Las Vegas, NV – July 16, 2006 – Bill Chen became the 28^th player in World Series of Poker history to win two gold bracelets in a single year. He has won two tournaments so far this year – the $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event and the $3,000 buy-in Limit Hold’em event. 

The WSOP gold bracelet is the most coveted prize in poker – exclusively awarded to each tournament winner. There have been 619 tournaments played in the 37-year history of the WSOP (as of Event #22 in 2006 -- the time of this release).

From 1970 through 1984, 13 players were two-time winners. Oddly enough, eight years passed before the next multi-winner. There were no two-time winners between 1985 and 1992. This was largely due to less events being offered and larger field sizes. Since 1993, multiple wins have taken place 15 times. Despite some of the largest fields in WSOP history, which seemingly defy the odds against winning multiple tournaments, the World Series of Poker has crowned a two-time winner in each of the last five years.

Here is a complete list of all players who have won more than one gold bracelet in a single year:

Two-Time WSOP Winners (Single-Year)

Puggy Pearson                          (1973)
Jimmy Casella                           (1974)
Howard “Tahoe” Andrew         (1976)
Bobby Baldwin             (1977)
Doyle Brunson              (1977)
Bones Berland                          (1978)
Bones Berland                          (1979)
Lakewood Louie                      (1979)
Stu Ungar                                 (1981)
Billy Baxter                               (1982)
David Sklansky                        (1982)
Tom McEvoy                           (1983)
Dewey Tomko                         (1984)
Humberto Brenes                     (1993)
Ted Forrest *                           (1993)
Phil Hellmuth, Jr. *                    (1993)
T.J. Cloutier                             (1994)
Dan Harrington             (1995)
Men “the Master” Nguyen        (1995)
Hilbert Shirey                           (1995)
Dr. Max Stern                          (1997)
Phil Ivey *                                (2002)
Layne Flack                             (2003)
Men “the Master” Nguyen        (2003)
Phil Hellmuth, Jr.                       (2003)
Scott Fischman             (2004)
Mark Seif                                 (2005)
Bill Chen                                  (2006)

* denotes three-bracelet winner that year

By Nolan Dalla (WSOP Media Director)