Josh Arieh won his fifth World Series of Poker bracelet on Sunday and the player from Georgia has his eyes set on greater poker glory.
“So this is just another step that will give me a chance to maybe be inducted in to the Hall of Fame. Poker players were looked at as these backroom hustlers,” he told the WSOP. “Like, oh, you’re a poker player, you’re a bad person. You gamble for a living; how do you do that? I’ve said it before; it just gives it a little validity. And to be thought about, the names of people that are one, it would just be insane.”
Arieh’s success at the WSOP is undisputed. As the players in the NFL say, he has put his results on tape ever since winning the first event he entered, a $3,000 limit hold’em contest in 1999 for $202,800. Twenty-two years later, he’d have a summer to remember when he won two bracelets and cashed 11 times to win the 2021 WSOP Player of the Year race.
He now has more than $8.5 million in WSOP cashes, the biggest which came in 2005 when he finished third in the Main Event for $2.5 million. Greg Raymer was that year’s champion.
His fifth bracelet came in the $10,000 Limit Championship. He’s never won in a no limit event.
Josh Arieh’s WSOP bracelets
- $3,000 Limit Hold’em, 1999 — $202,800
- $2,000 Pot-Limit Omaha, 2005 — $381,600
- $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed, 2021 — $204,766
- $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship 8-Handed, 2021 — $484,791
- $10,000 Limit Championship, 2023 — $316,226
Clear and calm
Arieh, 48, came into the final table as the short stack, but his decades of experience and expertise in limit games kept him from letting any semblance of panic creep in.
“I had this huge rush of clarity and calmness, and I wasn’t the least bit stressed out. And I just knew that limit hold’em is a game of momentum and a game of rushes. And I was like, well, there are three people left. One of us will go on a rush, and it can very easily be me. And that’s just what happened,” he told the WSOP.
The event attracted 134 who built a prize pool of $1,246,200. As is usually the case in these WSOP “championship” events, the top group of finishers always contain a champ or three. This time is was 2015 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Mckeehen who got his 79th WSOP cash by finishing fourth.
Nick Schulman was going for his second bracelet of the series after winning the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event to start June, but was knocked-out in seventh. He’s in the running for the 2023 WSOP Player of the year — as is Arieh.
Runner-up Daniel Idema was seeking his fourth bracelet, but couldn’t break his eight-year drought. Ronnie Bardah and Kevin Song were both going for their second, while the others their first (Nick Pupillo does owns three WSOP Circuit rings).
Final nine of $10,000 Limit Championship
- Josh Arieh — $316,226
- Daniel Idema — $196,443
- Nozomu Shimizu — $144,069
- Joe Mckeehen — $107,540
- Louis Hillman — $81,928
- Nick Pupillo — $62,255
- Nick Schulman — $48,298
- Kevin Song — $37,967
- Ronnie Bardah — $30,248
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