Poker players do not have to jet off to Las Vegas every summer to become a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner because dozens of famous gold bracelets are awarded in the realm of online poker each year.
Not all live poker specialists decide to switch to the virtual felt in their quest for WSOP glory, but many do exactly that, with some of the game’s biggest names and most established pros helping themselves to a WSOP bracelet online.
Erik Seidel
Erik Seidel is the biggest name you will read about in this article about five famous online WSOP bracelet winners. The Poker Hall of Fame member deservedly has legend status thanks to enjoying a poker career that is now heading into its fourth decade! Seidel has amassed more than $41 million in winnings from poker tournaments and is both feared and respected in equal measure.
The New Yorker won his first WSOP bracelet in 1992 in a $2,500 Limit Hold’em event. Seidel got his hands on another three bracelets by 1998, and had increased his tally to eight by 2007.
A 14-year bracelet drought followed until Seidel decided to enter the $10,300 Super MILLION$ bracelet-awarding event online at GGPoker. The Super MILLION$ regularly attracts some of the best online poker grinders on the planet, but Seidel, who is better known for his live poker prowess, showed the internet whiz kids how it’s done. Seidel found himself heads-up against Uruguay’s Francisco Benitez, and he defeated him to claim the $977,842 top prize plus his ninth WSOP bracelet.
David Peters
David Peters of Ohio, United States, began playing poker after seeing Chris Moneymaker win the 2003 WSOP Main Event. Peters started playing freeroll tournaments, and won one for $600, and he has never looked back since.
Peters was already an accomplished online poker tournament players by the time he won the first of his four WSOP bracelets. He triumphed in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event at the 2016 series and walked away with $412,557. Peters headed online for the 2020 and 2021 editions of the WSOP online, and came away with a bracelet each year.
First, Peters won the $10,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em Championship for $360,480 and followed that up with victory in the $7,777 No Limit Hold’em Lucky 7s High Roller the following year for $283,940.
Peters bagged bracelet number four live in Las Vegas in 2022 when he came out on top in the $100,000 High Roller Bounty No-Limit Hold’em for a cool $1,166,810.
Bradley Ruben
Florida’s Bradley Ruben has four WSOP bracelets in his collection, with the first two stemming from the online poker grind. Ruben first cashed in a WSOP event in 2013 and cashed a total of 15 times between 2013 and 2018. He took some time away from the live grind for two years, returning with renewed vigor in 2020 for the WSOP Online at GGPoker.
After nine cashes, including one final table appearance, Ruben captured his first bracelet in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. Ruben was in the United States when the WSOP.com US Online festival ran in 2021. His only cash of the series was an outright victory in the $600 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Handed for bracelet number two.
Ruben stayed in the U.S. and competed at the 2021 WSOP in the fall, winning the $1,500 Razz for his third bracelet. It only took four events of the 2022 WSOP for Ruben to bank his fourth piece of poker gold, when he triumphed in the $1,500 Dealer’s Choice tournament.
Kristen Foxen (nee Bicknell)
Kristen Foxen (nee. Bicknell) has three WSOP bracelets to her name, with one coming from the online poker grind. Foxen, a former Supernova Elite VIP at PokerStars where she plays as “krissyb24,” comes from a cash game background but has made a name for herself in the tournament world.
The first of Bicknell’s three gold bracelets came in 2013 when she was crowned the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship champion. Foxen claimed her second piece of WSOP hardware in 2016 in the $1,500 Bounty No-Limit Hold’em event.
After some impressive results at PartyPoker during the online edition of the Super High Roller Bowl festival in mid-2020, Bicknell fired up GGPoker for the WSOP Online. Her first cash of the series was a first-place finish in the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for $356,412, Foxen’s second-largest career score and her third piece of poker jewelry.
Joe McKeehen
Joe McKeehen completed a WSOP bracelet hat trick when he was the last man standing in the $3,200 No Limit Hold’em High Roller online at WSOP.com in July 2020. That impressive victory came with a $352,985 payday.
The first of McKeehen’s gold WSOP bracelets came in 2015 when he navigated his way to the top of the pile in the WSOP Main Event, outlasting 6,419 opponents on his way to scooping $7,683,346 and one of the most sought-after bracelets.
Bracelet number two came two years later in the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship, with McKeehen netting his third bracelet in the $3,200 High Roller online in 2020.
The Pennsylvania native loves battling online during WSOP festivals, as is evident by his winning a WSOP Circuit ring in the WSOPC Online Circuit Pennsylvania in April 2022.