ShareHe's on a quest to win the WSOP Player of the Year race and whether or not that pursuit is realized, Shaun Deeb has won over the hearts of many by giving his newest WSOP gold bracelet to the mother of his longtime friend, Thayer Rasmussen, who passed away earlier this year.
The touching gesture was accomplished at a recent Celebration of Life for Rasmussen, who died at the young age of 39.
Thayer was a friend of many in the poker community, building friendships that began in the early days of online poker. Scores of 2+2 forumites consider Rasmussen a legend for his contributions on the forum as a member of the "Waffle Crush" MTT stable, of which Deeb was a part.
"He was the waffle to my crush my 1st poker friend wouldn’t have been as successful in poker without his guidance, his supersystem and our propbets to motivate each other," Shaun tweeted following Thayer's passing on April 1.
Rasmussen played under the moniker of "THAY3R" on PokerStars and other sites. He binked a $530 buy-in World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) tournament in 2015 for $69,825.
On the live felt, Thayer tallied $1.7 million in winnings. His best score was $356,620 after landing fifth in the $1,500 Monster Stack at the 2014 WSOP, per the Hendon Mob database.
Deeb won his sixth WSOP bracelet last month in Event #27: $1,500 Eight Game Mix for a $198,854 payday. As of this writing, he trails Ian Matakis and Chris Brewer for the 2023 WSOP POY.
More importantly though, Shaun took time off from the WSOP Player of the Year race to attend the Celebration of Life held for Rasmussen in Las Vegas. He had this to say on social media about honoring his friend:
"Sadly had to leave earlier than I wanted to but what a great couple of hours spending time with so many people who were lucky enough to know Thayer for so long and I knew as soon as i got #6 who it was going to"
