Allen Kessler Reaches 100 WSOP Cashes; How Does He Rank Among his Peers?

Allen Kessler recorded his 100th World Series of Poker (WSOP) cash on Saturday, and although he still hasn’t won a bracelet, “The Chainsaw” is now in an exclusive club.

There are millions of poker players who’ve never taken down a WSOP event, but only a select few who’ve surpassed 100 cashes in bracelet events. He’s also among a group of just eight individuals with over 200 overall WSOP cashes, which includes online and World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) scores.

With the now 100 bracelet event cashes, he has 220 cashes overall (120 in WSOPC events). Only Roland Israelashvili (419), Arkadiy Tsinis (326), Ari Engel (266), Daniel Negreanu, (227), and Ian Steinman (224) have more.

What Kessler has Accomplished at the World Series of Poker

No one will ever confuse Kessler with Phil Hellmuth, widely considered the GOAT of the WSOP with a record 16 bracelets. He’ll never receive the recognition of all-time greats such as Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Alex Foxen, or Phil Ivey.

But 100 cashes at the WSOP is 100 cashes. It’s so rare that only 26 out of the hundreds of thousands of players who’ve entered the World Series of Poker over the years have cashed as many times in bracelet events.

Kessler often receives criticism from poker fans on social media for failing to win tournaments and playing too tight (also for his eating habits that include plain hamburgers and frequent fast-food trips). But hitting a rare milestone in poker is impressive any way you slice it.

How Kessler Stacks Up

Kessler told PokerNews he has “no clue” how many bracelet events he’s entered, so figuring his return on investment (ROI) is nearly impossible. He’s competed in a wide range of events, from the lowest stakes tournaments up to the $10k’s and above. A bulk of his cashes have been for small amounts relative to the buy-in.

But he’s finished in the top 10 of 10% of the events he’s cashed in. That includes four runner-up finishes, his last in 2017 in a World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) event.

On Saturday, the “Chainsaw” finished 34th out of 361 in Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud for $3,051, his 100th bracelet event cash and second of the current series. He now ranks 26th all-time in that category, one below Mike Matusow, Tom McCormick, Dylan Linde, and Ismael Bojang.

With the addition of hundreds of online bracelet events, the numbers are a bit inflated. Kessler isn’t too thrilled with that. In fact, he said “there should be a separate category” for online tournaments. The long-time poker player who first cashed at the World Series of Poker in 2001 doesn’t want the online bracelet events grouped in with those who cash over the summer in Las Vegas or at King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic for WSOP Europe.

The WSOP, however, acknowledges the online bracelet events as cashes just the same as the tournaments at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. As such, despite Kessler’s opinion, we’ll do the same for statistical purposes in this article.

Only two other players on the 100-cashes list — Roland Israelashvili and Tom McCormick — are without a bracelet. Israelashvili is the ultimate min-casher as he has 197 cashes — second only to Daniel Negreanu — for $2,559,354, an average score of just $12,991. Kessler averages $14,486 per cash, in comparison.

Not only does Negreanu top the charts for cashes in bracelet events (219). He’s second all-time behind Antonio Esfandiari in earnings at $20,790,853. Esfandiari’s totals ($21,917,461) are skewed significantly due to a WSOP record $18,346,673 score for winning the 2012 Big One for One Drop, the first ever $1 million buy-in poker tournament.

Kessler will never catch those players in earnings or bracelets won, but he’s still accomplished something in poker that few others have or ever will achieve.

Poker Players with 100 WSOP Bracelet Event Cashes

*Stats pulled from WSOP.com website. Some may not be updated for 2023.