At the start of the PokerGO stream, color commentator and high-stakes mixed game player Jared Bleznick stated that a 4th win in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship (PPC) for Michael Mizrachi would be "the greatest accomplishment in tournament poker history".
If there’s any debate to be had over that statement, let it begin.
The man known as ‘The Grinder’ lived up to his moniker with maybe his greatest PPC performance of all to take the 2025 edition for his seventh WSOP bracelet and an unprecedented fourth Poker Players Championship.
While the $10,000 Main Event is known among the masses as the crowning achievement in the world of poker, the PPC is known by the greatest players in the world as the pinnacle of poker achievement. Nine separate disciplines must be tackled and played at a high level against the best mixed game players in the world in a $50,000 buy-in. To win this event once is a career-defining achievement. To win it four times is something stratospheric.
“I can’t explain it,” Mizrachi told PokerOrg. “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.”
Mizrachi’s run to another title in poker’s greatest mixed game event was as smooth as could be imagined. Entering the day with a 2-1 chip lead over his closest rival, eventual 4th place finisher Andrew Yeh, Mizrachi wasted no time increasing the seeming impossibility of anyone denying him the title by eliminating Ben Lamb on the first hand of the day to immediately add nearly four million chips to his stack. Albert Daher was a second victim of that hand, replacing Lamb on the short stack.
In the round of Triple Draw that followed, Mizrachi met his only blip of adversity as Bryn Kenney was able to climb within a couple of hundred thousand chips, but it was all Grinder from there.
His next execution was that of Daher, who couldn’t recover from that first hand, losing a flip in No-Limit Hold ‘em to fall in 6th place, while Mizrachi was back up over eight figures.
More Mizrachi-induced carnage soon followed in a three-way Stud hand, as Joao Vieira’s quest for a second bracelet of the summer ended in 5th place, with Kenney victimized in the hand as well. The all-time leader in career tournament earnings failed to make a flush against Mizrachi’s aces-up to send a side pot to Mizrachi as well, which boosted the eventual champ to 16,000,000.
Mizrachi then disposed of Yeh in a round of Pot-Limit Omaha to climb to over 20,000,000 chips, leaving Taylor and Kenney with a combined 12,000,000 to jostle for the right to face the PPC’s final boss.
Taylor’s run ends in 3rd place
The other major story entering the day was that of Esther Taylor, only the second woman to ever make the final table of this event, following in the footsteps of Melissa Burr’s 7th place finish in 2014.
With Mizrachi running away with the tournament from the start of the day, Taylor had to find her spots to give herself a remote chance of chasing down The Grinder.
Starting the day in 6th place of the seven returnees, Taylor found herself with an uphill climb from the outset that was made even steeper because of Mizrachi’s run, but she built her stack up to a solid second place by four-handed play and then into the final three.
At that point of the day, Kenney found himself all-in several times against both of his remaining opponents, but neither was able to finish him off as he continued hovering around the four million chip mark.
While Kenney survived, both he and Taylor’s stacks continued to be ground up by the inevitable, and Taylor eventually had to put her final 4.5 big blinds in against Kenney, who only had about nine bigs in a hand of No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw.
Kenney drew one to 2-3-4-5 against Taylor’s pat nine and pulled a seven to make the best possible hand, a wheel, and end Taylor’s historic run.
Her 3rd place finish earned her a career-best tournament score of $595,136, which will obviously be bittersweet, but she was in good spirits as she spoke on the PokerGO stream with Natalie Bode following her elimination.
“I’m proud to represent women in poker. My whole goal in playing this and throwing my hat in the ring in a huge tournament where I’m not even 100% comfortable in all the games, but I’m really hoping that more women in poker will transition into mixed games, because there’s very few. But that being said, there are many, many very good women poker players, so I would love to kind of start a little movement on getting some of these killers into the game, so I’m not the only one and they don’t make fun of me for five days.”
History
While we’ve said that throughout the day, Mizrachi’s coronation as the PPC GOAT felt inevitable, it truly did as he entered heads-up play against Kenney holding a 15-1 chip lead.
As everything had gone Mizrachi’s way on this day, so too did the final hand, as on the third draw of a hand of 2-7 Triple Draw, Mizrachi got Kenney to break a better hand, which would have doubled him up. Instead, Kenney drew a pair, and history was made. From start to finish, it was as smooth a day as anyone could ask for.
“On the final table, I just played my best, and everything went my way. The cards went my way, I had the hands, but I was picking my spots right.”
Hall of Fame! Hall of Fame!
As Mizrachi celebrated on the WSOP Mothership stage with friends and posed for photos with his 7th bracelet and the reborn Chip Reese trophy, an unmistakable chant went through the crowd. “Hall of Fame! Hall of Fame,” they bellowed.
While Mizrachi was on the ballot last year, he’s stunningly not this year. That will surely be corrected in 2026 because if the four Poker Players Championships isn’t a qualification to get in, who knows what is?
Mizrachi isn’t worried about it and knows his time will come, likely sooner rather than later.
“It motivates me more if I’m not in it. It pushes me harder to keep winning, so I’ll keep doing that. If I get inducted, I get inducted, but I expect to get it within a few years to be in the Hall of Fame. I’m not too worried about it.”
Nor should he be, because as Bleznick said, this is the greatest accomplishment in the history of tournament poker, and the man who accomplished it can’t deny that it is.
“Whatever Jared says is the right thing because he’s the man, so I agree with him.”
