After events stoppd coming through for several hours, I've finally caugt up with what happened on Friday at the Rio
May 30th
WSOP2 - $25,000 Mixed-Max NLH - 9 handed/6 handed/4 handed/HU - 131 entrants The Heads-Up Final between Jason Mo and Vanessa Selbst took 72 hands to play itself out, and when all the chips had been piled up it was Vanessa Selbst who claimed her third bracelet.
Mo entered the final with a 5.8m to 3.9m chip lead, Selbst got it almost back to even after 24 hands but then Mo went on a roll, and by a break after 52 hands he led 8.1m to 1.6m. After that, little went right for Mo - one wide push with 6-3suited got called, and then a huge hand (hand 63) saw his AQ suited lose to Vanessa's pocket Queens on a Queen high board. Ten hands later it was all over.
WSOP3 - $1,000 PLO - 1128 entrants The bracelet for "Tikay's event" has gone to Brandon Shack-Harris, outlasting Morgan Popham heads-up to take the bracelet and $205K first prize to more than double his lifetime live earnings.
Overnight chip leader Steve Billirakis went out in 4th with the Japanese Iori Yogo coming third
WSOP4 - $1,000 NLH - 2224 entrants We're down to 12, and WSOP Circuit regular Kyle Cartwright has the chip lead overnight. He has 973K, ahead of Daniel Dizenzo in 2nd and 2010 ME 4th place finisher Ylon Schwartz in 3rd.
Niall Farrell was the only UK player to return for Day 2, and he battled through most of the day but was knocked-out in 23rd for a cash of just over $10K.
WSOP5 - $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball - 120 entrants First the bad news - Stuart Rutter won't be picking up his first bracelet in this event, falling mid-way through the day in 40th.
Matthew Ashton came very close to making the money, with 12 paid he was knocked out in 16th after losing most of his chips to Phil Galfond when Galfond held the nuts.
Building on that, Galfond leads the final 12 overnight ahead of Jason Mercier and Alexandre Luneau, who now has (correctly) the French tricolour alongside his name rather than a Union Flag.
Others still in include Nick Schulman, Justin Bonomo, David Benyamine and Eli Elezra
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants After a bit of controversy earlier when dealers on different tables were dealing with taking blinds from stacks where players hadn't bought in yet differently, the 948 players on 120 tables fought out their STTs to provide one player per table to go forward to Day 2.
Among those who got through - Eugene Katchalov, Mike Matusow, Josh Arieh, Joseph Cheong, Greg Merson, Humberto Brenes, Kyle Julius & Chris Tryba.
Merson is an interesting case, last year the 2012 ME winner only played 7 WSOP events (preferring the cash games in Macao), but this year he has committed to playing virtually a full schedule.
Louis Salter & Jamie Roberts are upholding British honour as the only players from the UK to make Day 2. WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants Razz, being a limit game, plays a lot slower than NLH and so we're still well away from the cash at the end of Day 1 as 75 remain.
Defending Razz champion Bryan Campanello returns with a short stack, but among those with more chips - one Phil Hellmuth (looking for his 101st WSOP cash at least), Huck Seed, Berry Johnson, Phil Laak (who knocked out Phil Ivey along the way) and Brandon Cantu, but they all trail Floridian Fabio De Francesco who is the overnight chip leader.
I can't see any British players among the survivors, but I'm supprting 60th placed Gary Benson, because he comes from the wonderfully named Kangaroo Point in Australia.
Brandon Shack-Harris entered this as soon as he won his earlier bracelet, but it wasn't to be a repeat performance as he went bust fairly quickly.
To Start Today WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker
Event 8 - the "Millionaire Maker" is having two starting "flights", a and b. Flight A has just set the record for the biggest single-seating field ever in a live tournament.
Total number of entries is now showing as 5369 but I believe this includes those who have registered for Flight B already
1B is ongoing, they've just entered Level 5 and I think late reg is open to the end of this level. Total so far is at least 7781 (including re-entries from 1A to 1B) meaning it only trails the 2006 ME as the live poker tournament with the most entries ever.
WSOP4 - $1,000 NLH - 2224 entrants The bracelet and $360K has gone to Kyle Cartwright who was the overnight chip leader and held on to defeat Jason Paster heads-up. Ylon Schwartz came 3rd in a final table exclusively made up of American players.
WSOP5 - $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball - 120 entrants The first of the $10K bracelets has gone to Tuan Le (picking up less than 5% less than Cartwright (above) despite the field only being about 5% of the size.
Le took his first bracelet after beating a big-name packed final table with Justin Bonomo the unlucky 2nd placed finisher, Eli Elezra 3rd and Nick Schulman 4th.
The WSOP cannot make up its mind about Alexandre Luneau - first he was British, then French and now he's got a Union Jack against him again. For the record he finished 8th
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants Day 2 is in the books and the 12 table winners move on to Day 3 where the tournament reverts to being a standard MTT. Among the lucky dozen are Josh Arieh, David Trager, Maxx Coleman & Jared Jaffee, plus the sole non-American left, Dimitar Danchev of Bulgaria.
The three British players who won their Day 1 tables made no futher progress - Jamie Roberts was first out in 107th, David Vamplew (who I somehow missed yesterday) followed in 75th and the last Brit standing, Louis Salter, was eliminated in 43rd. All three pick up $4411
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants There's bound to be a lot of interest around this final table as it features in 2nd place Phil Hellmuth, chasing his 14th bracelet.
Greg Pappas holds the only larger stack, with David Bach (2009 Poker Players Champion), Brandon Cantu (2 bracelets), Ted Forrest (5 bracelets) & Brock Parker (2 bracelets) also in close contention
Among those who cashed but are not part of the final table - Huck Seed (12th), Berry Johnston (39th) & Phil Laak (40th)
My man from Kangaroo Point failed to cash though.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker Still going, playing the final level of the day. Update to come at the end of play. Looks like this made a few dozen short of 8000 entries. Phenomenal!
The second biggest live poker tournament in history, with less than 2 dozen short of 8000 entries across the two flights (including a number of players having to use two bullets) means the guaranteed 1st place prize money of a million dollars was met and exceeded easily, with the winner now going to pick up over $1.3m
Andrew Seidman was one of those who busted flight 1A, late registered into the second flight and began to struggle early before turning it around "big time", running well and playing well too.
As expected a host of big names accompany him through, as well as a number of UK players - from Flight 1A Scott O'Reilly (inside the Top 15 in chips), Kevin Allen, Andrew Teng, Charles Chattha, Steven Watts, Ben Warrington, James Atkin, Daniel Furnival, Adam Panlatimer & Lee Davy; and from Flight 1B Andrew Hills, Richard Pearce, Gary Hurst, Rhys Jones, Jake Cody & Sebastian Saffari, plus Chris Lythgoe who should be shown from "Grt Manchester, GB" but is mangled into "Crt Manchester, GA"! Messrs Chidwick & Ulliot's demise was specifically noted in dispatches
Too many players survive to pick out many names (1466 return) but one interesting player that the PokerNews reporting team were regularly mentioning was 69-year old Wendeen Eolis. Who? I hear you ask. Well she was the first woman to ever cash in the WSOP Main Event back in 1986 and has gone on to the be the Chief Executive of a number of companies and a special adviser to ex-Mayor of New York City Rudy Guiliani. Eolis returns for Day 2 but only with a few chips.
I've got to go out this morning (as soon as I can drag myself away from the live streaming of the Razz), so a full update will follow later, particularly for those events which have only started today:
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants
The 12 players who won their Day 2 tables came back and effectively played the final stages of a regular tournament.
Josh Arieh went on a roll, knocking out players left right and centre bust lost a huge pot with Alex Bolotin when Bolotin hit a two-outer, and Arieh departed shortly after.
This left it three handed, Bolotin, Jon Lane and 2013 PCA winner Dimitar Danchev. Three handed play went on for ages, Lane's Aces eventually being cracked by Danchev flopping a set of 2s, and heads-up wasn't a quick affair either with it taking over 80 hands for Bolotin to take down the event, his first bracelet and over a quarter of a million dollars.
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants
A final table full of bracelets - 23 among the final 8 tables and of course the tantalising prospect of Phil Hellmuth extending his record total of 13 WSOP bracelets. A number of them had Razz WSOP history as well - Hellmuth of course won this two years ago with Brandon Cantu in 3rd, David Bach was the losing heads-up player 12 months ago while Ted Forrest won a razz bracelet as far ago as 1993. In fact Forrest has 5 wins, but none of them have been since the move to the Rio (3 in 1993 and 2 in 2004 all back in the Binions era)
I watched the live stream until the first break, and had to agree with the commentators that it seemed a lot more relaxed and friendly than any Hold'em final table.
Kevin Iacofano went out early, Yuebin Guo never got going to finish 7th and Cantu (who seemed like he wanted to play every hand against Hellmuth) drifted away not long after.
Brock Parker was very quiet and eventually fot it all in against Ted Forrest but couldn't complete his draw to a 7-low, David Bach got low but held on for 45 minutes with a very small stack before losing a close one to Hellmuth.
Three handed play saw Hellmuth & Greg Pappas with big stacks and Forrest a small one, but he won a big won against Pappas, shortly after Hellmuth did the same and the veteran Pappas departed the scene a few hands later.
This left Hellmuth & Forrest to play the heads-up match with the most bracelets between them in WSOP history. Heads-up started with Hellmuth having a 2-1 chip lead, and three hours later play is still going on with the stacks switched around so Forrest is in the lead.
Hellmuth has 101 cashes, 49 final tables, 23 heads-up appearances and 13 bracelets so far.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries After (as Tikay noted above) the fast and furious rate of eliminations on Day 1 (less than 1500 returned for Day 2) would the rate of play slow down? Not to start with anyway, another 300 went bust in the first hour or so.
Things did settle down after that, and we're well in the money with less than 400 left as they start Level 16 after the dinner break.
Colby Burleson, Matt Newcombe & Joseph Salvaggi appear to have 3 of the biggest stacks, but it's difficult to follow all the chip counts with this many players still left in.
What we can say is that the following players have gone out today - Andy Bloch, Matt Glantz, Jonathan Tamayo, James Atkin, Scotty Nguyen, Kyle Julius, Layne Flack etc.
They're playing to the end of Level 18 tonight (so 3 more hours)
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries A title prize pool of $1.75 million and a first prize of $323K, update to come later
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - Late Reg still open Full update to come later
To Start Today Jun 2nd WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants This who wanted Phil Hellmuth to claim his 14th bracelet will have to wait a little longer as he was out-lasted by Ted Forrest who duly collected his 6th WSOP bracelet.
After he took the lead, Forrest slowly strangled Hellmuth by getting more value when he had decent hands than Hellmuth did, and delivered the fatal blow when he made a 9 low to beat Hellmuth's 10 low
Plenty of stereotypical chuntering from the Poker Brat but no major blow ups thankfully, and he was for once a gracious loser.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries They're definitely not going to finish this off on day 3 as planned; play slowed up in the evening and they'll come back for Day 3 with 178 players.
Andrew Teng is the leading Brit in 20th place, Scott O'Reilly is 59th and Rhys Jones 94th. Sean Prendiville represents Ireland and he's inside the top 10 but the chip leaders are Bulgarian Yuliyan Kolev & American Jonathan Dimmig. Kolev is an occasional live casher (10 Hendon Mob "Flags") and 2 small WSOP cashes while Dimmig only has a few cashes to his record, totalling $34K.
Not too many well known players remain in contention for the $1.3m, but the likes of Dwyte Pilgrim, John Racener, Chris Klodnicki & last year November Niner Amir Lehavot still harbour a dream.
Humberto Brenes made his fourth cash of the series already by making 316th place.
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries In the cash by the end of Day 1, with 161 players making Day 2, led by Texan Adam Geyer with almost twice as many chips as his nearest challenger, local Ryan Jaconetti. Najib Kamand leads the GB challenge in 31st while Idris Drief will return with a short stack.
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - 178 entrants The "Big boys" version of the Omaha Hi-Low bracelet, unfortunately played as a "limit game" rather than "pot limit".
Anyway it has attracted the sort of field you would expect for a $10K event, whatever the varient of poker being played.
111 of the 178 players will come back for Day 2, with Dan Kelly top of the chip counts overnight. He bagged up 146K, just 2K ahead of second placed Jeff Williams.
Lots of big names in contention - Elezra, Negreanu, Selbst etc. with 3 Brits, agian the sort of names you would expect really - Richard Ashby, Stephen Chidwick & Matthew Ashton.
Those who no longer have any chips include Mike Matusow, Phul Ivey, Chris Tryba & David Benyamine as well as James Dempsey who if he isn't careful will have to another interview with Tikay in much the same mood as last year.
To Start Today Jun 2nd WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries The end of Day 3 and we have a final table, and we have a British player on it! Andrew Teng has made his 2nd career WSOP FT and lies 3rd in chips. Teng, who won a recent GUKPT in Edinburgh has 4m chips (someway behind the leader Stephen Graner's 12m) and has already guaranteed $128K, the biggest of his 3 6-figure dollar paydays so far. Only 7th placed American Maurice Hawkins has more lifetime live earnings, headed up by the over $180K he won in a WSOP circuit event back in February.
Play will resume at 1:00pm Vegas time and it will have to be channel 861 on the TV and the WSOP live stream on the laptop to see if Teng can bring home the bracelet and over $1.3m first prize
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries Already in the money at the start of Day 2, the 10 levels have reduced the field from 161 to 12 who will come back for Day 3. Frank Patti has come from being a short stack to the chip leader in a very short time at the end of the evening, winning two huge pots and he goes in the final day with a stack of 1.2m with only Jorge Vergara anywhere close (1.1m with the next stack on 687K).
No "big names" remain in the running, and no UK players either unfortunately as both Idris Kaeef & Najib Kamand departed early for scores in the $2K-$3K range.
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - 178 entrants No big names in Event 9 but plenty in Event 10 as this one also reaches the end of Day 2 with this time 18 players still involved.
Russian Viatcheslav Ortynskiy is the man with the most chips but 3 of the Top 5 are bracelet winners - Eli Elezra (2nd), Dan Kelly (5th) and pleasingly Richard Ashby (4th). Perry Friedman (another former bracelet winner), Jeff Lisandro (multiple bracelet winner) and Brock Parker (final table in the Event 7, the Razz) are among the short stacks.
We also have two female players still in contention - Shirley Rosario & Melissa Burr.
The min cash (that all 18 players have locked up) is $23,742 while the first prize is just over $443K
WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed - 1587 entrants The only event to start today was a $1500 6-max, which attracted 1587 entrants of which (as near as makes no difference) 8.5% have retained an interest in the event for Day 2 and the near $450K first prize (and of course the bracelet).
No full end-of-day chip counts available yet, so there will need to be an update later but the latest data I can see indicates that at least two British players, Rhys Jones & Niall Farrell still have chips.
The field for this one was up nearly 50% on the corresponding event last year which is a very good sign.
To Start Today Jun 3rd WSOP12 - $1,500 NLH WSOP13 - $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball
"...Events Starting Today WSOP3 - $1,000 PLO - expeciting to report on Mr T Kendall being the overnight leader this time tomorrow ......" That's a little optimistic, but I am currently joint leader, though fair to say it has not started yet. Posted by Tikay10
Comments
May 30th
WSOP2 - $25,000 Mixed-Max NLH - 9 handed/6 handed/4 handed/HU - 131 entrants
The Heads-Up Final between Jason Mo and Vanessa Selbst took 72 hands to play itself out, and when all the chips had been piled up it was Vanessa Selbst who claimed her third bracelet.
Mo entered the final with a 5.8m to 3.9m chip lead, Selbst got it almost back to even after 24 hands but then Mo went on a roll, and by a break after 52 hands he led 8.1m to 1.6m. After that, little went right for Mo - one wide push with 6-3suited got called, and then a huge hand (hand 63) saw his AQ suited lose to Vanessa's pocket Queens on a Queen high board. Ten hands later it was all over.
WSOP3 - $1,000 PLO - 1128 entrants
The bracelet for "Tikay's event" has gone to Brandon Shack-Harris, outlasting Morgan Popham heads-up to take the bracelet and $205K first prize to more than double his lifetime live earnings.
Overnight chip leader Steve Billirakis went out in 4th with the Japanese Iori Yogo coming third
WSOP4 - $1,000 NLH - 2224 entrants
We're down to 12, and WSOP Circuit regular Kyle Cartwright has the chip lead overnight. He has 973K, ahead of Daniel Dizenzo in 2nd and 2010 ME 4th place finisher Ylon Schwartz in 3rd.
Niall Farrell was the only UK player to return for Day 2, and he battled through most of the day but was knocked-out in 23rd for a cash of just over $10K.
WSOP5 - $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball - 120 entrants
First the bad news - Stuart Rutter won't be picking up his first bracelet in this event, falling mid-way through the day in 40th.
Matthew Ashton came very close to making the money, with 12 paid he was knocked out in 16th after losing most of his chips to Phil Galfond when Galfond held the nuts.
Building on that, Galfond leads the final 12 overnight ahead of Jason Mercier and Alexandre Luneau, who now has (correctly) the French tricolour alongside his name rather than a Union Flag.
Others still in include Nick Schulman, Justin Bonomo, David Benyamine and Eli Elezra
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants
After a bit of controversy earlier when dealers on different tables were dealing with taking blinds from stacks where players hadn't bought in yet differently, the 948 players on 120 tables fought out their STTs to provide one player per table to go forward to Day 2.
Among those who got through - Eugene Katchalov, Mike Matusow, Josh Arieh, Joseph Cheong, Greg Merson, Humberto Brenes, Kyle Julius & Chris Tryba.
Merson is an interesting case, last year the 2012 ME winner only played 7 WSOP events (preferring the cash games in Macao), but this year he has committed to playing virtually a full schedule.
Louis Salter & Jamie Roberts are upholding British honour as the only players from the UK to make Day 2.
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants
Razz, being a limit game, plays a lot slower than NLH and so we're still well away from the cash at the end of Day 1 as 75 remain.
Defending Razz champion Bryan Campanello returns with a short stack, but among those with more chips - one Phil Hellmuth (looking for his 101st WSOP cash at least), Huck Seed, Berry Johnson, Phil Laak (who knocked out Phil Ivey along the way) and Brandon Cantu, but they all trail Floridian Fabio De Francesco who is the overnight chip leader.
I can't see any British players among the survivors, but I'm supprting 60th placed Gary Benson, because he comes from the wonderfully named Kangaroo Point in Australia.
Brandon Shack-Harris entered this as soon as he won his earlier bracelet, but it wasn't to be a repeat performance as he went bust fairly quickly.
To Start Today
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker
Total number of entries is now showing as 5369 but I believe this includes those who have registered for Flight B already
These photos of the WSOP plasma for the "Millionaire Maker" were taken at 7.15pm....
The numbers continue to rise, 20 minutes later the number stood @ 7,662.
8pm - 7,704.
1B is ongoing, they've just entered Level 5 and I think late reg is open to the end of this level. Total so far is at least 7781 (including re-entries from 1A to 1B) meaning it only trails the 2006 ME as the live poker tournament with the most entries ever.
I was going to say this bodes well for the main event but will it? **** of a difference from 1.5k to 10k entry.
WSOP4 - $1,000 NLH - 2224 entrants
The bracelet and $360K has gone to Kyle Cartwright who was the overnight chip leader and held on to defeat Jason Paster heads-up. Ylon Schwartz came 3rd in a final table exclusively made up of American players.
WSOP5 - $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball - 120 entrants
The first of the $10K bracelets has gone to Tuan Le (picking up less than 5% less than Cartwright (above) despite the field only being about 5% of the size.
Le took his first bracelet after beating a big-name packed final table with Justin Bonomo the unlucky 2nd placed finisher, Eli Elezra 3rd and Nick Schulman 4th.
The WSOP cannot make up its mind about Alexandre Luneau - first he was British, then French and now he's got a Union Jack against him again. For the record he finished 8th
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants
Day 2 is in the books and the 12 table winners move on to Day 3 where the tournament reverts to being a standard MTT. Among the lucky dozen are Josh Arieh, David Trager, Maxx Coleman & Jared Jaffee, plus the sole non-American left, Dimitar Danchev of Bulgaria.
The three British players who won their Day 1 tables made no futher progress - Jamie Roberts was first out in 107th, David Vamplew (who I somehow missed yesterday) followed in 75th and the last Brit standing, Louis Salter, was eliminated in 43rd. All three pick up $4411
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants
There's bound to be a lot of interest around this final table as it features in 2nd place Phil Hellmuth, chasing his 14th bracelet.
Greg Pappas holds the only larger stack, with David Bach (2009 Poker Players Champion), Brandon Cantu (2 bracelets), Ted Forrest (5 bracelets) & Brock Parker (2 bracelets) also in close contention
Among those who cashed but are not part of the final table - Huck Seed (12th), Berry Johnston (39th) & Phil Laak (40th)
My man from Kangaroo Point failed to cash though.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker
Still going, playing the final level of the day. Update to come at the end of play. Looks like this made a few dozen short of 8000 entries. Phenomenal!
To Start Today
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low
The second biggest live poker tournament in history, with less than 2 dozen short of 8000 entries across the two flights (including a number of players having to use two bullets) means the guaranteed 1st place prize money of a million dollars was met and exceeded easily, with the winner now going to pick up over $1.3m
Andrew Seidman was one of those who busted flight 1A, late registered into the second flight and began to struggle early before turning it around "big time", running well and playing well too.
As expected a host of big names accompany him through, as well as a number of UK players - from Flight 1A Scott O'Reilly (inside the Top 15 in chips), Kevin Allen, Andrew Teng, Charles Chattha, Steven Watts, Ben Warrington, James Atkin, Daniel Furnival, Adam Panlatimer & Lee Davy; and from Flight 1B Andrew Hills, Richard Pearce, Gary Hurst, Rhys Jones, Jake Cody & Sebastian Saffari, plus Chris Lythgoe who should be shown from "Grt Manchester, GB" but is mangled into "Crt Manchester, GA"! Messrs Chidwick & Ulliot's demise was specifically noted in dispatches
Too many players survive to pick out many names (1466 return) but one interesting player that the PokerNews reporting team were regularly mentioning was 69-year old Wendeen Eolis. Who? I hear you ask. Well she was the first woman to ever cash in the WSOP Main Event back in 1986 and has gone on to the be the Chief Executive of a number of companies and a special adviser to ex-Mayor of New York City Rudy Guiliani. Eolis returns for Day 2 but only with a few chips.
Only 1,466 return from 8,000?
Wowzer!
Love the story of Wendeen Eolis.
WSOP6 - $1,500 NLH Shootout - 948 entrants
The 12 players who won their Day 2 tables came back and effectively played the final stages of a regular tournament.
Josh Arieh went on a roll, knocking out players left right and centre bust lost a huge pot with Alex Bolotin when Bolotin hit a two-outer, and Arieh departed shortly after.
This left it three handed, Bolotin, Jon Lane and 2013 PCA winner Dimitar Danchev. Three handed play went on for ages, Lane's Aces eventually being cracked by Danchev flopping a set of 2s, and heads-up wasn't a quick affair either with it taking over 80 hands for Bolotin to take down the event, his first bracelet and over a quarter of a million dollars.
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants
A final table full of bracelets - 23 among the final 8 tables and of course the tantalising prospect of Phil Hellmuth extending his record total of 13 WSOP bracelets. A number of them had Razz WSOP history as well - Hellmuth of course won this two years ago with Brandon Cantu in 3rd, David Bach was the losing heads-up player 12 months ago while Ted Forrest won a razz bracelet as far ago as 1993. In fact Forrest has 5 wins, but none of them have been since the move to the Rio (3 in 1993 and 2 in 2004 all back in the Binions era)
I watched the live stream until the first break, and had to agree with the commentators that it seemed a lot more relaxed and friendly than any Hold'em final table.
Kevin Iacofano went out early, Yuebin Guo never got going to finish 7th and Cantu (who seemed like he wanted to play every hand against Hellmuth) drifted away not long after.
Brock Parker was very quiet and eventually fot it all in against Ted Forrest but couldn't complete his draw to a 7-low, David Bach got low but held on for 45 minutes with a very small stack before losing a close one to Hellmuth.
Three handed play saw Hellmuth & Greg Pappas with big stacks and Forrest a small one, but he won a big won against Pappas, shortly after Hellmuth did the same and the veteran Pappas departed the scene a few hands later.
This left Hellmuth & Forrest to play the heads-up match with the most bracelets between them in WSOP history. Heads-up started with Hellmuth having a 2-1 chip lead, and three hours later play is still going on with the stacks switched around so Forrest is in the lead.
Hellmuth has 101 cashes, 49 final tables, 23 heads-up appearances and 13 bracelets so far.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries
After (as Tikay noted above) the fast and furious rate of eliminations on Day 1 (less than 1500 returned for Day 2) would the rate of play slow down? Not to start with anyway, another 300 went bust in the first hour or so.
Things did settle down after that, and we're well in the money with less than 400 left as they start Level 16 after the dinner break.
Colby Burleson, Matt Newcombe & Joseph Salvaggi appear to have 3 of the biggest stacks, but it's difficult to follow all the chip counts with this many players still left in.
What we can say is that the following players have gone out today - Andy Bloch, Matt Glantz, Jonathan Tamayo, James Atkin, Scotty Nguyen, Kyle Julius, Layne Flack etc.
They're playing to the end of Level 18 tonight (so 3 more hours)
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries
A title prize pool of $1.75 million and a first prize of $323K, update to come later
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - Late Reg still open
Full update to come later
To Start Today
Jun 2nd
WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed
WSOP7 - $1,500 Razz - 352 entrants
This who wanted Phil Hellmuth to claim his 14th bracelet will have to wait a little longer as he was out-lasted by Ted Forrest who duly collected his 6th WSOP bracelet.
After he took the lead, Forrest slowly strangled Hellmuth by getting more value when he had decent hands than Hellmuth did, and delivered the fatal blow when he made a 9 low to beat Hellmuth's 10 low
Plenty of stereotypical chuntering from the Poker Brat but no major blow ups thankfully, and he was for once a gracious loser.
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries
They're definitely not going to finish this off on day 3 as planned; play slowed up in the evening and they'll come back for Day 3 with 178 players.
Andrew Teng is the leading Brit in 20th place, Scott O'Reilly is 59th and Rhys Jones 94th. Sean Prendiville represents Ireland and he's inside the top 10 but the chip leaders are Bulgarian Yuliyan Kolev & American Jonathan Dimmig. Kolev is an occasional live casher (10 Hendon Mob "Flags") and 2 small WSOP cashes while Dimmig only has a few cashes to his record, totalling $34K.
Not too many well known players remain in contention for the $1.3m, but the likes of Dwyte Pilgrim, John Racener, Chris Klodnicki & last year November Niner Amir Lehavot still harbour a dream.
Humberto Brenes made his fourth cash of the series already by making 316th place.
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries
In the cash by the end of Day 1, with 161 players making Day 2, led by Texan Adam Geyer with almost twice as many chips as his nearest challenger, local Ryan Jaconetti. Najib Kamand leads the GB challenge in 31st while Idris Drief will return with a short stack.
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - 178 entrants
The "Big boys" version of the Omaha Hi-Low bracelet, unfortunately played as a "limit game" rather than "pot limit".
Anyway it has attracted the sort of field you would expect for a $10K event, whatever the varient of poker being played.
111 of the 178 players will come back for Day 2, with Dan Kelly top of the chip counts overnight. He bagged up 146K, just 2K ahead of second placed Jeff Williams.
Lots of big names in contention - Elezra, Negreanu, Selbst etc. with 3 Brits, agian the sort of names you would expect really - Richard Ashby, Stephen Chidwick & Matthew Ashton.
Those who no longer have any chips include Mike Matusow, Phul Ivey, Chris Tryba & David Benyamine as well as James Dempsey who if he isn't careful will have to another interview with Tikay in much the same mood as last year.
To Start Today
Jun 2nd
WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed
WSOP8 - $1,500 NLH Millionaire Maker - 7977 entries
The end of Day 3 and we have a final table, and we have a British player on it! Andrew Teng has made his 2nd career WSOP FT and lies 3rd in chips. Teng, who won a recent GUKPT in Edinburgh has 4m chips (someway behind the leader Stephen Graner's 12m) and has already guaranteed $128K, the biggest of his 3 6-figure dollar paydays so far. Only 7th placed American Maurice Hawkins has more lifetime live earnings, headed up by the over $180K he won in a WSOP circuit event back in February.
Play will resume at 1:00pm Vegas time and it will have to be channel 861 on the TV and the WSOP live stream on the laptop to see if Teng can bring home the bracelet and over $1.3m first prize
WSOP9 - $1,000 NLH - 1940 entries
Already in the money at the start of Day 2, the 10 levels have reduced the field from 161 to 12 who will come back for Day 3. Frank Patti has come from being a short stack to the chip leader in a very short time at the end of the evening, winning two huge pots and he goes in the final day with a stack of 1.2m with only Jorge Vergara anywhere close (1.1m with the next stack on 687K).
No "big names" remain in the running, and no UK players either unfortunately as both Idris Kaeef & Najib Kamand departed early for scores in the $2K-$3K range.
WSOP10 - $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low - 178 entrants
No big names in Event 9 but plenty in Event 10 as this one also reaches the end of Day 2 with this time 18 players still involved.
Russian Viatcheslav Ortynskiy is the man with the most chips but 3 of the Top 5 are bracelet winners - Eli Elezra (2nd), Dan Kelly (5th) and pleasingly Richard Ashby (4th). Perry Friedman (another former bracelet winner), Jeff Lisandro (multiple bracelet winner) and Brock Parker (final table in the Event 7, the Razz) are among the short stacks.
We also have two female players still in contention - Shirley Rosario & Melissa Burr.
The min cash (that all 18 players have locked up) is $23,742 while the first prize is just over $443K
WSOP11 - $1,500 NLH 6 handed - 1587 entrants
The only event to start today was a $1500 6-max, which attracted 1587 entrants of which (as near as makes no difference) 8.5% have retained an interest in the event for Day 2 and the near $450K first prize (and of course the bracelet).
No full end-of-day chip counts available yet, so there will need to be an update later but the latest data I can see indicates that at least two British players, Rhys Jones & Niall Farrell still have chips.
The field for this one was up nearly 50% on the corresponding event last year which is a very good sign.
To Start Today
Jun 3rd
WSOP12 - $1,500 NLH
WSOP13 - $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball