Well, two days in and I'm already late with my posts! That's what work does to you!
Anyway two players now have bracelets courtesy of the first two events.
WSOP 1 - $565 Casino Employee's NLH, Day 2 of 2, 566 entrants I picked out Jordan Hefty solely because of his name yesterday, well perhaps I should have paid more attention to his poker too as he went from $1900 lifetime tourney winnings to about $64K by winning event 1.
He took four hours to dispose of Jodie Sanders heads-up, with Katie Kopp bowing out in third.
Event 2 - $10K Super Turbo Bounty NLH, Day 1 of 1, 243 entrants The first bracelet actually went to the winner of Event 2, and it was a semi-familiar name who won it, with almost $400K to take home as well.
2011 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Elio Fox was the lucky guy, moving into the lead when a double elimination took it from 5-handed to 3-handed. With the super turbo format meaning stacks were never very big on the FT, he had more than half the chips in play and eliminated Paul Volpe in 3rd and Adam Adler (who did briefly have the lead in heads-up play) in 2nd.
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, 3 Day 1 of 3, 363 entrants The players were split on to 50 tables, with the winner of each table making Day 2 and a min-cash of $6302.
Two players from the FT of last year's equivalent event, Taylor Paur & Jan-Eric Schwippert. There will be 10 5-handed tables on Day 2, and Paur has both Phil Hellmuth and Eli Elezra on his so there will be plenty of attention on that table.
Two ME winners, Joe Cada and Joe McKeehen are still alive, along with a former November Niner Kenny Hallaert, and a few British players, Jack Maskill, Adam Owen, Harry Lodge and Chris Moorman. There is a Frank Williams still in too, but it's probably not the Formula 1 team man!
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 1 of 3, 911 entrants Just under a third of the players have made Day 2, but with only 137 getting paid there's still a lot of poker to play before a min-cash can be secured.
Dao Bac is the chip leader, ahead of Nick Guagenti & Pamela McPeak, and sitting nicely inside the Top 10 is former star of "Call My Bluff" on BBC2, Frank Muir. No, strike that, he's been dead 20 years, must be a different Frank Muir.
There's only one Benny Glaser as far as I know, the winner of this event 2 years ago and he's managed to survive Day 1, as has John Racener, Robert Mizrachi, Shaun Deeb and Mike Matusow.
Others shown as British on the chip counts - Xunen Zheng, Philip Long, Ronan Nally and Ben Dobson.
To Start Today Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller Event 6 - $365 The Giant NHL with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Fridays
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, Day 3 of 3, 363 entrants We're down to a FT (10-handed) with a 20% chance of a UK winner as both Harry Lodge & Jack Maskill won their second table to qualify for the final.
It's also a 20% chance a former ME winner takes home the bracelet as the two Joes, Cada and McKeehen are also still involved.
One other former bracelet winner, Anthony Reatugui is at the table, with each of them guaranteed $14K, and prizes rising until the winner takes $226 at the end of the tournament.
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 911 entrants Exactly three dozen remain in the first four-card event of the series, with Brandon Ageloff the chip leader ahead of Matt Woodward and a player very recognisable on these shores, Chris Bjorin.
No Brits unfortunately (Benny Glaser had the deepest run, 63rd for $3526).
Besides Bjorin, three other former bracelet holders ramin - Jason Lester, Mike Wattel & Mike Leah, plus there is also 2016 November Niner, Jerry Wong.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 1 of 4, 97 entries so far Players can still use their single re-entry so the total entries may creep up towards three figures.
Elio Fox may well be story of the series if he keeps on playing like this. He won Event 2, and has used some his winnings there to good effect as he is the Day 1 chip leader in the High Roller.
Justin Bonomo has been on a heater in Super High Rollers this year and he's got a decent stack to take forward as have a couple of Brits, one of whom has been a regular in these updates in recent years (Stephen Chidwick) and the other of whom I know very little (Aymon Hata). Talal Shakerchi takes forward a considerably smaller stack.
One former ME winner I can see is still active, Ryan Reiss along with the likes of Jason Mercier, Dominik Nitsche, Isaac Haxton, Adrian Matoes, Christian Vogelsang, Bryn Kenney etc. Daniel Negreanu isn't among them, he tried both his bullets but aimed both wide of the target so he's out.
Event 6 - $365 The Giant NHL with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Fridays 1289 players played the first of five opening flights for the $565 Giant (which the WSOP always spells in capitals, I'm not going to follow that convention unless they prove it's an acronym).
Justin Sternberg leads just 80 qualifiers for the later stages, the man from Idaho one of only 2 players above a million chips (Danny Nguyen is second and Elvis Toomas is third with exactly a million).
Matt Affleck is probably the best known of the 80 after bracelet winners Phil Laak, David ODB Baker & Allyn Shulman busted.
194 players were said to have made at least a min-cash but there isn't a full list to see if any UK names cashed, but we do know that Adam Owen was one of the last few to depart before the bubble (wearing a Montreal Impact shirt. What's wrong with a Folkestone Invicta shirt Adam?)
To Start Today Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days - flights A & B today Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), 3 Day Event
Update on the Shootout - it's down to 7, both Brits still in as are both former Main Event winners. It's Sam Phillips though who has built up a decent chip lead.
Well, two days in and I'm already late with my posts! That's what work does to you!
Anyway two players now have bracelets courtesy of the first two events.
WSOP 1 - $565 Casino Employee's NLH, Day 2 of 2, 566 entrants I picked out Jordan Hefty solely because of his name yesterday, well perhaps I should have paid more attention to his poker too as he went from $1900 lifetime tourney winnings to about $64K by winning event 1.
He took four hours to dispose of Jodie Sanders heads-up, with Katie Kopp bowing out in third.
Event 2 - $10K Super Turbo Bounty NLH, Day 1 of 1, 243 entrants The first bracelet actually went to the winner of Event 2, and it was a semi-familiar name who won it, with almost $400K to take home as well.
2011 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Elio Fox was the lucky guy, moving into the lead when a double elimination took it from 5-handed to 3-handed. With the super turbo format meaning stacks were never very big on the FT, he had more than half the chips in play and eliminated Paul Volpe in 3rd and Adam Adler (who did briefly have the lead in heads-up play) in 2nd.
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, 3 Day 1 of 3, 363 entrants The players were split on to 50 tables, with the winner of each table making Day 2 and a min-cash of $6302.
Two players from the FT of last year's equivalent event, Taylor Paur & Jan-Eric Schwippert. There will be 10 5-handed tables on Day 2, and Paur has both Phil Hellmuth and Eli Elezra on his so there will be plenty of attention on that table.
Two ME winners, Joe Cada and Joe McKeehen are still alive, along with a former November Niner Kenny Hallaert, and a few British players, Jack Maskill, Adam Owen, Harry Lodge and Chris Moorman. There is a Frank Williams still in too, but it's probably not the Formula 1 team man!
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 1 of 3, 911 entrants Just under a third of the players have made Day 2, but with only 137 getting paid there's still a lot of poker to play before a min-cash can be secured.
Dao Bac is the chip leader, ahead of Nick Guagenti & Pamela McPeak, and sitting nicely inside the Top 10 is former star of "Call My Bluff" on BBC2, Frank Muir. No, strike that, he's been dead 20 years, must be a different Frank Muir.
There's only one Benny Glaser as far as I know, the winner of this event 2 years ago and he's managed to survive Day 1, as has John Racener, Robert Mizrachi, Shaun Deeb and Mike Matusow.
Others shown as British on the chip counts - Xunen Zheng, Philip Long, Ronan Nally and Ben Dobson.
To Start Today Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller Event 6 - $365 The Giant NHL with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Fridays
"Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, Day 3 of 3, 363 entrants We're down to a FT (10-handed) with a 20% chance of a UK winner as both Harry Lodge & Jack Maskill won their second table to qualify for the final"
That's an interesting one - Harry won the Sky Poker UKPC 6 Max a few years back for £60,000, & now has "live" earnings of just over a million USD.
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, Day 3 of 3, 363 entrants The $3K shootout is shot out, and in favour of the 2009 ME winner, Joe Cada. It's his third bracelet overall, and comes with a cheque for $226K.
The two Brits at the FT went out in succession, Harry Lodge bowing out in 5th followed shortly after by Jack Maskill
Another former Main winner Joe McKeehan went out in third when his 4-bet shove with pocket sixes proved to be badly timed, as Cada was sitting behind him with pocket kings.
There was some ups and downs in heads up between Cada and Sam Phillips, but the pivotal hand saw Cada this time with the sixes against a Phillips shove with A4 and the pair held. This left Phillips with left than 2BB and next hand it was all over.
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 3 of 3, 911 entrants We have our first over-run of the series as a ten-hour day couldn't whittle the 36 players down to a winner.
Four players remain with French player Julien Martini the overnight leader ahead of Kate Hoang who has Final tabled PLO/8 events three years running now.
The other two players are William Kopp and Mack Lee, but they enter Day 4 with just 2 big bets each in their stacks.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 105 entries A couple of re-entries and a few latecomers (including one Phil Ivey) pushed the entry total above 3 figures, with just 10 players battling through to Round 3.
Five of the 10 are former bracelet winners, including leader Nick Petrangelo, and second placed Elio Fox who won Event 2 just a few days ago.
Two Brits remain - Stephen Chidwick (3rd) & Aymon Hata (6th) and three other Euros - Fedor Holz, Adrian Mateos and Andreas Eiler making this a very strong group of 10.
They will likely not have a long day today, they are playing down from 10 to 6 then halting for the FT to be on Day 4.
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days - flights A & B today Two flights of the Colussus saw 84 and 55 players progressing to Day 2 on Tuesday.
From Day 1A, former ME winner Jonathan Duhamel is the biggest name to make it through with Luke Brereton and Markus Kuhnen showing as from GB and bottom placed Andrew Hindmarsh showing as being from Blaydon, Estonia where I don't believe they have ever held famous races.
Later on in flight 1B it was an American 1-2-3 (Christopher Haydt/Patrick Roteman/Kevin Eyster) with Barry Shulman and former November Niner Scott Montgomery among the qualifiers with Andrei Moldovan from Hertforshire sitting nicely in 6th spot.
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 1 of 3, 321 entries Chips were flying in all directions when Phil Ivey entered this in the last couple of minutes of late reg. He lost most of his starting stack of 12500 to be down to 100 at one point, then embarked on a series of double-ups and better to get back to 6000 chips before his luck eventually ran out.
Of those playing a more patient game, 95 bagged up chips at the end of the day with George Trigeorgis (does that mean George Three-Georges?) ahead of David Eichhorn (throw in the annual remark about how few names have double-h's in them) and Jesse Hampton
Some well known mixed-game players in contention too - Brian Hastings, Billy Baxter (only Ivey has more non-Hold'em bracelets than the 78 year old Baxter), James Obst, Scott Siever & Tom McCormick.
Brits? Not a lot, headed by Jon Shoreman in 25th, the omnipresent Adam Owen 55th and Gerald Ringe in 85th.
To Start Today Event 9 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event Event 10 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, 3 Day Event Event 11 - $365 PLO, with subsuqent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Sundays plus flights 1C & 1D of the Colossus
A couple of updates from events where the FT is underway
In Event 4, the $1500 PLO/8, as expected, William Kopp and Mack Lee (note to self, that's not the comic Lee Mack) have gone early leaving it heads up between Kate Hoang & Julien Martini. I know it's not the done thing to comment on the way women dress in public anymore, but she's wearing a ball gown of the type more often seen on the red carpet than on the blue baize.
Event 6, the High Roller has had one casualty, Chris Moore who went out in 10th leaving an unofficial Final Table of 9. Some events in this series are being played with a "shot clock" to try and encourage swifter play and less tanking, but the players do have a limited number of extensions available to them for really difficult decisions. Fedor Holz was check-raised all-in by Elon Fox and used all 6 of the extensions he had at his disposal before folding. Stephen Chidwick is still nicely in mid-table but Aymon Hata has lost a few and is now the short stack.
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 4 of 3, 911 entrants The event that wouldn't end, even running past the last level on the original schedule so that extra levels needed to be added to ensure the computers didn't go into meltdown!
It was no surprise that William Kopp and Mack Lee busted quite early on Day 4, Lee getting the ladder after trebling up once and doubling up twice before he went out at the hands of eventual winner Julien Marcini.
Heads up took over three hours before Marcini got the better of Kate Hoang, her very low cut evening dress notwithstanding.
Marcini collected the 18th overall WSOP bracelet for France and nearly $150K while Hoang got her 7th cash and third final table of her career, all in Omaha Hi-Low.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 105 entries Rather a quiet day in the high roller, with just the 4 eliminations taking down from 10 to 6.
Chris Moore went out early to bring the two tables together for the unofficial FT of 9, and then Fedor Holz was outpipped by Elio Fox whose sixes held on against the German's pocket fives.
Eight handed play lasted about an hour, with not much happening until Bryn Kenney found the aces, raised, and was 3-bet all in by Adrian Mateos who had pocket sevens. Kenney of course snap-called, the aces held and Mateos was down to fumes and went out two hands later.
Jason Koon lost half of his stack with a river fold to Kenney, and as his stack dwindled he eventually went to war with middle pair on the turn against the same opponent. Tough luck for him that Kenney had turned top pair and that was that.
Overnight chip leader Nick Petrangelo maintained his lead more or less throughout the day with Kenny's accumulation of most of Koon's chips now putting him second.
We still have two chances for a British bracelet, but Aymon Hata & Stephen Chidwick are the shortest stacks at the table (albeit with 36 & 29 BB respectively)
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 2 of 3, 321 entries A round dozen remain in contention for this event, being held for the third time at the WSOP. One of those 12 knows exactly how it feels to win this very event, Chris Vitch won it on its debut back in 2016 and he takes a chip lead into Day 3.
Not far behind are Damjan Radanov, Day 1 leader George Tregiorgis and Scott Siever.
Three more bracelet winners are among the 9 other players, Frank Kassela, Mike Leah & Bryce Yockey.
All 3 Brits were eliminated before the bubble.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 1 of 3, 161 entries so far I'm sure events 9 & 10 were the other way around on the original schedule I saw!
Anyway, the first of the billed "Championship" events attracted 161 entries so far, with late reg open until the start of play on Day 2.
75 players battled their way through Day 1, with Chris Bjorin leading from another double bracelet winner Jesse Martin & Daniel Ratigan.
As you would expect at the $10K buy-in level, a lot of big names entered, some who are still in and others who've moved on to the next event.
Robert Mizrachi sits inside the Top 10, Nick Schulman, Phil Hellmuth and Dan Shak also have decent stacks.
A quick perusal of the WSOP reports indicate two British players through, Stuart Rutter with just over 100K chips (leader is on nearly 250K) and Paresh Doshi with 66K. For a long part of the day it looked like former title-holder Benny Glaser was going to join them, running his stack up to 220K at one point before a series of unfortunate hands saw his chips all flow towards the hands of other players.
Event 4 winner Julien Mancini used some of his winnings to jump into this and made decent progress to make Day 2, but his heads-up victim Kate Hoang was less lucky, getting busted.
Event 10 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event, 2972 entrants The expansion of the player pool to include New Jersey & Delaware as well as Nevada, and the lowest on-line price point for a WSOP bracelet event saw a number of players, although never threatening the pre-announced 5000 cap.
The player aliases mean nothing to me and I suspect the vast majority of you too, but for the record here are the top 3.
Event 11 - $365 PLO, with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Sundays, 423 entries The first of five starting flights for the PLO Giant saw just 19 players make it through to Day 2 which will be held on July 2.
Polish pro Dzmitry Urbanovich (now that I've typed it once I can cut and past it whenever I need it next) and bracelet winner Leif Force were up amongst the leaders for several hours but at the end of the night it is Pete Arroyos who appears to have the biggest stack.
There isn't a full chip list available on the WSOP site as yet so I can't give much more details, mentions for Brits in dispatches were very few and far between, in fact online updates were very sparse indeed.
To Start Today Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, 3 Day Event
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 4 of 4, 105 entries Day 2 Leader - Nick Pentrangelo, Day 3 Leader - Nick Petrangelo, Bracelet winner - Nick Pentrangelo.
Petrangelo denied Elio Fox his second bracelet within a week and also prevented a first British bracelet of the series.
Petrangelo previously won a $3K shootout bracelet three years ago, but that achievement is dwarfed by his win here, a first prize of $2.9m moving him up to inside the Top 50 of the all-time tournament winnings list.
Fox collects over $1.7m to complete a great first week of the WSOP, and Scottish player Aymon Hata finished a very creditable third for a little under one and a quarter million dollars.
Hata had previously eliminated Stephen Chidwick in Brit-on-Brit action as the first casualty of the day, Chidwick taking $484K.
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days, 13079 entries Right, first an apology, I omitted the "C" & "D" starting flights from yesterday's update.
539 players have made it through across the 6 flights
Flight C - Florian Duta is Romanian but appears to be playing out of Birmingham at the moment so he is showing as "GB" in the WSOP updates. Whichever flag listed beside his name, he had a great Flight C of the Colossus, bagging $523K for the flight lead which turned out to be the second most across all 6 flights. A couple of other Brits through - Robert Cowen & Alex Jennings.
Flight D honours went to Philip Albuquerque with almost double his nearest challenger. Jerome Bradpiece finished in 15th, Oliver Biles 24th so we have two GB qualifiers from this group. A little but lower down (47th of the 61 qualifiers) was one Phil Ivey. Wonder how often he's played live events at this price point in the last decade?
So on to Monday's flights
Flight E - the bigger flights on the last day saw higher numbers qualify (fairly logical that) with Kurt Jewell topping 127 players through. Dean Hutchison, Iain Paterson, Andrew Booth, Alan Tibber and probably Gilad Gutkin are the UK contingent from Flight E.
and on to Flight F, it was Brian Ray who racked up the most chips, but an interesting character lies third, Valentin Vornicu who has had a very successful winter in the WSOP circuit events. You have to look a long way down for Union Jacks, Scott Margereson in 60th, but then there's a little cluster including Louis Salter and Matas Cimbolas. Right near the bottom is Alexander Bowden who is shown as being from Brighton, Iran but I reckon is more likley to be from Brighton, East Sussex. We'll see.
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 3 of 3, 321 entries When you go out in the $100K, what do you do? If you are German Johannes Becker, you jump in to the next available event, the Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.
He is a mixed games player (2nd in the $50K Poker Players Championship last year), so it wasn't too difficult of a decision for him, and he'll be very glad he made the call now as he's $180K better off and the holder of his very first WSOP bracelet.
Scott Siever at one point had twice as many chips as anyone else, but he couldn't live with Becker in the later stages, and will have to settle for 2nd and $111K while Jesse Hampton was third for $71K.
Previous winner Chris Vitch made the FT but bowed out in 4th.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 2 of 3, 169 entries It's a blast from the bast as the overnight chip leader after Day 2 is Eli Elezra (he won the first of his three bracelets over a decade ago)
He has 858K chips overnight, quite a distance ahead of Adam Coats & Steve Chantabouasy who are the only other two players over 600K
Among the other players left in are Paul Volpe, Chris Bjorin, Robert Mizrachi, Jesse Martin, Mike Matusow, Dylan Linde etc. but unfortunately no Brits - Stu Rutter made it through the bubble but bust shortly after for a $14912 payday.
Event 10 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event, 2972 entrants Just an update on yesterday's event to link some names to the aliases reported yesterday. William Reymond took the win from Shawn Stroke and Stephen Buell
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 1 of 3, 406 entries The 400+ players have created a prize pool of nearly $550K, with 61 being paid and the overall winner picking up $129,882.
Ten levels of play across 20 possible poker variants have seen 120 entrants make Day 2, John Hennigan having the biggest bag of chips at the end of the night, with Andrey Zhigalov and Brian Saltus close behind.
Several well-known names survive, Jeff Lisandro, Chris Vitch, Chris Klodnicki, Mike Leah, Victor Ramdin, Allen Kessler, Mike Sexton, Dominik Nitsche & Barry Greenstein amongst them
Brits, yes of course. Four that I can see, Richard Ashby, Benny Glaser, Adam Owen & Jon Shoreman.
To Start Today Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), 3 Day Event Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, 3 Day Event, single re-entry
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, Day 2 of 4, 13079 entries The players from all 6 starting flights came together for the first time and at the end of Day 2 we are down to just 32 players.
Matthew Causa came with a late flourish to top the overnight chip counts ahead of Thai Ha and Paawan Bansal.
Probably the biggest name of the 32 (after the likes of Phil Ivey went out) is John Racener, and probably the longest name is 29th placed Ajay Gnanasambanthan.
We've still got one Brit in contention, Scott Margerson who lies 13th spot at the end of Day 2. He previously made a WSOP FT two years ago, and won a WPT event as recently as April.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 3 of 4, 169 entries Players holding the chip lead on two successive days may well becoming "a thing" this year, as we now have Day 2 leader Eli Elezra not only maintained his lead but extended it.
In search for his 4th bracelet, he has nearly a million more chips than his closest challeger Adam Coats, with two more former bracelet winners (Paul Volpe & Viacheslav Zhukov) also still in play. Dustin Dirksen is the short stack, and having less than 2BB he will need to find a decent hand fairly quickly and hope for a Scoopio or two.
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 2 of 3, 406 entries 120 have become 15 after another wild and varying day on the tables. After winning a huge hand not long before the end of play, Jeremy Harkin is the chip leader ahead of Frankie O'Dell & Brayden Gazlay.
Two players from the mixed triple-draw lowball event FT, Chris Vitch & George Trigiorgis, have the possibility of making two successive mixed games FT, plus Mike Leah, James Woods, Jeff Lisandro and Chris Klodnicki are among the other challengers.
Last Brit standing was Xunen Zheng (24th for $4219) with Richard Ashby the only other to make a cash.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), 3 Day Event The first time the Big Blind Ante format was used for a $1500 tournament, but there was no need to make a song and dance about it as Stephen Song hit all the right notes and bagged nearly 200K chips.
Lurking not far behind is the 2016 ME winner, Qui Nguyen with Dutch Boyd and Vojtech Ruzicka among the others with big stacks along with the top Brit, Iraj Parvizi.
You have to look quite a long way down to find the next UK player, Damien Le Goff, and further still for Joel Ettedgi and Yiannis Liperis
Multiple bracelet winners Jeff Madsen and Chris Ferguson (booooooooooooo) are just two of the other players going first of all for a spot in the 196 who will get paid, and then onwards towards the FT.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, 3 Day Event, single re-entry The very first player out of the day was last year's winner of this very same event, Frank Kassela (at the hands of former ME winner Ryan Reiss), but as this is a single re-entry he ponied up another $1500 (sorry, should have saved that line for tomorrow's HORSE event) and played through the rest of the day to bag 30K in tournament chips.
We've had a number of mentions for players whose name would work equally well the other way around, well we've got another one on top of the Day 1 chip listings as James Alexander bagged just over 80K ahead of Ajay Chabra and Shaun Deeb.
Robert seems to be doing the best of the Mizrachi brothers so far, and he lies 13th (of 54 qualifiers with 39 to be paid) and also in are Maria Ho, the aforementioned Ryan Reiss, Andre Akkari, another player who has won the Main (Greg Raymer)
There's only one Brit among those who had chips at the end of the night, and it's former Sky TV expert Stuart Rutter who looks to be on target to make his second cash of the series. Hope that hasn't jinxed him.
To Start Today Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, 3 Day Event Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, 3 Day Event
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, Day 3 of 4, 13079 entries The Colossus is down to a FT and we have a huge variation in the number of chips held by the players.
Sang Liu is the chip leader with 114 BB, while the short stack, Steven Jones has just 8BB.
Liu has very little live history, only 5 recorded cashes for $7399, but he's now going to earn many times that and of course is still in contention for a cool million dollars for the top prize.
In contrast, the only Brit left, Scott Margereson has quite a record both live and online, and he lies in second place with 87BB
2010 ME runner-up John Racener is also among the final nine, and as the FT will be played out in the Brasilia room, it's apt that there is a Brazilian player (Roberly Felicio) there too.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 4 of 4, 169 entries This one is in the books and the bracelet is on the wrist of Paul Volpe. He won his third bracelet (and $417K) by beating Eli Elezra heads up after running (by his own admission) really well.
Adam Coats finished third with the other bracelet holder on the FT, Viacheslav Zhukov bowed out in 5th.
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 2 of 3, 406 entries Jeremy Harkin has been coming to the WSOP since 2003 looking for a bracelet, and now his quest is over as he took first place in the $1500 Dealers Choice.
It was an all-American FT with Frankie O'Dell 2nd and George Trigeorgis 3rd.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), Day 2 of 3 Just 30 players remain, and it's a familiar name at the top. Dutch Boyd wins bracelets at 4-year intervals (06, 10 & 14) and he's got a great chance of continuing that here.
Stefan Vidojkovic is the only player anywhere near Boyd in chips, with Steven Snyder in third.
Top Brit is Yiannis Liperis inside the top 10, with two others in contention also, Joel Ettedgi and Damien Le Goff who was on the Twitch featured table for several hours last night.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, Day 2 of 3, 260 entries Very little chance of needing extra time for Event 14, as we're down to just 3 players already.
There's a story among one of them though as Shaun Deeb is not only in the final 3 here, he's also still alive in Event 13, shutting between the two events all day long.
Daniel Ospina will be the biggest obstacle to the first leg of Deeb's double as he more than half the chips in play, with not much between Deeb and Tim McDermott.
Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, Day 1 of 3, 731 entries A prize pool of almost a million dollars with a first prize of $202K and 110 to be paid.
217 bagged chips at the end of Day 1, Damjan Radanov has the chip lead, ahead of Italian Walter Treccarichi & another American Manelic Minaya.
Top Brit is Suketu Patel (28th) accompanied on the listings by Jeffrey Duval & Gerard Ringe while lurking in midfield is Phil Hellmuth aiming to extend his WSOP records of cashes, FT and ultimately, perhaps, bracelets.
Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, Day 1 of 3, 114 entrants The last 16 of the Heads-up is set, and the matchups are
Martijn Gerrits v Kane Kalas Julien Martini v Jan-Eric Schwippert Justin Bonomo v Niall Farrell Mark McGovern v Scott Siever Jason McConnon v Galen Hall Gregory Goldberg v Kahle Burns Daniel McAulay v Nicolai Morris Juan Pardo Dominguez v Jason Mo
4 Brits - Farrell and the three Macs mean there's still a reasonable chance of a UK bracelet, and of course French player Julien Martini already has one bracelet to his name this month.
To Start Today Event 17 - $1500 NLH 6-max, 3 Day Event Event 18 - $10K Dealers Choice 6-Max Championship, 3 Day Event
A brief update from me before heading to the airport. I'm away now until late Sunday night (or more likely Monday morning) so if anyone can fill in any details over the weekend I'd be grateful.
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, Day 4 of 4, 13079 entries Dinner break has been reached with 4 players left, and Scott Margereson is still in a good position to challenge for the first British bracelet of the summer.
He has 29m chips, ahead of Day 3 leader Sang Liu's 19m, and JOel Wurtzel & Roberly Felicion who have 8m each.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), Day 3 of 3 Eight left as I write, after yesterday's leader Dutch Boyd's recent elimination.
We've also lost Damien Le Goff (30th, $7670), Joel Ettedgi (20th, $9350) and Yiannis Liperis (17th, $11553) for a collapse of the British contingent, and Shaun Deeb didn't make his second FT of the day coming in 16th.
Current chip leader is Benjamin Moon.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, Day 3 of 3, 260 entries It's a bracelet for Colombia (the first for that country) as Daniel Ospina bettered his second place in this same event 2 years ago to take the first prize of over $87K.
Timothy McDermott was the runner-up and Shaun Deeb bowed up early on the final day.
Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, Day 1 of 3, 731 entries Last break of the day with just under 40 players left. Chip listings may not be totally up to date but Damjan Radanov looks to be among the leaders, with Suketu Patel still up amongst the front runners.
Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, Day 1 of 3, 114 entrants We're down to the semi-finals, and Justin Bonomo has been busy knocking out Brits. Both Niall Farrell and Mark McGovern have been his victims today.
He's not quite wiped us out yet though as Jason McConnon has survived to the other semi-finals. 3 out of the final 4 are Europeans.
Martijn Gerrits (NED) v Justin Bonomo (USA) Juan Pardo Dominguez (ESP) v Jason McConnon (GBR)
Event 17 - $1500 NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 3 Late reg about to close on this one, still too early to make any real details out but I've just seen 2014 ME winner Martin Jacobson listed in updates.
Event 18 - $10K Dealers Choice 6-Max Championship, 3 Day Event Again, late reg still open so a long way to go here but Messrs Rutter, Ashby & Chidwick are among those showing with chips on the updates.
To Start Today Event 19 - $565 PLO, 3 Day Event, unlimited re-entry (2 starting flights) Event 20 - $5K NLH, 4 Day Event
Comments
Anyway two players now have bracelets courtesy of the first two events.
WSOP 1 - $565 Casino Employee's NLH, Day 2 of 2, 566 entrants
I picked out Jordan Hefty solely because of his name yesterday, well perhaps I should have paid more attention to his poker too as he went from $1900 lifetime tourney winnings to about $64K by winning event 1.
He took four hours to dispose of Jodie Sanders heads-up, with Katie Kopp bowing out in third.
Event 2 - $10K Super Turbo Bounty NLH, Day 1 of 1, 243 entrants
The first bracelet actually went to the winner of Event 2, and it was a semi-familiar name who won it, with almost $400K to take home as well.
2011 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Elio Fox was the lucky guy, moving into the lead when a double elimination took it from 5-handed to 3-handed. With the super turbo format meaning stacks were never very big on the FT, he had more than half the chips in play and eliminated Paul Volpe in 3rd and Adam Adler (who did briefly have the lead in heads-up play) in 2nd.
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, 3 Day 1 of 3, 363 entrants
The players were split on to 50 tables, with the winner of each table making Day 2 and a min-cash of $6302.
Two players from the FT of last year's equivalent event, Taylor Paur & Jan-Eric Schwippert. There will be 10 5-handed tables on Day 2, and Paur has both Phil Hellmuth and Eli Elezra on his so there will be plenty of attention on that table.
Two ME winners, Joe Cada and Joe McKeehen are still alive, along with a former November Niner Kenny Hallaert, and a few British players, Jack Maskill, Adam Owen, Harry Lodge and Chris Moorman. There is a Frank Williams still in too, but it's probably not the Formula 1 team man!
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 1 of 3, 911 entrants
Just under a third of the players have made Day 2, but with only 137 getting paid there's still a lot of poker to play before a min-cash can be secured.
Dao Bac is the chip leader, ahead of Nick Guagenti & Pamela McPeak, and sitting nicely inside the Top 10 is former star of "Call My Bluff" on BBC2, Frank Muir. No, strike that, he's been dead 20 years, must be a different Frank Muir.
There's only one Benny Glaser as far as I know, the winner of this event 2 years ago and he's managed to survive Day 1, as has John Racener, Robert Mizrachi, Shaun Deeb and Mike Matusow.
Others shown as British on the chip counts - Xunen Zheng, Philip Long, Ronan Nally and Ben Dobson.
To Start Today
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller
Event 6 - $365 The Giant NHL with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Fridays
Always a great read, thanks Barny.
Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, Day 3 of 3, 363 entrants
We're down to a FT (10-handed) with a 20% chance of a UK winner as both Harry Lodge & Jack Maskill won their second table to qualify for the final.
It's also a 20% chance a former ME winner takes home the bracelet as the two Joes, Cada and McKeehen are also still involved.
One other former bracelet winner, Anthony Reatugui is at the table, with each of them guaranteed $14K, and prizes rising until the winner takes $226 at the end of the tournament.
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 911 entrants
Exactly three dozen remain in the first four-card event of the series, with Brandon Ageloff the chip leader ahead of Matt Woodward and a player very recognisable on these shores, Chris Bjorin.
No Brits unfortunately (Benny Glaser had the deepest run, 63rd for $3526).
Besides Bjorin, three other former bracelet holders ramin - Jason Lester, Mike Wattel & Mike Leah, plus there is also 2016 November Niner, Jerry Wong.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 1 of 4, 97 entries so far
Players can still use their single re-entry so the total entries may creep up towards three figures.
Elio Fox may well be story of the series if he keeps on playing like this. He won Event 2, and has used some his winnings there to good effect as he is the Day 1 chip leader in the High Roller.
Justin Bonomo has been on a heater in Super High Rollers this year and he's got a decent stack to take forward as have a couple of Brits, one of whom has been a regular in these updates in recent years (Stephen Chidwick) and the other of whom I know very little (Aymon Hata). Talal Shakerchi takes forward a considerably smaller stack.
One former ME winner I can see is still active, Ryan Reiss along with the likes of Jason Mercier, Dominik Nitsche, Isaac Haxton, Adrian Matoes, Christian Vogelsang, Bryn Kenney etc. Daniel Negreanu isn't among them, he tried both his bullets but aimed both wide of the target so he's out.
Event 6 - $365 The Giant NHL with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Fridays
1289 players played the first of five opening flights for the $565 Giant (which the WSOP always spells in capitals, I'm not going to follow that convention unless they prove it's an acronym).
Justin Sternberg leads just 80 qualifiers for the later stages, the man from Idaho one of only 2 players above a million chips (Danny Nguyen is second and Elvis Toomas is third with exactly a million).
Matt Affleck is probably the best known of the 80 after bracelet winners Phil Laak, David ODB Baker & Allyn Shulman busted.
194 players were said to have made at least a min-cash but there isn't a full list to see if any UK names cashed, but we do know that Adam Owen was one of the last few to depart before the bubble (wearing a Montreal Impact shirt. What's wrong with a Folkestone Invicta shirt Adam?)
To Start Today
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days - flights A & B today
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), 3 Day Event
"Event 3 - $3K Shootout NL, Day 3 of 3, 363 entrants
We're down to a FT (10-handed) with a 20% chance of a UK winner as both Harry Lodge & Jack Maskill won their second table to qualify for the final"
That's an interesting one - Harry won the Sky Poker UKPC 6 Max a few years back for £60,000, & now has "live" earnings of just over a million USD.
The $3K shootout is shot out, and in favour of the 2009 ME winner, Joe Cada. It's his third bracelet overall, and comes with a cheque for $226K.
The two Brits at the FT went out in succession, Harry Lodge bowing out in 5th followed shortly after by Jack Maskill
Another former Main winner Joe McKeehan went out in third when his 4-bet shove with pocket sixes proved to be badly timed, as Cada was sitting behind him with pocket kings.
There was some ups and downs in heads up between Cada and Sam Phillips, but the pivotal hand saw Cada this time with the sixes against a Phillips shove with A4 and the pair held. This left Phillips with left than 2BB and next hand it was all over.
Event 4 - $1500 Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better, Day 3 of 3, 911 entrants
We have our first over-run of the series as a ten-hour day couldn't whittle the 36 players down to a winner.
Four players remain with French player Julien Martini the overnight leader ahead of Kate Hoang who has Final tabled PLO/8 events three years running now.
The other two players are William Kopp and Mack Lee, but they enter Day 4 with just 2 big bets each in their stacks.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 105 entries
A couple of re-entries and a few latecomers (including one Phil Ivey) pushed the entry total above 3 figures, with just 10 players battling through to Round 3.
Five of the 10 are former bracelet winners, including leader Nick Petrangelo, and second placed Elio Fox who won Event 2 just a few days ago.
Two Brits remain - Stephen Chidwick (3rd) & Aymon Hata (6th) and three other Euros - Fedor Holz, Adrian Mateos and Andreas Eiler making this a very strong group of 10.
They will likely not have a long day today, they are playing down from 10 to 6 then halting for the FT to be on Day 4.
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days - flights A & B today
Two flights of the Colussus saw 84 and 55 players progressing to Day 2 on Tuesday.
From Day 1A, former ME winner Jonathan Duhamel is the biggest name to make it through with Luke Brereton and Markus Kuhnen showing as from GB and bottom placed Andrew Hindmarsh showing as being from Blaydon, Estonia where I don't believe they have ever held famous races.
Later on in flight 1B it was an American 1-2-3 (Christopher Haydt/Patrick Roteman/Kevin Eyster) with Barry Shulman and former November Niner Scott Montgomery among the qualifiers with Andrei Moldovan from Hertforshire sitting nicely in 6th spot.
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 1 of 3, 321 entries
Chips were flying in all directions when Phil Ivey entered this in the last couple of minutes of late reg. He lost most of his starting stack of 12500 to be down to 100 at one point, then embarked on a series of double-ups and better to get back to 6000 chips before his luck eventually ran out.
Of those playing a more patient game, 95 bagged up chips at the end of the day with George Trigeorgis (does that mean George Three-Georges?) ahead of David Eichhorn (throw in the annual remark about how few names have double-h's in them) and Jesse Hampton
Some well known mixed-game players in contention too - Brian Hastings, Billy Baxter (only Ivey has more non-Hold'em bracelets than the 78 year old Baxter), James Obst, Scott Siever & Tom McCormick.
Brits? Not a lot, headed by Jon Shoreman in 25th, the omnipresent Adam Owen 55th and Gerald Ringe in 85th.
To Start Today
Event 9 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event
Event 10 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, 3 Day Event
Event 11 - $365 PLO, with subsuqent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Sundays
plus flights 1C & 1D of the Colossus
Excellent work as always Barny, thank you.
PS - have sent you an e-Mail.
"....headed by Jon Shoreman in 25th...."
Crikey, there's a blast from the past.
Excellent Mixed Games player, plays at The Vic a lot, & a very shrewd guy indeed. Must be worth a mint.
In Event 4, the $1500 PLO/8, as expected, William Kopp and Mack Lee (note to self, that's not the comic Lee Mack) have gone early leaving it heads up between Kate Hoang & Julien Martini. I know it's not the done thing to comment on the way women dress in public anymore, but she's wearing a ball gown of the type more often seen on the red carpet than on the blue baize.
Event 6, the High Roller has had one casualty, Chris Moore who went out in 10th leaving an unofficial Final Table of 9. Some events in this series are being played with a "shot clock" to try and encourage swifter play and less tanking, but the players do have a limited number of extensions available to them for really difficult decisions. Fedor Holz was check-raised all-in by Elon Fox and used all 6 of the extensions he had at his disposal before folding. Stephen Chidwick is still nicely in mid-table but Aymon Hata has lost a few and is now the short stack.
The event that wouldn't end, even running past the last level on the original schedule so that extra levels needed to be added to ensure the computers didn't go into meltdown!
It was no surprise that William Kopp and Mack Lee busted quite early on Day 4, Lee getting the ladder after trebling up once and doubling up twice before he went out at the hands of eventual winner Julien Marcini.
Heads up took over three hours before Marcini got the better of Kate Hoang, her very low cut evening dress notwithstanding.
Marcini collected the 18th overall WSOP bracelet for France and nearly $150K while Hoang got her 7th cash and third final table of her career, all in Omaha Hi-Low.
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 105 entries
Rather a quiet day in the high roller, with just the 4 eliminations taking down from 10 to 6.
Chris Moore went out early to bring the two tables together for the unofficial FT of 9, and then Fedor Holz was outpipped by Elio Fox whose sixes held on against the German's pocket fives.
Eight handed play lasted about an hour, with not much happening until Bryn Kenney found the aces, raised, and was 3-bet all in by Adrian Mateos who had pocket sevens. Kenney of course snap-called, the aces held and Mateos was down to fumes and went out two hands later.
Jason Koon lost half of his stack with a river fold to Kenney, and as his stack dwindled he eventually went to war with middle pair on the turn against the same opponent. Tough luck for him that Kenney had turned top pair and that was that.
Overnight chip leader Nick Petrangelo maintained his lead more or less throughout the day with Kenny's accumulation of most of Koon's chips now putting him second.
We still have two chances for a British bracelet, but Aymon Hata & Stephen Chidwick are the shortest stacks at the table (albeit with 36 & 29 BB respectively)
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 2 of 3, 321 entries
A round dozen remain in contention for this event, being held for the third time at the WSOP. One of those 12 knows exactly how it feels to win this very event, Chris Vitch won it on its debut back in 2016 and he takes a chip lead into Day 3.
Not far behind are Damjan Radanov, Day 1 leader George Tregiorgis and Scott Siever.
Three more bracelet winners are among the 9 other players, Frank Kassela, Mike Leah & Bryce Yockey.
All 3 Brits were eliminated before the bubble.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 1 of 3, 161 entries so far
I'm sure events 9 & 10 were the other way around on the original schedule I saw!
Anyway, the first of the billed "Championship" events attracted 161 entries so far, with late reg open until the start of play on Day 2.
75 players battled their way through Day 1, with Chris Bjorin leading from another double bracelet winner Jesse Martin & Daniel Ratigan.
As you would expect at the $10K buy-in level, a lot of big names entered, some who are still in and others who've moved on to the next event.
Robert Mizrachi sits inside the Top 10, Nick Schulman, Phil Hellmuth and Dan Shak also have decent stacks.
A quick perusal of the WSOP reports indicate two British players through, Stuart Rutter with just over 100K chips (leader is on nearly 250K) and Paresh Doshi with 66K. For a long part of the day it looked like former title-holder Benny Glaser was going to join them, running his stack up to 220K at one point before a series of unfortunate hands saw his chips all flow towards the hands of other players.
Event 4 winner Julien Mancini used some of his winnings to jump into this and made decent progress to make Day 2, but his heads-up victim Kate Hoang was less lucky, getting busted.
Event 10 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event, 2972 entrants
The expansion of the player pool to include New Jersey & Delaware as well as Nevada, and the lowest on-line price point for a WSOP bracelet event saw a number of players, although never threatening the pre-announced 5000 cap.
The player aliases mean nothing to me and I suspect the vast majority of you too, but for the record here are the top 3.
1. "Twooopair" $155K
2. "sHaDySTeem" $94K
3. "SteveSpuell" $69K.
Event 11 - $365 PLO, with subsequent Day 1 Flights on next 4 Sundays, 423 entries
The first of five starting flights for the PLO Giant saw just 19 players make it through to Day 2 which will be held on July 2.
Polish pro Dzmitry Urbanovich (now that I've typed it once I can cut and past it whenever I need it next) and bracelet winner Leif Force were up amongst the leaders for several hours but at the end of the night it is Pete Arroyos who appears to have the biggest stack.
There isn't a full chip list available on the WSOP site as yet so I can't give much more details, mentions for Brits in dispatches were very few and far between, in fact online updates were very sparse indeed.
To Start Today
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, 3 Day Event
Event 5 - $100K NLH High Roller, Day 4 of 4, 105 entries
Day 2 Leader - Nick Pentrangelo, Day 3 Leader - Nick Petrangelo, Bracelet winner - Nick Pentrangelo.
Petrangelo denied Elio Fox his second bracelet within a week and also prevented a first British bracelet of the series.
Petrangelo previously won a $3K shootout bracelet three years ago, but that achievement is dwarfed by his win here, a first prize of $2.9m moving him up to inside the Top 50 of the all-time tournament winnings list.
Fox collects over $1.7m to complete a great first week of the WSOP, and Scottish player Aymon Hata finished a very creditable third for a little under one and a quarter million dollars.
Hata had previously eliminated Stephen Chidwick in Brit-on-Brit action as the first casualty of the day, Chidwick taking $484K.
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, 5 Day Event, including 6 starting flights over 3 days, 13079 entries
Right, first an apology, I omitted the "C" & "D" starting flights from yesterday's update.
539 players have made it through across the 6 flights
Flight C - Florian Duta is Romanian but appears to be playing out of Birmingham at the moment so he is showing as "GB" in the WSOP updates. Whichever flag listed beside his name, he had a great Flight C of the Colossus, bagging $523K for the flight lead which turned out to be the second most across all 6 flights. A couple of other Brits through - Robert Cowen & Alex Jennings.
Flight D honours went to Philip Albuquerque with almost double his nearest challenger. Jerome Bradpiece finished in 15th, Oliver Biles 24th so we have two GB qualifiers from this group. A little but lower down (47th of the 61 qualifiers) was one Phil Ivey. Wonder how often he's played live events at this price point in the last decade?
So on to Monday's flights
Flight E - the bigger flights on the last day saw higher numbers qualify (fairly logical that) with Kurt Jewell topping 127 players through. Dean Hutchison, Iain Paterson, Andrew Booth, Alan Tibber and probably Gilad Gutkin are the UK contingent from Flight E.
and on to Flight F, it was Brian Ray who racked up the most chips, but an interesting character lies third, Valentin Vornicu who has had a very successful winter in the WSOP circuit events. You have to look a long way down for Union Jacks, Scott Margereson in 60th, but then there's a little cluster including Louis Salter and Matas Cimbolas. Right near the bottom is Alexander Bowden who is shown as being from Brighton, Iran but I reckon is more likley to be from Brighton, East Sussex. We'll see.
Event 8 - $2500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), Day 3 of 3, 321 entries
When you go out in the $100K, what do you do? If you are German Johannes Becker, you jump in to the next available event, the Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.
He is a mixed games player (2nd in the $50K Poker Players Championship last year), so it wasn't too difficult of a decision for him, and he'll be very glad he made the call now as he's $180K better off and the holder of his very first WSOP bracelet.
Scott Siever at one point had twice as many chips as anyone else, but he couldn't live with Becker in the later stages, and will have to settle for 2nd and $111K while Jesse Hampton was third for $71K.
Previous winner Chris Vitch made the FT but bowed out in 4th.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 2 of 3, 169 entries
It's a blast from the bast as the overnight chip leader after Day 2 is Eli Elezra (he won the first of his three bracelets over a decade ago)
He has 858K chips overnight, quite a distance ahead of Adam Coats & Steve Chantabouasy who are the only other two players over 600K
Among the other players left in are Paul Volpe, Chris Bjorin, Robert Mizrachi, Jesse Martin, Mike Matusow, Dylan Linde etc. but unfortunately no Brits - Stu Rutter made it through the bubble but bust shortly after for a $14912 payday.
Event 10 - $365 WSOP.com Online NLH, re-entry, 1 Day Event, 2972 entrants
Just an update on yesterday's event to link some names to the aliases reported yesterday. William Reymond took the win from Shawn Stroke and Stephen Buell
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 1 of 3, 406 entries
The 400+ players have created a prize pool of nearly $550K, with 61 being paid and the overall winner picking up $129,882.
Ten levels of play across 20 possible poker variants have seen 120 entrants make Day 2, John Hennigan having the biggest bag of chips at the end of the night, with Andrey Zhigalov and Brian Saltus close behind.
Several well-known names survive, Jeff Lisandro, Chris Vitch, Chris Klodnicki, Mike Leah, Victor Ramdin, Allen Kessler, Mike Sexton, Dominik Nitsche & Barry Greenstein amongst them
Brits, yes of course. Four that I can see, Richard Ashby, Benny Glaser, Adam Owen & Jon Shoreman.
To Start Today
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), 3 Day Event
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, 3 Day Event, single re-entry
The players from all 6 starting flights came together for the first time and at the end of Day 2 we are down to just 32 players.
Matthew Causa came with a late flourish to top the overnight chip counts ahead of Thai Ha and Paawan Bansal.
Probably the biggest name of the 32 (after the likes of Phil Ivey went out) is John Racener, and probably the longest name is 29th placed Ajay Gnanasambanthan.
We've still got one Brit in contention, Scott Margerson who lies 13th spot at the end of Day 2. He previously made a WSOP FT two years ago, and won a WPT event as recently as April.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 3 of 4, 169 entries
Players holding the chip lead on two successive days may well becoming "a thing" this year, as we now have Day 2 leader Eli Elezra not only maintained his lead but extended it.
In search for his 4th bracelet, he has nearly a million more chips than his closest challeger Adam Coats, with two more former bracelet winners (Paul Volpe & Viacheslav Zhukov) also still in play. Dustin Dirksen is the short stack, and having less than 2BB he will need to find a decent hand fairly quickly and hope for a Scoopio or two.
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 2 of 3, 406 entries
120 have become 15 after another wild and varying day on the tables. After winning a huge hand not long before the end of play, Jeremy Harkin is the chip leader ahead of Frankie O'Dell & Brayden Gazlay.
Two players from the mixed triple-draw lowball event FT, Chris Vitch & George Trigiorgis, have the possibility of making two successive mixed games FT, plus Mike Leah, James Woods, Jeff Lisandro and Chris Klodnicki are among the other challengers.
Last Brit standing was Xunen Zheng (24th for $4219) with Richard Ashby the only other to make a cash.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), 3 Day Event
The first time the Big Blind Ante format was used for a $1500 tournament, but there was no need to make a song and dance about it as Stephen Song hit all the right notes and bagged nearly 200K chips.
Lurking not far behind is the 2016 ME winner, Qui Nguyen with Dutch Boyd and Vojtech Ruzicka among the others with big stacks along with the top Brit, Iraj Parvizi.
You have to look quite a long way down to find the next UK player, Damien Le Goff, and further still for Joel Ettedgi and Yiannis Liperis
Multiple bracelet winners Jeff Madsen and Chris Ferguson (booooooooooooo) are just two of the other players going first of all for a spot in the 196 who will get paid, and then onwards towards the FT.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, 3 Day Event, single re-entry
The very first player out of the day was last year's winner of this very same event, Frank Kassela (at the hands of former ME winner Ryan Reiss), but as this is a single re-entry he ponied up another $1500 (sorry, should have saved that line for tomorrow's HORSE event) and played through the rest of the day to bag 30K in tournament chips.
We've had a number of mentions for players whose name would work equally well the other way around, well we've got another one on top of the Day 1 chip listings as James Alexander bagged just over 80K ahead of Ajay Chabra and Shaun Deeb.
Robert seems to be doing the best of the Mizrachi brothers so far, and he lies 13th (of 54 qualifiers with 39 to be paid) and also in are Maria Ho, the aforementioned Ryan Reiss, Andre Akkari, another player who has won the Main (Greg Raymer)
There's only one Brit among those who had chips at the end of the night, and it's former Sky TV expert Stuart Rutter who looks to be on target to make his second cash of the series. Hope that hasn't jinxed him.
To Start Today
Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, 3 Day Event
Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, 3 Day Event
The Colossus is down to a FT and we have a huge variation in the number of chips held by the players.
Sang Liu is the chip leader with 114 BB, while the short stack, Steven Jones has just 8BB.
Liu has very little live history, only 5 recorded cashes for $7399, but he's now going to earn many times that and of course is still in contention for a cool million dollars for the top prize.
In contrast, the only Brit left, Scott Margereson has quite a record both live and online, and he lies in second place with 87BB
2010 ME runner-up John Racener is also among the final nine, and as the FT will be played out in the Brasilia room, it's apt that there is a Brazilian player (Roberly Felicio) there too.
Event 9 - $10K Omaha Hi-Low 8 or better Championship, Day 4 of 4, 169 entries
This one is in the books and the bracelet is on the wrist of Paul Volpe. He won his third bracelet (and $417K) by beating Eli Elezra heads up after running (by his own admission) really well.
Adam Coats finished third with the other bracelet holder on the FT, Viacheslav Zhukov bowed out in 5th.
Event 12 - $1500 Dealers Choice 6 Handed, Day 2 of 3, 406 entries
Jeremy Harkin has been coming to the WSOP since 2003 looking for a bracelet, and now his quest is over as he took first place in the $1500 Dealers Choice.
It was an all-American FT with Frankie O'Dell 2nd and George Trigeorgis 3rd.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), Day 2 of 3
Just 30 players remain, and it's a familiar name at the top. Dutch Boyd wins bracelets at 4-year intervals (06, 10 & 14) and he's got a great chance of continuing that here.
Stefan Vidojkovic is the only player anywhere near Boyd in chips, with Steven Snyder in third.
Top Brit is Yiannis Liperis inside the top 10, with two others in contention also, Joel Ettedgi and Damien Le Goff who was on the Twitch featured table for several hours last night.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, Day 2 of 3, 260 entries
Very little chance of needing extra time for Event 14, as we're down to just 3 players already.
There's a story among one of them though as Shaun Deeb is not only in the final 3 here, he's also still alive in Event 13, shutting between the two events all day long.
Daniel Ospina will be the biggest obstacle to the first leg of Deeb's double as he more than half the chips in play, with not much between Deeb and Tim McDermott.
Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, Day 1 of 3, 731 entries
A prize pool of almost a million dollars with a first prize of $202K and 110 to be paid.
217 bagged chips at the end of Day 1, Damjan Radanov has the chip lead, ahead of Italian Walter Treccarichi & another American Manelic Minaya.
Top Brit is Suketu Patel (28th) accompanied on the listings by Jeffrey Duval & Gerard Ringe while lurking in midfield is Phil Hellmuth aiming to extend his WSOP records of cashes, FT and ultimately, perhaps, bracelets.
Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, Day 1 of 3, 114 entrants
The last 16 of the Heads-up is set, and the matchups are
Martijn Gerrits v Kane Kalas
Julien Martini v Jan-Eric Schwippert
Justin Bonomo v Niall Farrell
Mark McGovern v Scott Siever
Jason McConnon v Galen Hall
Gregory Goldberg v Kahle Burns
Daniel McAulay v Nicolai Morris
Juan Pardo Dominguez v Jason Mo
4 Brits - Farrell and the three Macs mean there's still a reasonable chance of a UK bracelet, and of course French player Julien Martini already has one bracelet to his name this month.
To Start Today
Event 17 - $1500 NLH 6-max, 3 Day Event
Event 18 - $10K Dealers Choice 6-Max Championship, 3 Day Event
Event 7 - $565 Colossus NLH, Day 4 of 4, 13079 entries
Dinner break has been reached with 4 players left, and Scott Margereson is still in a good position to challenge for the first British bracelet of the summer.
He has 29m chips, ahead of Day 3 leader Sang Liu's 19m, and JOel Wurtzel & Roberly Felicion who have 8m each.
Event 13 - $1500 NLH (Big Blind Ante), Day 3 of 3
Eight left as I write, after yesterday's leader Dutch Boyd's recent elimination.
We've also lost Damien Le Goff (30th, $7670), Joel Ettedgi (20th, $9350) and Yiannis Liperis (17th, $11553) for a collapse of the British contingent, and Shaun Deeb didn't make his second FT of the day coming in 16th.
Current chip leader is Benjamin Moon.
Event 14 - $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit, Day 3 of 3, 260 entries
It's a bracelet for Colombia (the first for that country) as Daniel Ospina bettered his second place in this same event 2 years ago to take the first prize of over $87K.
Timothy McDermott was the runner-up and Shaun Deeb bowed up early on the final day.
Event 15 - $1500 HORSE, Day 1 of 3, 731 entries
Last break of the day with just under 40 players left. Chip listings may not be totally up to date but Damjan Radanov looks to be among the leaders, with Suketu Patel still up amongst the front runners.
Event 16 - $10K Heads Up NLH Championship, Day 1 of 3, 114 entrants
We're down to the semi-finals, and Justin Bonomo has been busy knocking out Brits. Both Niall Farrell and Mark McGovern have been his victims today.
He's not quite wiped us out yet though as Jason McConnon has survived to the other semi-finals. 3 out of the final 4 are Europeans.
Martijn Gerrits (NED) v Justin Bonomo (USA)
Juan Pardo Dominguez (ESP) v Jason McConnon (GBR)
Event 17 - $1500 NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 3
Late reg about to close on this one, still too early to make any real details out but I've just seen 2014 ME winner Martin Jacobson listed in updates.
Event 18 - $10K Dealers Choice 6-Max Championship, 3 Day Event
Again, late reg still open so a long way to go here but Messrs Rutter, Ashby & Chidwick are among those showing with chips on the updates.
To Start Today
Event 19 - $565 PLO, 3 Day Event, unlimited re-entry (2 starting flights)
Event 20 - $5K NLH, 4 Day Event