The most interesting rankings from The Hendon Mob for the year 2023
Who won the most? Who visited the cashier for prizes more often than others? And who emerged as the flagship player of the past year? We share the offline player results for 2023, according to The Hendon Mob website
Isaac Haxton cashed out the most — $16,961,907
Haxton had the best year of his career, securing 7 victories:
- $50K NLH PokerGO Cup ($598K)
- $100K PCA Super High Roller ($1,08M)
- $100K PCA NLHE 7-handed ($1,55M)
- $25K USPO ($432K)
- €25K EPT Monte Carlo ($296K)
- $25K WSOP High Roller ($1,7M)
- $300K Super High Roller Bowl ($2,76M)
Haxton attributes his success to luck:
“I play as I always do, it’s just that things started to come together fantastically well”.
Top 5 ranking of the best players by total prize money for 2023
| Name | Total Cashes | The Biggest Prize | |
| 1 | Isaac Haxton | $16,961,907 | $2,760,000 for winning the $300K Super High Roller Bowl |
| 2 | Christopher Brewer | $14,350,029 | $5,293,556 for winning the $250K WSOP Super High Roller |
| 3 | Jason Koon | $13,374,382 | $2,451,082 for winning the$100K Main Event Triton Poker Cyprus |
| 4 | Dan Smith | $13,047,709 | $3,870,000 for winning the $200K Triton Invitational |
| 5 | Mikita Badziakouski | $12,555,596 | $7,114,500 for winning the $1M WPT One Drop |
Players from China “raided” Vegas: who cashed out the most at the WSOP
This ranking took into account ITM finishes at the WSOP series in Las Vegas, Rozvadov, and WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas.
The record for the most ITM finishes at the WSOP was shared between two players: Ren Lin and Rengji Mao. Both cashed out 20 times.
| Name | Total ITM | The Biggest Cash | |
| 1 | Tony “Ren” Lin | 20 | $427,872 for runner up €50K WSOP Europe Diamond High Roller |
| 2 | Renji Mao | 20 | $402,588 for winning $800 WSOP NLHE Deep Stack |
| 3 | Quan Zhou | 19 | $976,000 for 4th place $100K WSOP Paradise Ultra High Roller |
| 4 | Yueqi Zhu | 18 | $41,748 for 22nd place $10K WSOP 6-Handed Championship |
| 5 | Benjamin Yu | 18 | $103,645 for 4th place $10K WSOP Seven Card Stud |
The winner of the Flag Hunter ranking had to ask his wife for permission to win this leaderboard
“Flag Hunter of the Year” category, the number of countries in which a player managed to cash out ITM is taken into account.
The winner of this ranking in 2023 was the Brazilian Manoel Assuncao, with a result of 18 countries.
Throughout the year, Manoel traveled across Europe. The list of countries he visited includes the Czech Republic, Portugal, Malta, Slovakia, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, Spain, Lithuania, Cyprus, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Monaco. The only non-European country on the list is the USA.
In his home country, Manoel Assuncao did not cash out ITM. This is all because he moved to Portugal in 2022.
“I really love to travel. It’s great that you can combine travel with playing poker. I wasn’t aiming to win this ranking. At some point, Steve O’Dwyer was ahead of me. In the end, I decided to challenge myself, asked for permission from my wife, and started chasing flags.
I even started competing with Yuri Ishida; we met at several series in the same tournaments. But I managed to win.
I also visited a few more countries. In Switzerland, but I didn’t play poker there. And in Austria, but I didn’t make it to ITM. It was cool to play in Lithuania, Slovenia, and Estonia – in Brazil, people hardly know anything about these countries, they are too far away from us.
In the end, I was able to set a record among Brazilian players for the number of countries visited. Over this year, I learned a lot and had a great time.
My best result was $9.8K for 212th place in the €5K Main Event EPT Paris.”
Yuri Ishida took 2nd place with 15 ITM
She “collected flags” in Asia: Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan. Another half of the flags were taken in European countries: Liechtenstein, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, England, Ireland, Greece. Unusual countries on the list include South Africa.
Best result – $6,530 for winning the $322 Sunday Single Asia Poker Arena.
Yuzhou Yin took third place with 13 flags
In his list of countries are England, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania, France, Scotland, USA, Korea, the Philippines, Czech Republic, France, Italy, and the Bahamas.
Best result – $50.8K for 3rd place in the $800 Flip&Go WSOP Paradise.
Cashier — like going to the store for a newspaper (or even more often): top in the number of ITM for the year
To win this rating, you need to find a couple of poker clubs in your city that track results on Hendonmob, and play there daily tournaments for $100.
The winner of the 2023 rating was Pedro Palacio, a regular at Seminole Casino Coconut Creek and Harrah’s Pompano Beach in Florida.
He secured a total of 184 ITMs. His best result was $4,326 for 3rd place in a $200 tournament. Pedro Palacio was the winner of this rating in 2021.
In this rating, alongside Pedro Palacio, two players have been competing for the second year in a row:
Wu Chiayun, a regular in the Taiwanese capital city of Taipei. In 2023, he secured 144 ITMs, compared to 166 in 2022.
Wu Chiayun has been playing poker since 2018. The past year was the best in his career. During the year, he updated his best cash three times:
- March — $37K for winning the $650 Main Event All Japan Poker Championship
- April — $40K for winning the $325 APT Kick Off
- July — $115K for winning the $260 Taiwan Millions Tournament Main Event
Dany Blackburn is a regular at the same tournaments as Pedro Palacio. In 2023, he secured 126 ITMs. His best result was $5,315 for 27th place in the $1,700 NLHE Escalator Series Hollywood.