Poker legends Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson and Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan will try to catch another poker legend–Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr.–in the race for most World Series of Poker (WSOP) championship gold bracelets won in a lifetime, when the 39th annual WSOP begins tomorrow in Las Vegas.

Hellmuth won his 11th WSOP bracelet at last year’s WSOP, making him the career leader and giving him bragging rights to claim he’s the best player in the history of the game.

He had been tied with Brunson and Chan, each of whom has 10.

Hundreds of gold bracelets have been won since the WSOP started 38 years ago, and plenty of players have won multiple pieces of the coveted jewelry.

Going into the 2008 WSOP, here are the players who have won the most career WSOP bracelets:

Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr., 11; Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson and Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan, each 10; Johnny Moss, 9; Erik Seidel, 8; Billy Baxter, 7; T.J. Cloutier, Jay Heimowitz and Men “The Master” Nguyen, each 6; Gary Berland, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil “Poison” Ivey, Layne Flack, Allen Cunningham, Ted Forrest, Berry Johnston and Stu “The Kid” Ungar, each 5; Mickey Appleman, Bobby Baldwin, Bill Boyd, David Chiu, Artie Cobb, Mike Hartcock, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen, Walter Pearson, Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston Jr., Huck Seed and an anonymous player who went by the moniker “Lakewood Louie,” each 4; and Eli Balas, Lyle Berman, John Bonetti, Farzad Bonyadi, Jimmy Casella, “Miami” John Cernuto, Paul Clark, Hamid Dastmalchi, Nani Dollison, Barbara Enright, Chau Giang, Perry Green, John Juanda, Jack Keller, O’Neil Longson, Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu, David “Chip” Reese, Hilbert Shirey, David Sklanksy, Max Stern, Dewey Tomko and Don Williams, each 3.

Dozens of players have won two career bracelets, and even more have won one.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)