What A WSOP Bracelet Is Really Worth

Here at MyPokerBasics we try to report only on the news most relevant to our readers as poker players and fans. Generally that news comes directly from the live and online tournament tables, but for the last two weeks an eBay auction has been one of the top headlines in the poker community. What was up for grabs? Only the most coveted piece of jewelry in the poker industry: a World Series of Poker championship bracelet. Even more impressively, a bracelet for the WSOP Main Event.

So what poker legend was willing to part with such a hard-won piece of bling? Former pro and 2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate. As many of you already know, Eastgate unceremoniously retired from the game earlier in the year, declining even to play in the WSOP one last time. These days poker pros have become their own special kind of celebrities, and Eastgate wanted nothing of that part of the game.

Many of Eastgate’s fellow pros were confused and even offended when news of the bracelet’s sale hit the poker press. Australian pro Tony “Tony G” Guoga boasted that he would buy the bracelet…and use it as a collar for his dog. The card playing community was outraged, but it doesn’t appear that Guoga was anymore successful in winning the bracelet on eBay than he’s been at winning a WSOP event.

Eastgate maintains that the sale of the bracelet was in no way meant to be a snub to the game that made him a millionaire, though. In fact, not a penny of the profits are going into Eastgate’s pocket. All proceeds of the sale will be donated to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. The auction began with a $16,000 bid and ended on November 25 with a whopping final bid of $147,500. It’s a fraction of the more than $9 million Eastgate won for his Main Event win, but many poker fans feel that it’s a small price to pay to own an important piece of the game’s history.

The big question now is, “Who paid that price?” Ebay’s privacy policy dictates that the buyer’s name will not be released through the site, so all we know is that the winning bidder was 7***l. Peter Eastgate had to beat 6,843 players to win the diamond-studded white gold bauble; its new owner only had to top 115 other bids, but will they come forward to claim the fame that Eastgate is leaving behind?

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