Event 62 - $888 Crazy Eights 8 Max NLH re-entry, Day 3 of 3, $888,888 guarantee first prize, 8598 entries No play in this one on Wednesday, play will resume tonight with 3 players left - Galen Hall has the chip lead, with Niels Herrogodts and Eduards Kudrjavcevs the othe two still in the running.
Event 64 - $10K 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Split 8 or Better Championship, Day 3 of 3, 141 entries so far It took until 3:30am to split the final two, with Dan Matsuzuki finally getting the better of Scott Bohlman.
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, multi-day event with 3 Day 1s This year's Main is the second biggest in history, with 7874 players entering and 5940 making through the three day ones. This means the total prize pool is over $74m and the winner will collect $8.8m
The biggest stack on Day 1C belongs to French player Samuel Touil ahead of Peter Forsstrom from Atlanta, Georgia and Singapore's Bernhard Steiner.
Patrik Antonius had one of the top stacks for most of the day and despite dropping down a few spots did bag over 208K chips (the starting stack was 50K).
Some former ME winners made it through - Phil Hellmuth, Martin Jacobson, Jonathan Duhamel & Joe Cada but Chris Moneymaker (after doing the Shuffle Up & Deal honours) bowed out.
As for Brits, Martin Malone sits inside the top 10, while Chris DaSilva, Daniel McAulay, Robert Cowen, James Akenhead, William Overmire, Phillip Mighall, Dominic Cullen, Peter Linton, Ben Cade, Alan Findlay, Robert Sherwood, Thomas Cazayous, Ben Farrell, Ben Jackson, William Chattaway, Kafeel Jahangir, Alan Hayter and Waikiat Lee all bagged over 100K
The players from Day 1 A & B come back today, those surviving from 1C have a day off and will reconvene tomorrow.
Event 62 - $888 Crazy Eights 8 Max NLH re-entry, Day 3 of 3, $888,888 guarantee first prize, 8598 entries Galen Hall came in to the extra day with a dominating chip lead, and he never relinquished that advantage.
Belgian Neils Herrogodts went out in third for $355K, and then Eduards Kudrjavcevs from Latvia ended up in second for $476K, leaving Hall to celebrate tbe bracelet and $888,888 first prize. No points for guessing which online poker site is a major WSOP partner.
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 2AB, 7874 entrants 2460 players started Day 2 A & B and over half of them were knocked out of the Main Event with only 1131 moving on to Day 3.
More player from California entered this year than any other state, and it was a Californian who bagged the biggest stack - Shawn Daniels from Placerville having 532.5K in chips.
Eric Leibeler is only 1500 chips behind and Samuel Bernabeu from Spain lies hird.
Daniel Merrilees is top Brit in 20th spot, and others in the top half are (deep breath) Richard Gryko, Thomas Hall, Barny Boatman, Chris Fraser, Aeragan Arunan, Charles Clark, Scott Margereson, Arron Fletcher, Oliver Price, Matthew Ashton, Richard Howe, Marc Daubach, Fraser MacIntyre and Thomas Christgen.
Former winners Joe Hachem and Ryan Riess departed today, as were two-time November Niner Antoine Saout, last year's FT hero John Hesp, Erik Seidel, Gaelle Baumann and Jeremy Ausmus.
Four other former ME winners did make it through - Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Greg Merson and Scotty Nguyen and I've also seen the name of George Danzer listed. I believe he recently became a father for the first time and is playing his only event of the series.
The players from Day 2 A & B now have a day off with 2C playing today before everyone gets mixed up together tomorrow.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 1 of 3, 1351 entrants 227 bags were needed to hold stacks of chips at the end of Day 1, with John Pannucci having the most bulging bag for his 235K chips.
24 more will be eliminated before the remaining players secure a min-cash, with the top prize being $323K.
"Fish" is usually a derogatory term for a poker player, but a big fish has a big stack - Akin Tuna is second, and a former November Niner, Kenny Hallaert (who also final tabled a similar event to this last year) is third.
I can only see one British name, Daniel Jones, and he's going to need some help to even make it past the bubble as he has just 7800 chips in 223rd place, with the opening level of day 2 being 500/1000 with a 100 ante.
To Start Today Event 66 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixe $500 bounties), 3 Day event
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 2C, 7874 entrants This was the last day before all the remaining players combine for the first time.
1655 players will move on from Day 2C, led by Ignacio Sanchez (who also easily outchips Day 2AB leader Shawn Daniels. Second place Eric Sfez also outchips Daniels, but third placed Matthew Klapstein doesn't quite.
Top Brits aren't quite Three Lions but two members of Ally's Tartan Army, both Daniel McAulay and Ludovic Geilich hailing from Glasgow.
A looming presence in 12th spot is Phil Ivey. He made the FT in 2009, perhaps This Time (He'll Get It Right) and go all the way.
One former winner, Martin Jacobson was sent Back Home, but we still have 12 former winners (from across the Day 2s) involved, from 1983 winner Tom McEvoy to 2012 winner Greg Merson.
Other Brits who have decent stacks are led by Philip Mighall, Daniel Tang, Vishal Maini, Robert Polanyi, William Chattaway, Samuel Welbourne, Robert Sherwood, Chris Moorman and Paul Otto all inside the top 300 of Day 2C, while with smaller stacks the names of Liv Boeree, Peter Linton, James Akenhead, Sunny Chattha and Stuart Rutter stand out.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 2 of 3, 1351 entrants 26 survive for the first post-Main Event bracelet, with two Americans of Asian origin, Longsheng Tan and Heng Zhang moving to the top of the chip listings.
Stephen Bierman lies third, but perhaps the most interesting player is the guy in 6th spot, Timur Margolin. He won event 43 a couple of weeks ago, and could maintain the streak of years where at least one player has won more than one bracelet.
A wonderful set of names left including Kfir Nahum, Rex Clinkscales and Lanny Levine, and of course there's a Nguyen there, Nathan Nguyen is in 24th spot.
No UK players left, in fact we couldn't even muster a min-cash as Daniel Jones wasn't able to nurse his small stack into the money.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 1 of 3, 833 entries One of the new event on the schedule, 125 players making it through to Day 2, led by Robert Oxenberg, ahead of Georgios Karavokyris and Hai Chu.
We have British interest, Gruffudd PughJones is about as Welsh sounding name as you can get, sure enough he comes from Aberyswyth. Five other UK players through - Christopher Flint, Benny Glaser, Iaron Lightbourne, Florian Duta & David Charalambous.
A few well known names are still in - Dan Sindelar, Perry Friedman, Eric Baldwin, Robert Mizrachi
To Start Today Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 3, 7874 entrants The WSOP have been aiming for the money bubble to burst at the end of Day 3, and they almost managed it with perfection. Hand-for-hand play (2 players from the money) was reached with just 77 seconds left in what was supposed to be the last level of the day, Level 15.
There were two all-in confrontations on the first hand, one with Ryan Messick and Paul Volpe chopped, having aces against aces, while Chi Chan knocke out Sam Taylor to end the level on the real bubble.
They entered level 16, and on one table Ross Mallor got it all in with AK against Ben Cade's queens. With the TV crew waiting, Mallor hit a king on the flop to double up and duly celebrated.
On another table, Matthew Hopkins 3-bet with his 8BB stack with A5, hoping to get it through, but the original raiser Byron McVay had other ideas, his AQ dominating Hopkins' hand. Hopkins got no help on the flop or the turn, and the river ace gave both men one pair with McVay's kicker playing and 1182 players were in the money. Hopkins, as is traditional these days, got a consolation prize of a seat into next year's Main.
In Sun Geoum holds the chip lead ahead of Frank Flowers (who sounds like 80s Mobster to me) and Alexander Wong.
The first well known player is in 10th spot, the only female player ever to reach the Main Event FT - Barbara Enright who finished 5th way back in 1995.
Four more former winners bit the dust - Messrs Hellmuth, Nguyen, Varkonyi and Merson, leaving only Tom McEvoy, Chris Ferguson, Joe Cada & Jonathan Duhamel dreaming of a second title.
Of the British challenge, Daniel Merrilees has he biggest stack with Richard Gryko and Chris Moorman close behind. Chris DaSilva, Ludovic Geilich, Daniel Tang, Thomas Macdonald, Robert Sherwood, Phillip Mighall, William Chattaway, Thomas Hall, Chun Yam, Jack O'Neill, Martin Malone and Ba Dinh are all inside the Top 500. Liv Boeree, James Akenhead and Jake Cody are still in a little further down the listing, but it looks like Stuart Rutter has been eliminated.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 3 of 4, 1351 entrants Longsheng Tan made it 2 days in a row as chip leader, with 6 players battling through Day 3.
It's an all US board, Adam Laskey and Stephen Bierman lying second and third, the latter suffering a one-orbit penalty at one point after a verbal confrontation with Trey Brabham who is also still in contention but holds the shortest stack.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 2 of 3, 833 entries Ten left here, with Matt O'Donnell holding a sizeable chip lead over Anderson Ireland and Hai Chu.
Florian Duta was last Brit standing, bowing out in 24th and collecting $3946 (plus any bounties he may have taken.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1A, 947 entries Less than a quarter of the players from Day 1A have made it through, the 194 survivors led by John Utley, with Spain's Alberto Rodriguez and 2016 November Niner, Kenny Hallaert of Belgium.
Brits through are Harry Lodge, Ian Simpson, Adrien Delmas, Ben Farell and Paul Byrne
Some other big names (presumably after being knocked out of the Main) include Phil Laak and Calvin Anderson, both inside the top ten, Sorel Mizzi, Martin Finger, Dominik Nitsche and David "ODB" Baker.
To Start Today None, but it is Day 1B of the Little One For One Drop.
As expected, post bubble, exits have been coming thick and fast and we're down to just over 900 players left
Brits gone so far 977 Yudhishter Jaswal 985 Philip Ward 1002 Colin Guthrie 1015 Ba Dinh 1038 Charles Clark 1052 Jake Cody 1098 Paul Otto 1100 Daniel McAulay 1126 Thomas Ward 1170 Mitesh Patel 1178 Steffen Kylevik
Others 933 Day 2AB chip leader Shawn Daniels 950 Vladimir Geshkenbein 982 Jamie Kerstetter 983 Yevgeniy Timoshenko 995 Pierre Neuville 1025 Marvin Rettenmaier 1059 Illya Trincher 1088 Ryan Laplante 1111 Max Altergott
Frank Flowers has become the first player with over 2million chips. Farukh Tach from the Netherlands has chipped up considerably while Messrs Merrilees, Moorman and Gryko all appear to have had good starts to Day 4
800-900 exits 814 Patrik Antonius 822 Jack ONeill (one of two Brits in this batch) 834 Barry Greenstein 839 Martin Malone (the other Brit) 874 Jared Bleznick 888 Chip Jett
800-900 exits 814 Patrik Antonius 822 Jack ONeill (one of two Brits in this batch) 834 Barry Greenstein 839 Martin Malone (the other Brit) 874 Jared Bleznick 888 Chip Jett
We've lost another couple of UK players - Ben Cade in 799th for $18340 and Richard Howe in 708th ($19900)
This batch saw the exit of a number of well known female players (Loni Harewood, Jackie Glazier & Melanie Wiesner) plus probably India's best known player Aditya Agarwal, Taylor Paur and Chris Klodnicki.
The 600s range include the only double ME winner, a couple of former November Niners, three Brits and a 5-time bracelet holder. 612 Johnny Chan 616 Jesse Sylvia 631 Amir Lehavot 641 Jonathan Tamayo 642 Allen Cunningham 652 William Chattaway 664 Christopher Wood 671 Chun Yam 685 Eugene Katchalov
At first I thought there was not too many notables in the 500s. Then I looked again. Marc-Etienne McLaughlin (532nd) was a 2013 November Niner, Manig Loeser (539th) is a regular in Super High Rollers, and Todd Brunson, Men Nguyen and Phil Ivey all went out within minutes of each other (541, 544 & 547th).
Three more British casualties. First Samuel Welbourne left the scene in 597th, followed by Robert Sherwood in 591st and a little while later, Fraser MacIntyre busted in 555th, by which time the payout was $23940.
So Day 4 ended with 310 players still in with a chance of winning the $8.8million first prize.
Barry Hutter was hovering around the top of the chip listings for most of the day and he ended it at the very top with nearly 5.6 million chips. Alexander Haro is the only other person with more than 5m and in third is Brian Altman with 4.8m
There is still a decent British contingent led by Daniel Tang of Salford in 19th spot, with former November Niner James Akenhead, Daniel Merrilees and Jonathon Prested all inside the Top 50 with over 2 million chips. Chris DaSilva, Phillip Mighall, Ben Jackson and Thomas Macdonald all have over 1 million while trailing at this point are Ludovic Geilich, Chris Moorman, Richard Gryko (the latter two being near the lead at one point), Rhys Jones, Gavin Cochrane and Ashley Locker while Scott Franklin is listed with just the 1 chip.
As already mentioned, Joe Cada is the only former winner still in, while names such as Benjamin Pollak, James Obst, Shaun Deeb, Cliff Josephy, Chino Rheem, Sylvain Loosli, Ivan Demidov, Antonio Esfandiari, Bruno Politano, Daniel Alaei, Kyle Julius, Chris Bjorin and Barbara Enright may be familiar to some of you.
To bring things completely up to date, eliminations between 311-400 included 2014 November Niner William Tonking, two Brits (Liv Boeree and Andrew Wilson) and the guy who sounds like he will do your handywork, no questions asked, 347th placed Cash Carpenter.
With all the spotlight on the main, the other events are taking a bit of a backseat.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 4 of 4, 1351 entrants Longsheng Tan led Day 2, Day 3 and ended Day 4 as the bracelet winner and $323K richer.
Tan is a real estate agent, originally from Nanking in China but now resident in Vegas. This is his 4th cash of the year, and his first lifetime bracelet.
Second was Lanny Levine and Jayaram Kavoorchathoth third.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 3 of 3, 833 entries Anthony Ireland had never won a bracelet before. He had never cashed at the WSOP before. In fact, he hadn't cash any live event before, so his first Hendon Mob entry is a very impressive one, for $141K.
He beat Matt O'Donnell heads up, with Canadian player Joon Park third.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1B, 2215 entries so far 252 made it through day with the vowel-heavy trio of Jon Sataoen, Robert Lofaso and Ran Ilani taking the top three spots.
I was immediately drawn to 5th placed Kristofer Kneale when I saw he was from Cornwall, but unfortunately it is not the real Cornwall but Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. This leaves the top Brit as Bristol's Peter Akery with Adrian Gray, Jonathon Wong, Chun Yam, Luke Haward, Shola Akindele, Simon Deadman, Andrew Teng, Stavros Kalfas, Xizhe Yuan and Daniel Sodling also making Day 2.
Day 1C today.
Event 69 - $3K PLO 6-handed, Day 1 of 3, 901 entries The 202 qualifiers for Day 2 are headed by South African Jarred Solomon, with German Dominik Nitsche and French player Romain Lewis close behind.
5th place sees the highest placed British player, Max Silver, but only four other Brits appear in the 202, Alex Lindop, Robert Cowen, Thomas Cazayous and Soner Osman.
Plenty of other well known players including Phil Galfond, Chance Kornuth, Daniel Negreanu, Robert Salaburu and Loren Klein.
They're playing 5 and a half levels (i.e. 11 hours) to take the field to somewhere in the region of 81 players.
The opening exchanges of Day 5 haven't been kind to the Brits - we've lost Chris Moorman (273rd), Rhys Jones (263rd) & Ludovic Geilich (259th)
Some other victims in the 251-310 range - Chris Bjorin, Daniel Alaei, and two ex-Final Tablers of different eras Bruno Politano (2014) and Barbara Enright (1995)
As it had to at some point, the rate of eliminations has slowed down.
We're down to 214 players, no drama for the Brits but it's been a bad last hour for Dutch players (3 gone) and Canadians (4 gone). Biggest name from this batch was the 2008 November Niner Chino Rheem.
Overnight we've lost just over 100 more players, and the current field is made up of just 111.
We've lost some Bitish players - Scott Franklin 203rd, Ashley Locker 195th, Gavin Cochrane 193rd, James Akenhead 192nd, Richard Gryko 172nd (all at the $49335 payout level), Philip Mighall 146th, Ben Jackson 138th and Daniel Merrilees 125th (all for $57010)
2016 November Niner Cliff Josephy bust in 123rd, Antonio Esfandiari 132nd, last Irish player Nick Newport 157th.
So what's happening now? Nothing. There's been a problem with the electicity, and to quote wsop.com
"The lights in the Amazon Room here in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino have turned off. They partially came on for a moment, but then everything went dark again.
All hands are currently being completed on each table as the ESPN camera crews bring a spotlight around to tables with action so that it can be completed.
If the lighting doesn't return, the plan is to send the players home for the evening as per a Tournament Director."
So play was called off for the night about 80 minutes early, with 109 players still dreaming.
Michael Dyer may be dreaming a little more vividly than others. Winning a huge hand against Cliff Josephy thanks to an ace on the river, and continued to chip up throughout the rest of the day. He now has over 12m chips, over 3m more than triple bracelet winner Brian Yoon and Jeffery Trudeau.
Chris Da Silva heads the British challenge in 18th place, with Thomas McDonald 35th, Daniel Tang 51st and Jonathon Prested barely hanging on in 106th.
Joe Cada is still there looking for a second ME win, but Ben Pollak is also looking for an impressive repeat - he finished third last year so he's looking to "do a Newhouse".
Shaun Deeb is currently 2nd in the player of the year standings, and the deeper he runs here the more nervous current leader John Hennigan will get (Joe Cada is currently 16th in the standings)
There is only one female player among the 109, Kelly Minkin, and she's going to have to get things going pretty quickly on Day 6 as she is in 103rd of the 109.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1C, 4732 entries After there starting days, and unlimited re-entries, we have just over 1000 players making the combined Day 2.
Domyo Agnelli of Italy holds the lead of a comspolitan top 10, with players from the US, India, Spain, Greece and Taiwan also there. (and Japan, Latvia, France, Singapore and Philippines inside the top 22).
Notice I didn't include the UK there, we have to go down to 50th for our leading player, Matthew Hunt. Others doing well include Paul vas Nunes, Andrew Hills, Michael Fletcher, Robert Heidorn, Raul Manzanares, Florian Duta, Jack O'Neill and Yiannis Liperis.
Event 69 - $3K PLO 6-handed, Day 2 of 3, 901 entries
I mentioned above the top 2 in the Player of the Year race, well in third spot is Scott Bohlman, and he is getting more points in this event as he leads the 24 survivors ahead of Blake Whittington and Romain Lewis.
There is one Irish player among the 24 (Dermot Blain who is the short stack) but no Brits, the last Brit standing was Max Silver who bowed out in 33rd for $11K
Event 70 - $3K Limit Hold'em 6-handed, Day 1 of 3, 221 entries Showing just how unpopular limit hold'em is these days, this attracted less than a quarter of the field of the similar PLO event above.
We do have some British interest to cheer on here though as the chip leader is triple bracelet holder Benny Glaser.
Event 44 winner Nicholas Seiken is one of his nearest challengers as is limit specialist (FT in the $10K version two years ago) Anh Van Nguyen.
Some other names still in include Ben Yu and Barry Greenstein, and two more Englishmen Adam Owen and Ben Dobson.
To Start Today Event 71 - $5K NLH (30 minute levels), 2 Day Event Event 72 - $1500 NLH/PLO mix 8-handed, 3 Day Event
and we've also lost the first of the UK contingent, Jonathon Prested after his Aces were cracked by Volodymyr Drokin's Jacks which turned a straight. I think Prested finished 106th but there may have been other eliminations around the same time that may affect things by a place or two
The next exit was an important one - Shaun Deeb eliminated by Alexander Ziskin. All very standard, all in pre-flop, Deeb 5-bet shoving with Queens, Ziskin calling with Kings and nothing on the board helped Deeb
105 Shaun Deeb 104 Sean Marshall 103 Cory Williams 102 Nicholas Cushman 101 Steven Adams
Exactly 100 left. Kelly Minkin had an early double up to give her some breathing space. Chris Da Silva lost half his stack but has since got some of them back.
Comments
Event 62 - $888 Crazy Eights 8 Max NLH re-entry, Day 3 of 3, $888,888 guarantee first prize, 8598 entries
No play in this one on Wednesday, play will resume tonight with 3 players left - Galen Hall has the chip lead, with Niels Herrogodts and Eduards Kudrjavcevs the othe two still in the running.
Event 64 - $10K 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Split 8 or Better Championship, Day 3 of 3, 141 entries so far
It took until 3:30am to split the final two, with Dan Matsuzuki finally getting the better of Scott Bohlman.
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, multi-day event with 3 Day 1s
This year's Main is the second biggest in history, with 7874 players entering and 5940 making through the three day ones. This means the total prize pool is over $74m and the winner will collect $8.8m
The biggest stack on Day 1C belongs to French player Samuel Touil ahead of Peter Forsstrom from Atlanta, Georgia and Singapore's Bernhard Steiner.
Patrik Antonius had one of the top stacks for most of the day and despite dropping down a few spots did bag over 208K chips (the starting stack was 50K).
Some former ME winners made it through - Phil Hellmuth, Martin Jacobson, Jonathan Duhamel & Joe Cada but Chris Moneymaker (after doing the Shuffle Up & Deal honours) bowed out.
As for Brits, Martin Malone sits inside the top 10, while Chris DaSilva, Daniel McAulay, Robert Cowen, James Akenhead, William Overmire, Phillip Mighall, Dominic Cullen, Peter Linton, Ben Cade, Alan Findlay, Robert Sherwood, Thomas Cazayous, Ben Farrell, Ben Jackson, William Chattaway, Kafeel Jahangir, Alan Hayter and Waikiat Lee all bagged over 100K
The players from Day 1 A & B come back today, those surviving from 1C have a day off and will reconvene tomorrow.
To Start Today
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, 3 Day event
Galen Hall came in to the extra day with a dominating chip lead, and he never relinquished that advantage.
Belgian Neils Herrogodts went out in third for $355K, and then Eduards Kudrjavcevs from Latvia ended up in second for $476K, leaving Hall to celebrate tbe bracelet and $888,888 first prize. No points for guessing which online poker site is a major WSOP partner.
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 2AB, 7874 entrants
2460 players started Day 2 A & B and over half of them were knocked out of the Main Event with only 1131 moving on to Day 3.
More player from California entered this year than any other state, and it was a Californian who bagged the biggest stack - Shawn Daniels from Placerville having 532.5K in chips.
Eric Leibeler is only 1500 chips behind and Samuel Bernabeu from Spain lies hird.
Daniel Merrilees is top Brit in 20th spot, and others in the top half are (deep breath) Richard Gryko, Thomas Hall, Barny Boatman, Chris Fraser, Aeragan Arunan, Charles Clark, Scott Margereson, Arron Fletcher, Oliver Price, Matthew Ashton, Richard Howe, Marc Daubach, Fraser MacIntyre and Thomas Christgen.
Former winners Joe Hachem and Ryan Riess departed today, as were two-time November Niner Antoine Saout, last year's FT hero John Hesp, Erik Seidel, Gaelle Baumann and Jeremy Ausmus.
Four other former ME winners did make it through - Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Greg Merson and Scotty Nguyen and I've also seen the name of George Danzer listed. I believe he recently became a father for the first time and is playing his only event of the series.
The players from Day 2 A & B now have a day off with 2C playing today before everyone gets mixed up together tomorrow.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 1 of 3, 1351 entrants
227 bags were needed to hold stacks of chips at the end of Day 1, with John Pannucci having the most bulging bag for his 235K chips.
24 more will be eliminated before the remaining players secure a min-cash, with the top prize being $323K.
"Fish" is usually a derogatory term for a poker player, but a big fish has a big stack - Akin Tuna is second, and a former November Niner, Kenny Hallaert (who also final tabled a similar event to this last year) is third.
I can only see one British name, Daniel Jones, and he's going to need some help to even make it past the bubble as he has just 7800 chips in 223rd place, with the opening level of day 2 being 500/1000 with a 100 ante.
To Start Today
Event 66 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixe $500 bounties), 3 Day event
Barny,
Sent you an e-Mail a few days ago. No rush to reply, but check it out please.
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 2C, 7874 entrants
This was the last day before all the remaining players combine for the first time.
1655 players will move on from Day 2C, led by Ignacio Sanchez (who also easily outchips Day 2AB leader Shawn Daniels. Second place Eric Sfez also outchips Daniels, but third placed Matthew Klapstein doesn't quite.
Top Brits aren't quite Three Lions but two members of Ally's Tartan Army, both Daniel McAulay and Ludovic Geilich hailing from Glasgow.
A looming presence in 12th spot is Phil Ivey. He made the FT in 2009, perhaps This Time (He'll Get It Right) and go all the way.
One former winner, Martin Jacobson was sent Back Home, but we still have 12 former winners (from across the Day 2s) involved, from 1983 winner Tom McEvoy to 2012 winner Greg Merson.
Other Brits who have decent stacks are led by Philip Mighall, Daniel Tang, Vishal Maini, Robert Polanyi, William Chattaway, Samuel Welbourne, Robert Sherwood, Chris Moorman and Paul Otto all inside the top 300 of Day 2C, while with smaller stacks the names of Liv Boeree, Peter Linton, James Akenhead, Sunny Chattha and Stuart Rutter stand out.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 2 of 3, 1351 entrants
26 survive for the first post-Main Event bracelet, with two Americans of Asian origin, Longsheng Tan and Heng Zhang moving to the top of the chip listings.
Stephen Bierman lies third, but perhaps the most interesting player is the guy in 6th spot, Timur Margolin. He won event 43 a couple of weeks ago, and could maintain the streak of years where at least one player has won more than one bracelet.
A wonderful set of names left including Kfir Nahum, Rex Clinkscales and Lanny Levine, and of course there's a Nguyen there, Nathan Nguyen is in 24th spot.
No UK players left, in fact we couldn't even muster a min-cash as Daniel Jones wasn't able to nurse his small stack into the money.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 1 of 3, 833 entries
One of the new event on the schedule, 125 players making it through to Day 2, led by Robert Oxenberg, ahead of Georgios Karavokyris and Hai Chu.
We have British interest, Gruffudd PughJones is about as Welsh sounding name as you can get, sure enough he comes from Aberyswyth. Five other UK players through - Christopher Flint, Benny Glaser, Iaron Lightbourne, Florian Duta & David Charalambous.
A few well known names are still in - Dan Sindelar, Perry Friedman, Eric Baldwin, Robert Mizrachi
To Start Today
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH
Event 65 - $10K Main Event NLH Championship, Day 3, 7874 entrants
The WSOP have been aiming for the money bubble to burst at the end of Day 3, and they almost managed it with perfection. Hand-for-hand play (2 players from the money) was reached with just 77 seconds left in what was supposed to be the last level of the day, Level 15.
There were two all-in confrontations on the first hand, one with Ryan Messick and Paul Volpe chopped, having aces against aces, while Chi Chan knocke out Sam Taylor to end the level on the real bubble.
They entered level 16, and on one table Ross Mallor got it all in with AK against Ben Cade's queens. With the TV crew waiting, Mallor hit a king on the flop to double up and duly celebrated.
On another table, Matthew Hopkins 3-bet with his 8BB stack with A5, hoping to get it through, but the original raiser Byron McVay had other ideas, his AQ dominating Hopkins' hand. Hopkins got no help on the flop or the turn, and the river ace gave both men one pair with McVay's kicker playing and 1182 players were in the money. Hopkins, as is traditional these days, got a consolation prize of a seat into next year's Main.
In Sun Geoum holds the chip lead ahead of Frank Flowers (who sounds like 80s Mobster to me) and Alexander Wong.
The first well known player is in 10th spot, the only female player ever to reach the Main Event FT - Barbara Enright who finished 5th way back in 1995.
Four more former winners bit the dust - Messrs Hellmuth, Nguyen, Varkonyi and Merson, leaving only Tom McEvoy, Chris Ferguson, Joe Cada & Jonathan Duhamel dreaming of a second title.
Of the British challenge, Daniel Merrilees has he biggest stack with Richard Gryko and Chris Moorman close behind. Chris DaSilva, Ludovic Geilich, Daniel Tang, Thomas Macdonald, Robert Sherwood, Phillip Mighall, William Chattaway, Thomas Hall, Chun Yam, Jack O'Neill, Martin Malone and Ba Dinh are all inside the Top 500. Liv Boeree, James Akenhead and Jake Cody are still in a little further down the listing, but it looks like Stuart Rutter has been eliminated.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 3 of 4, 1351 entrants
Longsheng Tan made it 2 days in a row as chip leader, with 6 players battling through Day 3.
It's an all US board, Adam Laskey and Stephen Bierman lying second and third, the latter suffering a one-orbit penalty at one point after a verbal confrontation with Trey Brabham who is also still in contention but holds the shortest stack.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 2 of 3, 833 entries
Ten left here, with Matt O'Donnell holding a sizeable chip lead over Anderson Ireland and Hai Chu.
Florian Duta was last Brit standing, bowing out in 24th and collecting $3946 (plus any bounties he may have taken.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1A, 947 entries
Less than a quarter of the players from Day 1A have made it through, the 194 survivors led by John Utley, with Spain's Alberto Rodriguez and 2016 November Niner, Kenny Hallaert of Belgium.
Brits through are Harry Lodge, Ian Simpson, Adrien Delmas, Ben Farell and Paul Byrne
Some other big names (presumably after being knocked out of the Main) include Phil Laak and Calvin Anderson, both inside the top ten, Sorel Mizzi, Martin Finger, Dominik Nitsche and David "ODB" Baker.
To Start Today
None, but it is Day 1B of the Little One For One Drop.
As expected, post bubble, exits have been coming thick and fast and we're down to just over 900 players left
Brits gone so far
977 Yudhishter Jaswal
985 Philip Ward
1002 Colin Guthrie
1015 Ba Dinh
1038 Charles Clark
1052 Jake Cody
1098 Paul Otto
1100 Daniel McAulay
1126 Thomas Ward
1170 Mitesh Patel
1178 Steffen Kylevik
Others
933 Day 2AB chip leader Shawn Daniels
950 Vladimir Geshkenbein
982 Jamie Kerstetter
983 Yevgeniy Timoshenko
995 Pierre Neuville
1025 Marvin Rettenmaier
1059 Illya Trincher
1088 Ryan Laplante
1111 Max Altergott
Frank Flowers has become the first player with over 2million chips. Farukh Tach from the Netherlands has chipped up considerably while Messrs Merrilees, Moorman and Gryko all appear to have had good starts to Day 4
800-900 exits
814 Patrik Antonius
822 Jack ONeill (one of two Brits in this batch)
834 Barry Greenstein
839 Martin Malone (the other Brit)
874 Jared Bleznick
888 Chip Jett
Current payout level is $18340.
700-800
We've lost another couple of UK players - Ben Cade in 799th for $18340 and Richard Howe in 708th ($19900)
This batch saw the exit of a number of well known female players (Loni Harewood, Jackie Glazier & Melanie Wiesner) plus probably India's best known player Aditya Agarwal, Taylor Paur and Chris Klodnicki.
600-700
The 600s range include the only double ME winner, a couple of former November Niners, three Brits and a 5-time bracelet holder.
612 Johnny Chan
616 Jesse Sylvia
631 Amir Lehavot
641 Jonathan Tamayo
642 Allen Cunningham
652 William Chattaway
664 Christopher Wood
671 Chun Yam
685 Eugene Katchalov
501-600
At first I thought there was not too many notables in the 500s. Then I looked again. Marc-Etienne McLaughlin (532nd) was a 2013 November Niner, Manig Loeser (539th) is a regular in Super High Rollers, and Todd Brunson, Men Nguyen and Phil Ivey all went out within minutes of each other (541, 544 & 547th).
Three more British casualties. First Samuel Welbourne left the scene in 597th, followed by Robert Sherwood in 591st and a little while later, Fraser MacIntyre busted in 555th, by which time the payout was $23940.
So Day 4 ended with 310 players still in with a chance of winning the $8.8million first prize.
Barry Hutter was hovering around the top of the chip listings for most of the day and he ended it at the very top with nearly 5.6 million chips. Alexander Haro is the only other person with more than 5m and in third is Brian Altman with 4.8m
There is still a decent British contingent led by Daniel Tang of Salford in 19th spot, with former November Niner James Akenhead, Daniel Merrilees and Jonathon Prested all inside the Top 50 with over 2 million chips. Chris DaSilva, Phillip Mighall, Ben Jackson and Thomas Macdonald all have over 1 million while trailing at this point are Ludovic Geilich, Chris Moorman, Richard Gryko (the latter two being near the lead at one point), Rhys Jones, Gavin Cochrane and Ashley Locker while Scott Franklin is listed with just the 1 chip.
As already mentioned, Joe Cada is the only former winner still in, while names such as Benjamin Pollak, James Obst, Shaun Deeb, Cliff Josephy, Chino Rheem, Sylvain Loosli, Ivan Demidov, Antonio Esfandiari, Bruno Politano, Daniel Alaei, Kyle Julius, Chris Bjorin and Barbara Enright may be familiar to some of you.
To bring things completely up to date, eliminations between 311-400 included 2014 November Niner William Tonking, two Brits (Liv Boeree and Andrew Wilson) and the guy who sounds like he will do your handywork, no questions asked, 347th placed Cash Carpenter.
Update on the other events to follow.
With all the spotlight on the main, the other events are taking a bit of a backseat.
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, Day 4 of 4, 1351 entrants
Longsheng Tan led Day 2, Day 3 and ended Day 4 as the bracelet winner and $323K richer.
Tan is a real estate agent, originally from Nanking in China but now resident in Vegas. This is his 4th cash of the year, and his first lifetime bracelet.
Second was Lanny Levine and Jayaram Kavoorchathoth third.
Event 67 - $1500 PLO Bounty (fixed $500 bounties), Day 3 of 3, 833 entries
Anthony Ireland had never won a bracelet before. He had never cashed at the WSOP before. In fact, he hadn't cash any live event before, so his first Hendon Mob entry is a very impressive one, for $141K.
He beat Matt O'Donnell heads up, with Canadian player Joon Park third.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1B, 2215 entries so far
252 made it through day with the vowel-heavy trio of Jon Sataoen, Robert Lofaso and Ran Ilani taking the top three spots.
I was immediately drawn to 5th placed Kristofer Kneale when I saw he was from Cornwall, but unfortunately it is not the real Cornwall but Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. This leaves the top Brit as Bristol's Peter Akery with Adrian Gray, Jonathon Wong, Chun Yam, Luke Haward, Shola Akindele, Simon Deadman, Andrew Teng, Stavros Kalfas, Xizhe Yuan and Daniel Sodling also making Day 2.
Day 1C today.
Event 69 - $3K PLO 6-handed, Day 1 of 3, 901 entries
The 202 qualifiers for Day 2 are headed by South African Jarred Solomon, with German Dominik Nitsche and French player Romain Lewis close behind.
5th place sees the highest placed British player, Max Silver, but only four other Brits appear in the 202, Alex Lindop, Robert Cowen, Thomas Cazayous and Soner Osman.
Plenty of other well known players including Phil Galfond, Chance Kornuth, Daniel Negreanu, Robert Salaburu and Loren Klein.
They're playing 5 and a half levels (i.e. 11 hours) to take the field to somewhere in the region of 81 players.
The opening exchanges of Day 5 haven't been kind to the Brits - we've lost Chris Moorman (273rd), Rhys Jones (263rd) & Ludovic Geilich (259th)
Some other victims in the 251-310 range - Chris Bjorin, Daniel Alaei, and two ex-Final Tablers of different eras Bruno Politano (2014) and Barbara Enright (1995)
The currrent payout level is a little under $43K.
As it had to at some point, the rate of eliminations has slowed down.
We're down to 214 players, no drama for the Brits but it's been a bad last hour for Dutch players (3 gone) and Canadians (4 gone). Biggest name from this batch was the 2008 November Niner Chino Rheem.
Overnight we've lost just over 100 more players, and the current field is made up of just 111.
We've lost some Bitish players - Scott Franklin 203rd, Ashley Locker 195th, Gavin Cochrane 193rd, James Akenhead 192nd, Richard Gryko 172nd (all at the $49335 payout level), Philip Mighall 146th, Ben Jackson 138th and Daniel Merrilees 125th (all for $57010)
2016 November Niner Cliff Josephy bust in 123rd, Antonio Esfandiari 132nd, last Irish player Nick Newport 157th.
So what's happening now? Nothing. There's been a problem with the electicity, and to quote wsop.com
"The lights in the Amazon Room here in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino have turned off. They partially came on for a moment, but then everything went dark again.
All hands are currently being completed on each table as the ESPN camera crews bring a spotlight around to tables with action so that it can be completed.
If the lighting doesn't return, the plan is to send the players home for the evening as per a Tournament Director."
So play was called off for the night about 80 minutes early, with 109 players still dreaming.
Michael Dyer may be dreaming a little more vividly than others. Winning a huge hand against Cliff Josephy thanks to an ace on the river, and continued to chip up throughout the rest of the day. He now has over 12m chips, over 3m more than triple bracelet winner Brian Yoon and Jeffery Trudeau.
Chris Da Silva heads the British challenge in 18th place, with Thomas McDonald 35th, Daniel Tang 51st and Jonathon Prested barely hanging on in 106th.
Joe Cada is still there looking for a second ME win, but Ben Pollak is also looking for an impressive repeat - he finished third last year so he's looking to "do a Newhouse".
Shaun Deeb is currently 2nd in the player of the year standings, and the deeper he runs here the more nervous current leader John Hennigan will get (Joe Cada is currently 16th in the standings)
There is only one female player among the 109, Kelly Minkin, and she's going to have to get things going pretty quickly on Day 6 as she is in 103rd of the 109.
Event 68 - The Little One For One Drop, $1000 + $111 NLH, Day 1C, 4732 entries
After there starting days, and unlimited re-entries, we have just over 1000 players making the combined Day 2.
Domyo Agnelli of Italy holds the lead of a comspolitan top 10, with players from the US, India, Spain, Greece and Taiwan also there. (and Japan, Latvia, France, Singapore and Philippines inside the top 22).
Notice I didn't include the UK there, we have to go down to 50th for our leading player, Matthew Hunt. Others doing well include Paul vas Nunes, Andrew Hills, Michael Fletcher, Robert Heidorn, Raul Manzanares, Florian Duta, Jack O'Neill and Yiannis Liperis.
Event 69 - $3K PLO 6-handed, Day 2 of 3, 901 entries
I mentioned above the top 2 in the Player of the Year race, well in third spot is Scott Bohlman, and he is getting more points in this event as he leads the 24 survivors ahead of Blake Whittington and Romain Lewis.
There is one Irish player among the 24 (Dermot Blain who is the short stack) but no Brits, the last Brit standing was Max Silver who bowed out in 33rd for $11K
Event 70 - $3K Limit Hold'em 6-handed, Day 1 of 3, 221 entries
Showing just how unpopular limit hold'em is these days, this attracted less than a quarter of the field of the similar PLO event above.
We do have some British interest to cheer on here though as the chip leader is triple bracelet holder Benny Glaser.
Event 44 winner Nicholas Seiken is one of his nearest challengers as is limit specialist (FT in the $10K version two years ago) Anh Van Nguyen.
Some other names still in include Ben Yu and Barry Greenstein, and two more Englishmen Adam Owen and Ben Dobson.
To Start Today
Event 71 - $5K NLH (30 minute levels), 2 Day Event
Event 72 - $1500 NLH/PLO mix 8-handed, 3 Day Event
The usual plan on Day 6 is to play down to 27 players but with more in the field than usual at the start of the day, we'll see.
Players finishing from 100th-109th will collect $57K, but then the pay jumps every nine players with the next few payout levels as follows
91st-99th $66K
82nd-90th $77K
73rd-81st $91K
before we get to 6 figure pay slips from 72nd place upwards.
The first elimination of Day 6 was Hector Dominguez-Depaz after pocket queens got busted by Alexander Haro's 8-9 of clubs which rivered a flush.
108 Victor Pedote Dos Santos
107 Jason Maeroff
and we've also lost the first of the UK contingent, Jonathon Prested after his Aces were cracked by Volodymyr Drokin's Jacks which turned a straight. I think Prested finished 106th but there may have been other eliminations around the same time that may affect things by a place or two
Confirming Prested's 106th spot.
The next exit was an important one - Shaun Deeb eliminated by Alexander Ziskin. All very standard, all in pre-flop, Deeb 5-bet shoving with Queens, Ziskin calling with Kings and nothing on the board helped Deeb
105 Shaun Deeb
104 Sean Marshall
103 Cory Williams
102 Nicholas Cushman
101 Steven Adams
Exactly 100 left. Kelly Minkin had an early double up to give her some breathing space. Chris Da Silva lost half his stack but has since got some of them back.