There must be very few poker players who are not familiar with The Hendon Mob. Founded in 2004, The Hendon Mob has established itself as the world’s biggest live poker database, and it contains millions of results for hundreds of thousands of players. Even though the concept of the site is simple in its core, the dedicated team behind The Hendon Mob keeps finding new ways to develop their brand, and during the last couple of years, it has become so much more than just a storage of data.
2025 was a big year for The Hendon Mob, and it’s safe to say it reached new heights. poker.pro have been blessed working very closely with the legendary brand, and it was a true joy following their success last year. The poker.pro editorial office has selected its top five The Hendon Mob moments of 2025.
- Read more: Top Five for 2025: PartyPoker Moments
- Read more: Top Five for 2025: Deerfoot Super Stack & WSOP-C
- Read more: Top Five for 2025: OlyBet Moments
- Read more: Top Five for 2025: Moments from the Pure Poker Tour 2025
- Read more: Top 10 Poker Stories from the Great White North
Number Five: History Made in Rozvadov
The Hendon Mob Championship (THMC) is The Hendon Mob’s own live poker series. Sometimes, the THMC is arranged as a standalone festival, and sometimes, it’s organized in conjunction with another event. Their final standalone festival of 2025 was held at Genting Casino Stratford, London, and poker.pro journalist Christoffer Karlén was on-site watching Dimosthenis-Stefanos Ioannidis claiming the title in the £280 Main Event.
The arguably most prestigious THMC of this year that wasn’t a standalone festival was the €150 THMC that was played during the 2025 Festival Rozvadov. Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk (founder of The Festival) and Roland Boothby (The Hendon Mob Head of Partnership) established a collaboration between the two entities a few years ago, and since then, THMC has always been a part of all The Festival’s stops.
When The Festival visited King’s Resort Rozvadov in the Czech Republic in August (?) this year, Franke, Boothby, and King’s Resort Rozvadov Casino head of office put their heads together and created something extraordinary: a €150 THMC with a staggering €300,000 guarantee. Said guarantee is insanely high for such a cheap tournament, and it’s safe to say the trio aimed for the sky. The tournament offered eight starting-day flights (including two remote flights played at King’s Casino, Prague, and one Flip ‘n Go-flight), so the presumptions for a large number of entries were there. It was a thrill in itself following the screens in the tournament area during the last hour of late registration; it was exciting to see whether the guarantee would be reached or not.
When registration eventually closed, the final number of entries read 2,417, which meant that all partners involved in the tournament hit their collective goal. The finalized prize pool read €304,542, and the guarantee was hit. As if this wasn’t an impressive feat itself, the tournament also became the biggest-ever THMC in terms of entries (the previous record was set during the 2025 Irish Poker Open, where €350 THMC registered 888 entries).
Estonian Haik Tougu eventually emerged victorious in the tournament, becoming the legendary winner of the biggest-to-date THMC event. Everyone who worked continuously to make the tournament what it became deserves a big round of applause. The record-shattering tournament was undoubtedly one of the most memorable The Hendon Mob moments of 2025.
Number Four: Walsh’s Deep Run
The previously mentioned 2025 THMC London was the final standalone festival of 2025, and in the form of media partner, poker.pro was on-site together with Boothby and others at Genting Casino Stratford, responsible for the live reporting of the £280 Main Event.
Apart from Karlén doing the coverage on poker.pro and Boothby representing the THM brand (together with THM Social Media Manager Hans Kleinsman), there were a couple of other guys in the team, working day and night to make the 2025 THMC London a superb live poker event. The excellent Damian Nigro delivered sublime player photographs during the entire week, and the dynamic duo Liam “BigLi” Hind and Grant Clark answered for some entertaining (some might even say hysterical) live-form content. Then, there was also a special guest who contributed to elevating the event: PokerStars commentator Nick Walsh.
On his commute to the English capital, Walsh hosted a draw on his social media channels for his followers, where one lucky fan would win a £280 buy-in to the tournament. This is just an example of the extra miles Walsh went to make the event a slam-dunk. He quickly became a good friend of the team, and together with his event colleagues, he entered the tournament himself, trying to become the winner of the final THMC event of 2025.
Boothby, Hind, and Clark didn’t make it long into Day 2, but Walsh was still going strong. He was still in the mix with 18 players remaining, and he had a big crowd of fans cheering him on. On the final table bubble, Walsh won a big pot with pocket aces, which meant he would enter the final table as one of the bigger stacks.
Said final table could be compared to a rapid game of ping pong. Players busted at a surprisingly fast speed, and it didn’t take too long before only six players remained. Walsh was still in, but he’d lost some crucial chips during some interesting hands. Soon enough, he got his last three Big Blinds all in with A♣8♣ against the K♦J♠ of Christopher Yong. No dice for Walsh as the board spelled out K♥J♥A♠6♦Q♦, and as such, Walsh’s entertaining run came to an end as he was eliminated in sixth place for £4,500.
Considering how friendly and down-to-earth Walsh was all week to fans, casino staff, and colleagues, he quickly became a favorite amongst many, and it was a pure joy to follow his deeprun in the prestigious tournament at a very late hour of the day. As previously mentioned, Dimosthenis-Stefanos Ioannidis was crowned the winner of the tournament, well-deservedly so, after the sublime poker he displayed throughout the tournament. That being said, Walsh proved once again that he’s not only comfortable in the commentator’s booth but also on the felt, and hopefully, he’ll be at more THMC events competing for glory.
Number Three: Bloom Conquers Cape Town
The third place on the list belongs to yet another THMC moment (spoiler alert: second and first place won’t have anything to do with THMC). During 2025, there were a total of 13 THMC events. The money and the coveted THMC trophy aside, all Main Event winners also won a package to the 2025 THMC Cape Town Million. This early finale, co-arranged with the SunBet Poker Tour by MJPT in Cape Town, South Africa, held a ZAR8,000 (i.e., roughly €410) Main Event, and the 2025 THMC winners in the field who freerolled were accompanied by all other players who bought themselves into the tournament.
The prestigious finale attracted 354 entries, which created a ZAR2,378,880 (€122,917) prize pool. It was an intense battle at one of the most exotic poker venues in the world, and, eventually, Sean Bloom captured the title and the ZAR350,000 (€18,084) first-place payout.
This whole concept is an excellent example of what The Hendon Mob offers to the players. The THMC events are usually on the cheaper side, and they enable many players to participate in the tournaments. The fact that the winner will receive an added package to Cape Town Millions, which is equal to the poker adventure of a lifetime, is a very nice touch added by The Hendon Mob on what is already an impeccable live poker tournament series. Since Ioannidis won the London event, he is the first one to secure his trip to Cape Town in 2026, and as this year plays out, more and more THMC Main Event winners will secure their South African adventure at the end of the year.
Number Two: Ari Scores Most-Ever All-Time Cashes
One of the coolest features on The Hendon Mob is all their leaderboards. All-time money list, most cashes in different countries, most prominent player from each country… the list of various leaderboards goes on and on, and it truly is remarkable what kind of niche info can be found on The Hendon Mob.
One of the most popular leaderboards on the site is “Number of Cashes All Time”. John “Miami” Cernuto has been at the top of the list for a long time, and at the time this article is being written, he has 597 unique cashes, dating all the way back to 1987. In 2025, though, he was surpassed by Alan “Ari” Engel. At this point, Engel has 627 unique cashes, which puts him on first place on the leaderboard by quite some margin. He managed to score 74 cashes last year. Let’s appreciate that number for a second: 74. That is some impressive consistency right there, and one must applaud Ari for quite the impressive feat. Out of these 74, four were tournament wins, and he also managed to reach a swarm of final tables. It truly is a remarkable feature, and he’s also currently sitting at one-hundred-ninety-eighth place on the all-time money list as a result of this.
In other words, Ari has cemented a firm position at the top of the rankings, and it’d be very surprising if someone is able to catch up with him in 2026.
Welcome bonus, $1M BBJ, and casino fun players.
Sign up through poker.pro now!
New Customers Only | 18+ | T&C Apply
Number One: POY
The number one most memorable The Hendon Mob moment of 2025, ladies and gentlemen, is the prestigious POY ranking. The Hendon Mob keeps track of all players’ live poker earnings during the year, and the one who scores the biggest number wins the prestigious award “Player of the Year”.
The 2025 season would prove to feature a quite intriguing race. With just days left of the year, it was very even among the top 10, especially so within the top three. Punnat Punsri, who received a whopping 560,13 leaderboard points after coming second in the $8,000 Triton One Main Event during the 2025 Triton One, Jeju, was second on the POY leaderboard as of December 19. Then, he scored a crucial third-place finish in the $25,000 High Roller during the 2025 WPT World Championship Las Vegas. This was enough to see him reclaim the first place on the leaderboard, pushing Jesse Lonis down to second place.
Despite having a very impressive year (including a win in the $1,06,000 Main Event during the 2025 Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Montenegro, Budva), Lonis wasn’t able to catch up with Punsri. As such, Thailand’s Punsri finished as the 2025 Player of the Year, a well-deserved feat for the prominent high roller.
All and all, what a year it has been for The Hendon Mob. The poker.pro editorial office is very grateful for the opportunity to work closely with The Hendon Mob in 2025, and it’s an educated guess that The Hendon Mob brand will grow bigger and better in 2026. There’s a very competent team behind the forum, and they keep finding new, creative ways to expand their territory. The Hendon Mob plays a vital part in the global poker community; Boothby, Kleinsman, and all other team members deserve a lot of praise for the work they’re doing, and they are destined to reach new heights in 2026.
