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The 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) has passed its halfway stage, and several top pros have scrubbed their name from the dreaded “Best Player Without a Bracelet” list by capturing some WSOP gold. However, there are still some top-tier grinders whose wrist is still missing poker’s most sought after piece of jewelry, including these ten heroes and heroines.

Darren Elias

Darren Elias, known by many as “The End Boss,” has won four World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event titles and amassed over $13.8 million in live poker tournament winnings, yet a WSOP bracelet still eludes him.

According to the WSOP website, Elias has 64 in-the-money finishes and 13 final table appearances, but no bracelets. Elias has come agonisingly close to bagging a bracelet, including a pair of third-place finishes in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship in 2017 and again in 2019.

More recently, Elias finished second in the same $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship, losing out to Nick Schulman, who heaped praise on Elias’ deuce-to-seven skills. While Elias’ bridesmaid finish left him chasing bracelet number one, Schulman collected his seventh.

Maurice Hawkins

Nobody has more WSOP Circuit rings than Maurice Hawkins (19), but he has yet to get his hands on a bracelet. An often polarizing and controversial figure, Hawkins has been a notable absentee at the 2025 WSOP, so it looks like his wait to strike poker gold will continue.

The closest Hawkins has come to breaking his duck was in 2017, when he finished sixth in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack. While Hawkins excels in WSOPC events, he is yet to reproduce his Circuit form in bracelet-awarding tournaments.

Maria Ho

Maria Ho has consistently earned cash in bracelet events but has yet to win one. She has been the “Last Woman Standing” in the WSOP and WSOP Europe Main Event four times, but she’d exchange that title for some WSOP hardware.

At the 2011 WSOP, Ho was the runner-up in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, losing heads-up to Allen Bari. More recently, at the 2023 WSOP Paradise stop, Ho finished third in the $1,650 No-Limit Hold’em Mystery Millions, once again knocking on the door of a bracelet victory.

A popular pick in the $25K Fantasy Draft, not least because she has nine final table appearances in bracelet events, Ho warned team captains that she would not be playing an extensive schedule at the 2025 WSOP, meaning her wait to win a bracelet will likely continue for another year.

Viktor Blom

Some may think it is unfair to include Viktor Blom in this list because the Swedish star is better known for grinding high-stakes cash games. However, of late, Blom has focused his attention on poker tournaments, and with some fantastic results.

The man known as “isildur1” has 21 WSOP cashes and four final tables to his name. More than $2.9 million of his overall $6.8 million earnings stem from WSOP events. In 2024, Blom finished third in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller and in the $100,000 No-Limit High Roller in Las Vegas. This year, Blom has a fourth-place finish in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship and a runner-up finish in the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship.

The fact that Blom seems to get his grind on in higher buy-in events, which have smaller fields, means it is likely a case of when, not if, he becomes a WSOP champion sooner rather than later.

Niklas Astedt

Niklas Astedt is arguably the best player without a bracelet, although he does not play many live WSOP events. Online, where Astedt is one of the biggest winners of all-time, he has three WSOP Circuit rings and two final table appearances in bracelet events; a fifth and sixth-place finish.

Astedt looked set to win a bracelet in 2024 and take down the $10,000 Main Event. However, he ultimately busted in third place, a finish that earned him $4 million. One would think Astedt’s lack of live volume would mean winning a bracelet online at GGPoker would be his best bet of striking poker gold.

Sean Winter

Florida’s Sean Winter has almost 20 recorded live victories and more than $35.3 million in lifetime earnings, yet he finds himself on this list. Winter seems to primarily play high roller and Super High Roller tournaments these days, which gives him limited scope to finally win a WSOP bracelet.

Back in 2018, Winter fell at the final hurdle in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller, losing a heads-up battle to Benjamin Yu and narrowly missing out on a bracelet. Since then, Winter has finished third twice, both times at the 2023 WSOP. He finished third in the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller 6-Handed event and a few days later fell in the same place in the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship.

Ben Tollerene

For a long time, Ben Tollerene was considered one of the best, if not the best online poker cash game players on the planet, but he’s also a dab hand at live poker tournaments, particularly in the high-stakes world. To date, Tollerene has won more than $31 million, a princely sum helped by his banking seven seven-figure scores.

One of those prizes, one worth $3,537,135, came Tollerene’s way at the 2024 WSOP. Tollerene finished second to Santhosh Suvarna in the $250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller.

Six months later, in The Bahamas, Tollerene finished second again, this time in the $100,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Super High Roller. Three days later, Tollerene’s deep run in the $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship also ended in a third-place finish.

Earlier this month, Tollerene finished third again, this time in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller 8-Handed. The wait for a bracelet continues.

Christoph Vogelsang

With $41.1 million in live poker tournament earnings, Christoph Vogelsang ranks second in Germany’s all-time money list. However, unlike those he keeps company with in that Hendon Mob leaderboard, Vogelsang still finds himself without a bracelet.

Like several others on this list, Vogelsang’s chances of winning some WSOP hardware is hindered by him rarely entering tournaments costing less than $10,000 these days; we’re more used to seeing Vogelsang in $50,000 and $100,000 buy-in events around the world.

Despite a relative lack of WSOP volume, Vogelsang has had several near misses in his quest to win a bracelet. He finished third in the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop in 2014, and third again in the €250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller at the 2019 WSOP Europe.

At the 2022 WSOP in Las Vegas, Vogelsang lost to Dan Smith in the final of the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship; that second-place finish is the closest he has come to ending his bracelet drought.

Wai Kiat Lee

It wasn’t too long ago that Wai Kiat Lee was grinding low-to-mid stakes live events, but the Malaysian has come up in the poker world. These days Lee can be found plying his trade in Triton Poker Super High Roller Series tournaments.

At the 2023 WSOP, Lee finished third in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Short Deck event. He also finished tenth in the $10,000 buy-in edition of the same event during the same series.

Lee doesn’t log a lot of WSOP volume, but the fact that he has almost $16.9 million in live tournament winnings proves he knows his way around a poker table.

Thomas Boivin

Belgium’s Thomas Boivin is another player who has recently begun frequenting the nosebleed stakes, although he had an impressive resume before doing so. However, it is Boivin’s recent results in huge events that have caught the eye and left people wondering if he is one of the best players to yet win a bracelet.

Including online events, Boiving has more than 70 WSOP cashes and five final table appearances. Two of those FTs have come at this year’s series: two third place finishes in the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller and in the $250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller.

The closest Boivin has come to capturing a bracelet was in 2017, when he finished second in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout. He keeps going deep in bracelet events, surely his time will come.

Stay tuned to PokerNews’ coverage of the 2025 WSOP in Las Vegas to see if any of these ten stars managed to capture a bracelet before the 100th event concludes in mid-July.

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.

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