John Holley Has 12 Rings and Zero Bracelets. He Leads the Event #28 Final Table.

John Holley has 12 Circuit rings, 71 career final tables, and $2.03 million in lifetime earnings. Not a single WSOP bracelet.

That's the gap sitting at the center of Event #28, the $600 Mixed No-Limit Hold'em / Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack at the 2026 World Series of Poker. Holley leads the nine-handed final table with 10.1 million chips. The bracelet he's chased across seven decades of final tables is right there.

Holley leads the nine-handed final table with 10.1 million chips, and the bracelet he's chased across 71 career final tables is right there.

The Résumé Without a Crown

Twelve Circuit rings is a staggering number. Most players never win one. Holley has a dozen of them, collected across years of grinding Caesars properties around the country. He's a fixture on the WSOPC leaderboard, the kind of player floor staff know by first name.

But a ring is not a bracelet. The Circuit is where Holley dominates; the main summer series is where the gap in his trophy case lives. Seventy-one final tables across his career, $2.03 million in cashes, and the bracelet column still reads zero.

The Field He Has to Beat

Holley's chip lead is substantial but not comfortable. Sitting second in chips at 5.7 million: Daniel Negreanu.

Negreanu brings seven bracelets, 95 career final tables, and $33.6 million in lifetime earnings to the table. He's been in this spot before. He knows the texture of a final table when the blinds are high and the stacks are uneven. If Holley's story is about a missing piece of hardware, Negreanu's story is about adding to a collection that already fills a wall.

The contrast is striking. Holley has more rings than Negreanu has bracelets, but Negreanu's lifetime earnings are more than 16 times larger. They've arrived at the same final table from opposite corners of the poker economy.

Beyond Negreanu, the remaining field includes Carlos Loving, a four-ring Circuit winner with $771K in career earnings and 24 final tables of his own. Loving knows how to close. Further down the counts sit players like John Ghosn, whose $9,359 in lifetime earnings suggest this final table represents a career-defining moment regardless of where he finishes.

Sebastian Crema (10 career final tables, $402K in earnings) and Gheorghe Butuc ($392K, four final tables) both busted on the final-table bubble, finishing 10th and 11th respectively. Jairo Espinosa, a Colombian player with one Circuit ring, went out 12th.

What Makes This Different

Holley has been at final tables before. He's been at 71 of them. That's not a typo. The man has reached more final tables than most players have entered tournaments.

What he hasn't done is win the specific event that matters most in the game's hierarchy. A Circuit ring is a legitimate accomplishment, full stop. But the bracelet is a different object, awarded at a different series, carrying a different weight. Holley knows this better than anyone. Twelve rings prove he can win. Zero bracelets prove he hasn't won here.

The mixed NLH/PLO format adds a wrinkle. Holley's Circuit pedigree suggests comfort across multiple disciplines. Negreanu's versatility is well-documented across every format the WSOP has ever spread. Both players have edges in a structure that punishes one-game specialists.

Holley sits with 10.1 million chips and the lead. Negreanu sits with 5.7 million and seven bracelets worth of closing experience. Eight other players stand between both of them and the gold.

After 71 final tables, the 72nd is the one with a bracelet on it.