Eliahu Elezra Already Has Five Bracelets. He Went for Six Tonight.

Eliahu Elezra already has five gold bracelets, and at 1 AM on July 11, the 62-year-old was still alive in the $1,500 Pick Your PLO at the Horseshoe — hunting number six.

The field in Event #91 was down to 27 players when the chip counts froze for the night. Elezra's stack wasn't among the leaders — Cory Blum, a relative unknown with just $17,500 in lifetime tournament cashes, sat on top with 690,000 — but Elezra was still in, still grinding an eight-handed PLO event well past midnight at an age when most of his contemporaries have moved permanently to the cash-game side of the room.

Elezra's five bracelets, $4.63 million in lifetime earnings, and 28 career final tables make him one of the most decorated PLO players in WSOP history.

The Résumé

Elezra's career numbers tell a specific story. Five bracelets. Twenty-eight final tables. $4,630,787 in lifetime tournament earnings. Every one of those bracelets came in a pot-limit or mixed-format event — he is, fundamentally, a four-card player who happens to also dominate mixed rotations.

A sixth bracelet would be genuinely rare air. The list of players with six or more WSOP bracelets is short. The list of players with six or more earned primarily in PLO and mixed formats is functionally nonexistent. Elezra isn't chasing a generic milestone; he's chasing a piece of history that belongs almost entirely to him.

The Field Around Him

What makes this run notable beyond the bracelet math is the texture of the remaining field. Blum, the chip leader at 690K, has one recorded tournament cash for $17,500 — total, lifetime. Meanwhile, Michael Matusow, a four-time bracelet winner with $7.33 million in career earnings and 35 final tables, also appeared in the event but was listed at rank 30 when counts posted, meaning he'd already been eliminated or was among the shortest stacks.

Elezra outlasted Matusow. He outlasted Emory Peebles ($1,104 lifetime) and Joseph Ritzie ($79,866 lifetime, two final tables). At 62, he's still the one left standing when younger, fresher players hit the rail.

What a Sixth Bracelet Means

Elezra doesn't need a sixth bracelet to validate his career. Five bracelets is a Hall-of-Fame-caliber total by any measure. But the chase itself is the point of the Player Watch beat — tracking the moments where a career tips from excellent to historic.

Twenty-seven players remain. The stacks will reset when Day 3 begins. Elezra has been in this spot 28 times before at the WSOP — final-table range, short on chips relative to the leader, long on experience relative to everyone at his table.

He's done this five times and walked out with gold. The math on attempt number 29 isn't favorable for any individual player. But if you're picking one name from the remaining 27 who's been here before and knows exactly what the next 12 hours feel like, it's the 62-year-old with five bracelets and nothing left to prove except that he can still do it.