For years, Adam Friedman was known as the guy who cried after losing a huge hand during the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event, though most people don’t remember that he recovered from that and finished 43rd for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. That was his first tournament; he was 23 years old. Now, 17 years later, Friedman is one of the best live tournament players nobody talks about. On Sunday, he won the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship at the 2022 WSOP, his fourth bracelet in four years and his fifth overall.
It was a dominant performance from Friedman, who had a sizable lead after Day 2 and only relinquished it for a short time during three-handed play on Sunday. His victory over the 96-entry field earned him $248,254, taking his total live earnings to over $3.8 million.
“It is a real honor to be able to win this title with the players who have won it before me,” Friedman said in his post-tournament interview with WSOP.com. “Winning the stud high means more to me than winning my fifth in total for my own personal satisfaction. This is in my top three or four events. I have played thousands upon thousands of hours of this game. I have had really bad success in this event over the last several years and to close it out in my first real shot I have had is amazing.”
While most of the poker world’s attention for the past couple decades has been on Texas Hold’em, Friedman isn’t a fan. He likes games with more cards, with more complexity.
“Two-card poker is boring like I keep saying,” he said. “My ROI initially went down playing stud but I was enjoying playing poker again. Seven card stud is the most complicated limit game that has ever existed. There are more nuances than almost any other two games combined. It is a beautiful game. It is really a shame that it is dying more and more each year. I think if people really gave it a shot, people would enjoy it and see all the cool things that can happen. I don’t see a seven card stud renaissance happening, but I truly hope I am wrong.”
As mentioned, Adam Friedman has now won a gold bracelet in the last four World Series of Poker (not counting the pandemic year of 2020, which forced the WSOP to completely online). That is an incredible feat in and of itself. His third bracelet in that stretch, though, clinched an achievement that will go down as one of the greatest accomplishments in World Series of Poker history. In 2021, he won the $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Six-Handed event for the third consecutive year, making him the only person to ever win the same event three years in a row. On top of that, Dealer’s Choice is one of the toughest tourney varieties on the schedule, as it combines the difficulty of mixed-game poker with the uncertainty of knowing when certain game variations will be played.
2022 World Series of Poker Event #22: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship – Final Table Results
- Adam Friedman – $248,254
- Jean Gaspard – $153,433
- Phil Ivey – $108,233
- Yuval Bronshtein – $78,348
- Ben Diebold – $58,239
- Marco Johnson – $44,487
- James Paluszek – $34,939
- Yueqi Zhu – $28,258
Image credit: PokerGO.com