- Shiina Okamoto won the WSOP Ladies Championship in back-to-back years over fields of 1,245 and 1,368 players
- She also finished in second place in the event in 2023
- She entered the 2025 final table as chip leader and dominated with an aggressive style under high pressure
- Her historic run places her alongside rare modern back-to-back WSOP winners like Daniel Cates and Adam Friedman
- Aaron Cummings also recently achieved back-to-back wins, but in smaller field events
Shiina Okamto has just sealed her place in poker history, winning the WSOP Ladies Championship back-to-back, a feat that only a handful of players have accomplished in the modern history of the Series.
Okamoto announced her success back in 2023 when she finished the runner-up in the Ladies Championship. Then, in 2024, she managed to improve on that result, taking home the title.
This year, the Japanese pro returned to defend her title, but no one actually expected her to do it. Facing a field of 1,368 entries, the odds of going back-to-back were astronomical. Yet, Shiina Okamoto did it, leaving the entire poker world in awe.
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Performing Under Huge Pressure
As the 2025 WSOP Ladies Championship progressed and Okamoto continued to build her stack while others around her hit the rail, the idea that she could repeat last year’s success was becoming less and less farfetched.
She went on to make the final table as the chip leader, and despite the enormous pressure and the eyes of the entire poker world on her, Okamoto put those chips to good use, playing her recognizable aggressive and fearless style.
One after another, her opponents were felted. Shiina pretty much locked up the title with three players left, winning another huge pot to enter the heads-up phase of the event as an overwhelming chip leader. Shortly after, she dispatched Heather Alcorn, the last obstacle standing between her and the impressive achievement.
In 2024, Okamoto outlasted 1,245 competitors to claim her title. This year, it was an even bigger field, featuring 1,368 entries. Yet, she won the tournament back-to-back, with a smile on her face and the kind of determination that we only see in top poker players.
Modern Back-to-Back WSOP Runs Are a Rarity
To put Shiina Okamoto’s success in perspective, it is essential to understand that back-to-back wins in the modern World Series of Poker are extremely rare. With almost every event featuring hundreds, if not thousands of players, there are only a couple of instances in recent history.
Daniel “Jungleman” Cates is one shining example that most people know about, having won the prestigious Poker Players Championship back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. The tournament featured very small fields (63 and 112 players, respectively), but it is also the toughest of all tournaments on the WSOP schedule, featuring nine different games and regularly attracting all of the best poker players in the world.
Aaron Cummings owns only two WSOP bracelets, but what’s special about them is that they both came from winning the same event in 2024 and then again in 2025. Cummings went back-to-back in the $1,500 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, outlasting 635 entries this year and 574 entries in 2024.
Rounding out this very short list of modern-day WSOP back-to-back winners is Adam Friedman, who went on to win the $10k Dealer’s Choice Championship in 2018 and 2019. Friedman won in 2021 as well, and since there was no live series held in 2020, one could say he went back-to-back-to-back. All three of these were very tough events but featured fields of just over 100 players.
Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi did not go back-to-back, but he still deserves a shout here, as he recently won the $50k Poker Players Championship for the fourth time, becoming the only player in the history of the event to do so.
All this only goes to further show just how impressive Shiina Okamoto’s performance in the Ladies Championship truly is. To finish a runner-up and then go on to win back-to-back tournaments with 1,000+ players is simply unheard of.
And, as crazy as it may sound, almost everyone will be looking at the Japanese pro the next year to repeat her success. What she was able to do three years in a row is no fluke. It seems Okamoto has found the winning formula for this particular event, so no one would be surprised to see her make another super-deep run in 2026.
