27 tournaments at the 2011 World Series of Poker have crowned a champion and in just one of those instances has the player previously won a WSOP bracelet –John Juanda, who is now the proud owner of five WSOP bracelets. This amazing run of first-time winners at the WSOP in 2011 is an unprecedented event, and if it continues will likely become how the 2011 WSOP is known in later years.

Thus far the winners at the 2011 WSOP have been a mix of young poker talent, longtime poker pros, and even a few rank amateurs sprinkled in for good measure, and even the $10k Championship events –typically known for their star-studded fields, and adding to a player’s bracelet count—have been crowning bracelet virgins.

It will be interesting to see if players like Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Men Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, and the slew of players with one or two bracelets can turn things around during the second half of the 2011 WSOP schedule.

On Friday three more new champions were crowned as Chris Viox defeated Mike Sexton in heads-up play in the $1,500 Seven-Card-Stud hi/lo tournament –denying the WPT commentator his second gold bracelet; followed by Ukrainian Oleksii Kovalchuk taking down the $2,500 six-max NLHE tournament, and finally Daniel Idema winning the $10k Limit Holdem Championship.

If last year’s WSOP was the Year of the Brit, than the 2011 version of the WSOP may very well go down as the Year of the First-Time Bracelet Winner.

Tags: Card Stud, Commentator, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Gold Bracelet, Good Measure, John Juanda, Mike Sexton, Nguyen, phil hellmuth, Poker Pros, Proud Owner, Rank Amateurs, Slew, Time Winners, Unprecedented Event, Viox, Virgins, World Series of Poker, WSOP Schedule

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 18th, 2011 at 8:36 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.