poker Hall of Famers like Phil Ivey, Brian Rast, Phil Hellmuth, Jen Harman, Mori Eskandani, and Eli Elezra.
"We have one more thing to do," Effel said, extending an immediate invitation to become the 65th member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
"What you've done is phenomenal," Hellmuth added. "This is a f***ing battlefield promotion. Winning the Main, winning the PPC, and now the Hall of Fame."
