The man known in poker circles as “The Grinder” won the prestigious $50,000 Poker Players Championship only a few weeks earlier, and now he’s won the big one to leave his peers with no option but to fast-track him into the Poker Hall of Fame.
This victory gave Mizrachi his eighth WSOP bracelet to leave him one in front of Nick Schulman who was the annual inductee. How could they leave him out after this performance, and he sounded extremely grateful for the honour.
“That’s amazing. God bless them all…Thank you so much. I feel like it was well deserved. I don’t know, I don’t mind. I could’ve waited until next year. It just motivates me more. Makes me hungrier.
“I feel like (the Main Event title) was cement. I cemented everything. That’s all I wanted was the Main Event. I did what I had to do in the poker world. Achieved the Hall of Fame. I’m never going to retire, so don’t worry about that. I’ll be back next year for a lot more.”
Action Recap
When the four contenders took their seats to resume the action, two of them — Braxton Dunaway and Kenny Hallaert — had less than 10 big blinds. Mizrachi, on the other hand, had more than 75% of the chips in play with a whopping 178 big blinds piled up in front of him..
John Wasnock, in second place, was the only realistic challenger to Mizrachi’s dominance, holding almost 38 big blinds. A couple of timely double-ups would certainly have made it interesting.
After a field of 9,732 entrants all ponied up their $10,000 to enter, it had come down to this: four players and one of them was a massive favourite. Surely this wouldn’t take long.
Thinking back, it wasn’t that many levels ago since Wasnock had Mizrachi on the ropes, all-in against his pocket kings with ace-king desperately seeking help. But help did arrive on the river and The Grinder never looked back as he steadily increased his chip lead throughout the remainder of the session.
It was fitting that the first hand of the final day brought about the first elimination. Kenney Hallaert had already bettered his sixth place finish from the WSOP 2016 Main Event, but his run was over.
The Belgian found himself looking down at A♥ Q♣ and jammed all in for 19,000,000. Mizrachi had an easy call with K♦ J♦ in the big blind and it was now up to the dealer.
The flop of 10♠ 5♠ 4♠ looked good for Hallaert but the turn was the J♣ and the 9♠ river sealed his fate which was a career-best $3,000,000 payday.
In the very next hand, Wasnock folded the button and Mizrachi jammed in the small blind with A♦ 10♦, getting a call from short-stacked Braxton Dunaway who thought his 10♥ 6h: was good enough.
The flop came down Q♦ 4♦ K♣ to leave Dunaway pretty much doomed. The turn and river ran out 4♠ 4♦ and it was time for heads-up.
The organisers took some time to get the table ready for the heads-up match, placing the $10,000,000 winner’s prize in the centre of the table, but we could only see one winner by now.
It would be Mizrachi’s 491,000,000 chips to Wasnock’s 93,500,000. An interesting match-up, for sure.
Mizrachi is a battle-hardened tournament professional, while Wosnock is a 50-year-old investment consultant who has never won more than $56,000 from a poker tournament in his life.
With both players guaranteed a prize of at least $6,000,000, there was probably less stress over the financial considerations than the prestige of getting the win. Wasnock’s investment career has likely set him up just as well as Mizrachi’s high-stakes poker career.
With that in mind, Wasnock was the fastest out of the trap. Four hands in he would pick up trips and then take three out of the next five pots.
It looked like we might have a serious fight on our hands but Mizrachi would surely have some success of his own which came soon enough.
Mizrachi hit a straight and got paid enough to send Wosnock below the 20 big blinds mark, leaving the viewers on edge that the finish could be just around the corner.
A few hands later, Wasnock caught Mizrachi bluffing to recoup some of what he’d lost, but the next hand it was all over.
Wasnock raised to 5,000,000 on the button and Mizrachi called.
The flop ran out A♦ 9♣ 7♣ and both players checked.
Mizrachi checked when the 4♣ turn landed and Wasnock led out for 10,000,000. Mizrachi now let the showmanship part of his game come to the fore, encouraging his fans on the rail to cheer as he raised to 30,000,000.
Wasnock wasn’t intimidated with this, sensing little danger from his rival’s antics, and he jammed in his remaining 70,500,000 chips which Mizrachi insta-called.
Wasnock flipped over A♠ 9♦ and Mizrachi calmly showed his 10♣ 3♣ for the flush. There was still some hope for Wasnock but seconds later the 5♣ river handed the WSOP 2025 Main Event title to Michael Mizrachi who mostly everyone will agree is a more than worthy champion.
After the final hand, Mizrachi said:
“It was a crazy hand. I think, after all these days. I couldn’t even see the cards. I thought he had the ace of clubs, then I thought he was drawing dead. And then they said, no, no, he has two pair. I didn’t even realise that.
“I thought he was drawing dead. I thought maybe he just had a nine. I was just blacked out at that point. I knew I was winning.”
WSOP 2025 Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Michael Mizrachi | United States | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | John Wasnock | United States | $6,000,000 |
| 3 | Braxton Dunaway | United States | $4,000,000 |
| 4 | Kenny Hallaert | Belgium | $3,000,000 |
| 5 | Luka Bojovic | Serbia | $2,400,000 |
| 6 | Adam Hendrix | United States | $1,900,000 |
| 7 | Leo Margets | Spain | $1,500,000 |
| 8 | Jarod Minghini | United States | $1,250,000 |
| 9 | Daehyung Lee | South Korea | $1,000,000 |
