Poker has a new world champion and his name is Michael Mizrachi.
'The Grinder' reached poker’s mountaintop in the scorching heat of the Nevada desert on Wednesday, capturing the WSOP Main Event and completing a feat that no one in the game’s history has ever achieved.
It’s been a long road for the Florida native - champions are not made overnight. So, how did Mizrachi arrive at this defining moment? Let’s take a look back at the career of poker’s latest world champion.
Mizrachi first discovered poker at home, learning the game from his older brother Robert Mizrachi, who is himself a five-time bracelet winner. Together, they would make the Mizrachi family name one of the most accomplished in poker history.
Starting out online, Mizrachi quickly found success, grinding his way through massive fields with a consistent, no-nonsense style that earned him the nickname 'The Grinder'. After realizing he could make real money at the tables, he dropped out of college and left behind his ambitions of becoming a doctor to focus on poker full time.
After finding six-figure success in several Las Vegas events at the start of his professional career, the first seven-figure scores for The Grinder would come on World Poker Tour events. In 2005, he captured the $10,000 L.A. Poker Classic Main Event for $1,859,909. Just months later, in a remarkable January 2006 run, Mizrachi won the WPT Borgata Winter Open for $1,173,373 and finished runner-up at the Gold Strike World Poker Open in Tunica for another $566,352.
After a highlight score finishing 3rd in the 2008 WSOP $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $331,279, Mizrachi's true breakout summer on poker's biggest stage would come in 2010.
Capturing the first of a record four $50,000 Poker Player's Championships, the young Mizrachi would capture the attention of the poker world as he took down one of the summer's most prestigious events for $1,559,046, with brother Robert, remarkably, finishing fifth in the same event.
And Mizrachi wasn’t finished there. In a scene that would eerily mirror events fifteen years later, Mizrachi made a deep run in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, becoming part of that year’s November Nine. However, he finished fifth for $2,332,992, as Jonathan Duhamel eventually went on to lift that year's championship bracelet.
Away from the neon lights of Las Vegas, Mizrachi followed up with his first major overseas success in 2011, winning his second bracelet at the World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes, France. He took down the €10,400 No-Limit Hold'em (Split Format) event for a €336,008 payday, doubling his bracelet tally on the French Riviera.
Following major wins in both Las Vegas and Cannes, Mizrachi returned to the Rio in 2012 with his sights set on reclaiming the Poker Players Championship title. He did just that, proving 2010 was no one-off by outlasting a stacked final table featuring stars such as Chris Klodnicki, Roland Israelashvili, and Stephen Chidwick to earn just under $1.5 million and his third WSOP bracelet.
Over the years, Brian Rast emerged as Mizrachi’s chief rival in the PPC arena, with wins of his own in 2011, 2016, and 2023. Between them, the two have accounted for seven of the last fifteen PPC titles - a staggering level of dominance in one of poker’s most demanding events. Fittingly, Rast was on stage at the Horseshoe Event Center today as Mizrachi collected both the world championship bracelet and his Hall of Fame trophy.
Mizrachi completed his PPC trifecta in 2018 with another seven-figure score worth $1,239,801. Then, in 2025, he made history, becoming the first player ever to win the Poker Players Championship four times. The landmark victory came with a $1,331,332 payday after he defeated all-time money list leader Bryn Kenney heads-up, putting clear blue sky between himself and Rast in the process.
Outside of his PPC legacy, Mizrachi would also add a further bracelet in 2019 by taking down the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better.
Already a six-time WSOP bracelet winner heading into the 2025 World Series, The Grinder’s victory in the Poker Players Championship would propel him into a new pantheon of legends, including Daniel Negreanu, Rast, fellow 2025 Hall of Fame inductee Nick Schulman, and more.
With his legacy already among the greatest in the game’s history, he entered this year’s ten-day WSOP Main Event marathon on Day 1b, making a largely inconsistent run that saw his stack fluctuate wildly from one day to the next.
Still, The Grinder would live up to his name, and despite being massively short-stacked on Day 7 with just 19 players left, he produced one of the most remarkable comebacks in WSOP history, recovering from just three big blinds on Day 8 to finish second in chips by the time play ended and the final table was set.
Mizrachi, who was all in and at risk on at least three occasions that day, would show the heart of a world champion as he battled back into contention and entered the penultimate day of the tournament in a commanding position.
What followed on Days 9 and 10 was one of the most dominant final table performances ever seen, as Mizrachi built a four-to-one chip lead over the final four players by the close of play on Day 9.
Unbelievably, the final day was even more dramatic still, with the American busting two players in the first two hands of the day's play before defeating John Wasnock heads-up to close out the job and become world champion in just 20 hands on an electric final day of action.
Having received near-unanimous support from the poker community for a special Hall of Fame ceremony should he win, The Grinder was awarded the most prestigious bracelet of all, the $10 million first prize, and formal induction into the Poker Hall of Fame in front of a raucous and emotional rail.
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