Twenty-seven tournaments into his career, Steve Sarbaugh is still chasing a first win — and the nearest he has come to one was the second night he ever played. July 28th, 2023, WSOP 3-4: runner-up out of nine, two knockouts, $155 in prize money, and one hand away from a World Series of Parker win before he had really arrived.

He has played since January 2023 across three competitions — twenty-two Eight Deuce nights, four in the World Series of Parker and one Annual. The record shows 3 cashes, 16 knockouts and $465 in career prize money.

The best of the Friday nights came in August 2024 at #38: third place, two knockouts, $170 for the finish — still his biggest single payday. He was fourth at #47 in July 2025, and fourth again at WSOP 4-3 that June, where two knockouts were not quite enough to reach the money.

The shape of the results is a player who is regularly still in the room late. He has 14 finishes inside the top eight from twenty-seven starts, against a longest run of nine consecutive tournaments without a cash — which is the honest other half of it.

Four years in, one runner-up finish, and the win has not arrived. Worth remembering that most of this league needed a good deal longer than twenty-seven tournaments to get theirs.