ShareAllen Kessler has achieved a significant milestone in his poker career by reaching his 100th cash in World Series of Poker (WSOP) events. He has not won a bracelet but is in an exclusive club. Kessler is among a distinguished group of eight individuals who have accumulated over 200 overall cashes in WSOP, including online and World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) scores.
With his recent 100th cash-in bracelet events, Kessler's overall cashes now amount to 220 (including 120 in WSOPC events). Among his peers, only Roland Israelashvili (419), Arkadiy Tsinis (326), Ari Engel (266), Daniel Negreanu (227), and Ian Steinman (224) have achieved more cashes.
While Kessler's achievements at the World Series of Poker may not place him in the same league as iconic figures like Phil Hellmuth, widely regarded as the greatest of all time with a record 16 bracelets, or esteemed players such as Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Alex Foxen, or Phil Ivey, reaching 100 cashes at the WSOP remains an impressive feat. Of the many players who have participated in the World Series of Poker throughout the years, only 26 have managed to cash as frequently in bracelet events.
Kessler has often faced criticism from poker enthusiasts on social media, primarily for his failure to secure tournament victories, his reputation for playing conservatively, and his eating habits that consist of plain hamburgers and frequent fast-food trips. Nevertheless, achieving a rare milestone in poker is commendable, regardless of any criticisms.
When it comes to Kessler's performance in bracelet events, he admits to needing to be made aware of the exact number of events he has entered, making it nearly impossible to determine his return on investment (ROI). He has participated in many events, from low-stakes tournaments to buy-ins of $10,000 and higher. Much of his cashes have been for relatively small amounts compared to the buy-ins. However, he has managed to finish in the top 10 in 10% of the events where he has cashed, including four runner-up finishes, the most recent one occurring in 2017 during a World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) event.
In his 100th bracelet event cash, Kessler secured a 34th place finish out of 361 participants in Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud, earning $3,051. This cash elevated his all-time ranking in that category to 26th, just below Mike Matusow, Tom McCormick, Dylan Linde, and Ismael Bojang.
The inclusion of hundreds of online bracelet events has somewhat inflated the numbers. Kessler is not particularly thrilled with this, as he believes a separate category for online tournaments should exist. As a seasoned poker player who first cashed at the World Series of Poker in 2001, he wants online bracelet events to be separate from those held in Las Vegas during the summer or at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, for WSOP Europe. However, the WSOP acknowledges online bracelet events as cashes, treating them on par with Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas tournaments.
Out of the players on the 100-cashes list, only Roland Israelashvili and Tom McCormick, alongside Kessler himself, still need to secure a bracelet. Israelashvili holds the second-most cashes, with 197, surpassed only by Daniel Negreanu, and has earned $2,559,354, resulting in an average score of just $12,991. In comparison, Kessler's average cash amounts to $14,486.
While Kessler may never reach the earnings or bracelet counts of players like Negreanu or the all-time earnings leader Antonio Esfandiari, who has $20,790,853 to his name (with Esfandiari's totals significantly influenced by his record-breaking $18,346,673 victory in the 2012 Big One for One Drop, the first-ever $1 million buy-in poker tournament), he has still accomplished something in poker that few others have and may never achieve.
