Event 18 - $10K, Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, Day 4 of 4, 183 entrants Frankie O'Dell became the first person in WSOP history to win a third bracelet exclusively in Omaha Hi-Lo as he took the $10K event to add to bracelets way back in 2003 and 2007.
This one earned him more than the other two put together, $443,641. The new grandfather deafeated Owais Ahmed heads-up with another former bracelet winner Robert Mizrachi in 3rd.
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 2 of 5, 8809 entries Its The Cosby Show in the Millionaire Maker as Samuel Cosby is the Day 2 chip leader, the only player over 3 million in chips.
The second placed player is listed as "Did Not Report" with Nathan Russler in third.
Former ME winner Joe McKeehen is the first well known player in 4th spot, while Calvin Anderson is near the top of the listings for the second day running and some other players inside the top 200 of 309 are Kathy Liebert, JC Tran, Bruno Politano and Brock Parker
Brits? Stefan Fanian (42nd), Paul Hizer (98th) and Ben Farrell 118th, with others including Sam Welbourne and Peter Charalambous
Event 20 - $1500 Seven Card Stud, Day 2 of 4, 285 entries They did stop at 6 players and will resume for the FT with almost a two-way at the top between Anthony Zinno and Eli Elezra who between tham have over 80% of the chips in play.
They each have over 50 Big Bets, Valentin Vornicu has 11, while Rep Porter, Phongthep Thiptinnakon and David Singer are on fumes, with only about 5 Big Bets between the three of them so we may some laddering up considerations even at this level.
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 2 of 4, 91 entries In contrast to Event 20, this one will finish with only 3 days play but not today as they have reached a Final Table, but will take a day's break before playing to a finish on Tuesday.
Some well known names among the 7, with Jean-Robert Ballande the chip leader, Prahland Friedman in second and Paul Volpe (who won this corresponding event in 2014) third.
I'm not finished yet, as the most successful player in WPT history Darren Elias 4th, 1993 ME winner Jim Bechtel 5th and 2-7 lowball specialist Vince Musso trailing in 7th.
That leaves Brazilian Pedro Bromfman who the most impressive thing I can say about is that he was the Day 1 chip leader.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 1 of 2, 3253 entries Nearly 90% of the players were eliminated by the end of Day 2 with an Bulgaria/Israel/Portugal top 3 - Ivan Uzunov, Timur Margolin and Jose Carlos Brito the players concerned.
It's rare that the biggest name in a WSOP event isn't actually a poker player, but that's possibly the case here as sitting in 50th spot is former Olympic boxing champion Audley Harrison nowadays listing Westlake Village, California as his home town.
Jennifer Tilly & Maria Ho are perhaps the two best known actual poker players, but this is going to be fast and furious on Day 2 playing down to a winner and my money is on a comparitive unknown taking the bracelet.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 1 of 3, 612 entries A record field of 612 entered, 225 are still with 92 to be paid after the bubble bursts some time on Day 2. The winner will take home $177K
Aleksandr Gofman currently has the chip lead and there's a decent gap back to second placed Mihails Morozovs with the first of the big names, Michael Mizrachi 3rd and "Miami" John Cernuto 4th.
Phil Hellmuth has had a relatively quiet time in the live events so far, but he's made two here alongside both David Bakers, Chris Ferguson (boo), Allen Kessler, Jen Harman, Shaun Deeb etc.
Philip Long took this bracelet for GB last year and he's still involved, as is another former winner Ron Ware, and some more UK players Patrick Leonard, David Tarbet, Toby Lewis and Adam Owen (first mention this year I think)
Event 24 - $600 WSOP.com Online PLO 6 handed, 1 Day Event, 1216 entrants 13 hours of online PLO were necessary to reduce a field of 1216 down to 1, and when all the virtual chips had settled, they were in the possession of Josh Pollock who was collecting his second overall bracelet, his first also coming in PLO but in the live environment back in 2013.
Jason Gooch and Jared Bleznick were second and third while the best known player on the FT was 3-time bracelet winner Phil Galfont who went out in 5th.
To start today Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, 2 Day Event Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, 6 Day Event Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 3 of 5, 8809 entries Just 34 players survive, and they are led by Josh Reichard, a very familiar face on the WSOP circuit, but hasn't shone so much at the WSOP proper. He leapt up the standings on the last level as he busted three players in quick succession.
Andrew Hinrichsen and Cory Albertson are second and third.
As you would expect given the attrition rate, most of the bigger name players departed the scene, but Keith Lehr is having an excellent week and has a playable stack, while Calvin Anderson is now down to less than 10 BB.
Last GB player standing was Klas Lafberg, knocked out in 47th for $25K.
Event 20 - $1500 Seven Card Stud, Day 4 of 4, 285 entries The three short stacks were dispatched pretty quickly, and then Valentin Vornicu followed them, leaving the expected heads-up between the two big stacks of Anthony Zinno and Eli Elezra.
In the end it was Elezra who got the job done for his 4th bracelet, the third in a stud game, and his second in this exact event.
The 58-year old former Israeli army commando took his career WSOP earnings to over $2m with this win which added almost $94K to his balance.
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 3 of 4, 91 entries Easy to write up this one - it was a day off. The 7 players will resume on Tuesday night to play for the title and the bracelet.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 2 of 2, 3253 entries This one didn't finish on time, 11 players will come back for an unscheduled Day 3 with Jorden Fox the top dog (Well at least a Fox is a canid so it's close enough). If only 39th placed finisher Tomer Wolf had also made Day 3!
Fox has 26m chips ahead of Jeffrey Smith's nearly 22m and Scott Vener's 17.6m
Two Europeans (but no Brits) are still involved, Christopher Andler (Sweden) & Simon Legat (France)
Eliminations thick and fast saw the UK contingent disappear at regular intervals throughout the day, Sam Razavi being the last to fall in 25th spot for $14149, but an honourable mention to Audley Harrison who must have exceeded even his most optimistic expectations when lasting until 32nd for $11397. Other GB players who made the top 100 were David Winter, Yiannis Liperis and Simon Williams.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 2 of 3, 612 entries I'm going to start with the player in 4th place overnight as that player is Philip Long. The Londoner won this event last year and is still in with a chance of a very rare repeat performance.
First though he has to get through the rest of the 28 strong Day 3 field, led by Alexander Livingston (had a deep run to 13th in the 2013 ME)
Several other bracelet holders are also through including Chris Vitch who lies 2nd overnight, Chris Klodnicki, Chris Bjorin, Vladimir Shchemelev and winner of Event 14 a few days ago, Muril Souza.
There's also a second string to the GB bow, so to speak as Toby Lewis is also through, albeit with a smallish stack.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 1 of 2, 2577 entries Yes it's a Deepstack but with a very fast structure as the plan remains to go from 2577 to 1 in just two days. We'll see if they manage that, with 215 players having made Day 2.
10 of those 215 are British, with 6 inside the top 100 and 2 in the top 15 - Peter Linton (4th) and Usman Siddique (13th)
The top 3 are Corey Wright, Robert Valden and Ryan Bambrick with three former November Niners (Cliff Josephy, JC Tran and William Tonking) in the field and Layne Flack, Guiseppe Panataleo, Brandon Shack-Harris and Upeshka De Silva a few more names spotted when perusing the chip listings.
The other GB players who bagged and tagged are Jaspreet Panchhi, Chris Moorman, Barny Boatman, Paresh Doshi, Jerome Bradpiece, Mohammed Ladak, Thomas Cazayous and Andrew Teng.
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 1 of 6, 941 entries so far After an event that has a breakneck pace, there's the opposite, a 6-day grind but still almost exactly half of the field bowed out on Day 1 and we have 467 through, but still oodles of late reg to boost that field.
Of the 467 it is Peter Hong who has the Day 1 chip lead, marginally ahead of Christopher Godfrey and Scott Menard. Godfrey is from Fremont, California. I wonder if that is where Vegas' Fremont Street downtown got it's name?
It's too early to concentrate too much on who's still left in, but I'm going to do it anyway as we've got three well known GB players (Sam Grafton, Niall Farrell and Patrick Leonard) through together with 2006 ME winner Jamie Gold, Marvin Rettenmaier, Matt Stout, Adrian Mateos, Taylor Paur, Neil Blumenfield and the very short-stacked Kristin Bicknell.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 460 entries Eli Elezra won't be adding another stud bracelet to his collection, he jumped into this after winning the bracelet earlier in the day but wasn't able to make Day 2.
195 did though, and there is an Alpha Male at the top in the shape of Dave Alfa. Second place belongs to Andrew Kelsall, and in third place is Barbara Enright, still the only female player to make the WSOP ME FT, 24 years on.
Another veteran name can be found in 10th spot, Norman Chad, best known for being the WSOP TV coverage co-commentator, but he is a pretty well regarded Stud player in his own right.
Players from Reading and Manchester lie 7th and 8th, but thats Reading, Pennsylvania and Manchester, New Hampshire and you also have to pass players from American versions of Portland, Birmingham and Mansfield before reaching the first British representative, Paul Sokoloff in 85th. Also through from these shores are Ben Dobson, Adam Owen and Mel Judah along with Andy Bloch, Allen Cunningham, Daniel Negreanu, Steve Zolotow, John Racener etc.
To start today Event 28 - $1000 NLH, 3 Day Event Event 29 - $10K HORSE, 4 Day Event
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 4 of 5, 8809 entries We're well into the FT at the end of Day 4, with just 6 players remaining and I don't think any of them have won a bracleet before.
Japanese player Kazuki Ikeuchi is the chip leader, followed by four Americans (Cory Albertson, Lokesh Garg, Joshua Thibodaux and Josh Gorsush) with Lithuania's Vincas Tamasauskas bringing up the rear. The top 2 have about 55BB each, but the other 4 all have re-shoving stacks so action could start quite soon.
The winner will take $1.345m while everyone left will get at least $266K, with some serious laddering to be done (next pay jump is $94K).
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 4 of 4, 91 entries There's a story here. For 13 years, the record gap between bracelets was the late David "Chip" Reese won the 2006 $50K HORSE event, 24 years after winning a Stud braclet back in 1982.
That 50K HORSE of course now is the "Poker Player's Championship" and the trophy bears Reese's name. In 4th place on that 2006 FT was Jim Bechtel, the 1993 ME winner (2nd was Andy Bloch and 3rd Phil Ivey so you can see the quality of the field).
On Tuesday, Bechtel, now 69, took Reese's record after winning the $10K 2-7 Draw, beating Vince Musso heads-up with Darren Elias departing in third.
Bechtel won a round million for his 1993 ME win, but will get just over a quarter of that for this win.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 3 of 2, 3253 entries The Fox finished the job off, as Jorden Fox saw off all those who where hunting him up and claimed his maiden bracelet. His rail included his father, brother and a cousin, but not his partner, as she is eight months pregnant and had to be satisfied with watching the coup de grace via smartphone.
Jayachandra Gangaiah was the runner-up and Jeffrey Smith finished third.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 3 of 3, 612 entries It wasn't to be a repeat for Philip Long, as despite having a big stack most of the day, suffered a run of bad hands on the FT and went out in 4th spot.
When Chris Klodnicki went out very late on Day 3, we were left with a a heads-up match between Rami Boukai and John Evans and they'll need to come back for an unscheduled 4th day to decide the winner.
Saudi-born Boukai won a bracelet back in 2009, while Evans has the one WSOP cash to his name. Boukai holds a 3:1 advantage, but with relatively few chips in play compared to the blinds/big bets, this one may not last much longer.
Allen Kessler's bid for a first bracelet after over 70 WSOP cashes ended in 5th while Toby Lewis went out in 18th.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 2 of 2, 2577 entries I sort of predicted yesterday that this wouldn't finish within the 2 days and I was right, as 12 players remained alive at the end of the day's play.
No British challengers unfortunately, as Day 1 chip leader Corey Wright became Day 2 chip leader Corey Wright.
Austrian Florian Fuchs is second and in third place is the only former bracelet winner left, "Captain" Tom Franklin. Franklin has two cashes already this Series, but his big day was 20 years ago (so not quite as long ago as Jim Bechtel) when he won a $2500 Limit Omaha event (he also made the FT ME in both 1995 and 2000)
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 2 of 6, 1083 entries The Marathon field has been thinned down to 188 players after two days.
The Day 1 leader is David Coleman. No not that David Coleman, he died in 2013 but a poker player from New Jersey.
There's a meaty European presence in the top end of the leader board, Morten Mortensen from Denmark is second, and players from Greece, Bulgaria and Austria are all inside the top 10.
The British presence is a little more under-stated, Paul Hizer in 54th and Steven Warburton in 106th are the highest ahead of Joel Isla the only other survivor.
Not many "big names" (I don't suppose they want to tie up 6 days) but there are some November Niners there in Joseph Cheong, Cliff Josephy, Burno Politano, Amir Lehavot and Neil Blumenfield while lurking in 157th spot is Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 460 entries The Day 2 chip leader is "The Grinder", Michael Mizrachi aiming to win his 4th WSOP bracelet and break a tie with brother Robert.
A late run, doubling his stack in the final level brought him to the chip lead, where he is followed by Robert Gray and Jason Day.
It's another disappointing tournament for the Brits, but then we didn't have too many in there to start with, as the only cash went to Paul Sokoloff (49th spot for $2475).
Among the 22 players making Day 3 is Event 13 winner Yuhal Bronshtein and a couple of female players, Anna Wroblewski and Patricia Yannuzzzi.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 1 of 3, 2477 entries The German with a very Italian name, Giuseppe Pantaleo is the chip leader after Day 1 of Event 28 with local player Steven McNally and China's Yang Zhang second and third.
Two GB players lie 6th & 7th, Iaron Lightbourne who has featured a number of times in these reports over the years, and Wayne Blodwell who's only recorded WSOP cash was in Event 19 last week. There are a number of other GB players in the field too, Samuel Simister, Daniel Watson, Louis Salter and Ben Dobson amongst them.
Daniel Strelitz who won event 11, winner of event 6 are both trying to win a second bracelet this summer, while Phil Hellmuth is trying to extend his record number too.
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 1 of 4, 161 entries so far The opening exchanges of the big HORSE events saw 161 entries, just 5 below last year's figure and with late reg still open we may well beat last year's total.
The only Colombian bracelet winner, Daniel Ospina, is the big stack after Day 1, with Randy Ohel and Brian Hastings the only 2 others over 200K in chips (starting stack was 60K).
A lot of well known players among the 83 through - Greg Mueller, Mike Sexton, defending champion John Henningan, Daniel Negreanu, Jen Harman, Brian Rast etc. Oh yeah, and Phil Ivey. Just the one Brit in Adam Owen.
To start today Event 30 - $1000 PLO, 3 Day Event Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, 4 Day Event
A lot of stuff to report on there Barny, must take an age, but it's appreciated.
Thanks Tikay. Most days it takes between an hour and a half and two hours. Here's today's ramblings with three tournaments reaching their denouement
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 5 of 5, 8809 entries After five days, the winner of the Millionaire Maker proved to be 42-year-old John Gorsuch who, while has plenty of cashes on Hendon Mob, was actually winning his first recorded event with a $1.3m boost to his bank balance.
For a long while, it looked like the bracelet was going to Japan and Kazuki Ikeuchi - four handed he had 112BB while the other three players had less than 10BB each. But Gorsuch kept at it, got a little lucky in places, played well in others and benefitted by other players errors in others. Ikeuchi finished second in a WSOP event for the second year running, as he was part of the second placed team in the Tag Team event last year.
Third place went to Lokesh Garg.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 4 of 3, 612 entries Coming back for an unscheduled Day 4, it only took half an hour for Rami Boukai to see off John Evans in a hand of Limit Hold'em
Boukal takes $177K and his second bracelet while Evans settles for a career best of nearly $110K.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 3 of 2, 2577 entries The third bracelet of the day went to Andrew Donabedian a regular placed player on the WSOP circuit, but only tends to win one event a year (always in PLO). He saved 2019's win for the big stage and collected $205K for his three days of work.
Todd Dreyer finished second ($127K) and Robert Valden ($92K) was third.
Of the others who I mentioned yesterday, Day 1 & 2 chip leader Corey Wright was 4th and Tom Franklin departed in 7th.
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 3 of 6, 1083 entries Three days down, three days to go with the lead now belonging to Matt Russell ahead of 51 other survivors.
Peter Hong and Johan Guilbert make up the top three, both of whom have recorded cashes dating back to 2010, but are still awaiting the really big one.
Joseph Cheong came close to getting one of the biggest of all the big ones, the 2010 ME but he finished third to Jonathan Duhamel when he won over $4m but he's still involved here but with an unspecified stack.
Previous bracelet winners Preston Lee, Mohsin Chanaria, Daniel Park and Ryan Leng are all still in, with a sole British challenger in Paul Hizer.
The current pay level is just over $8K, but the ladders will start to get substantial fairly soon with the eventual winner bagging $477K.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 3 of 4, 460 entries Six players remain in Event 27, and for the second day running the chip lead is in the formidable hands of Michael Mizrachi.
He only has 23 Big Bets heading into the final day, but that is more than nearest challengers Michael Sopko (20) and Robert Gray (17)
There is a rare Bolivian presence on a FT in the shape of Jose Paz-Guttierez, while the short stack Jan Stein has been playing WSOP events for 19 years without making a FT and he's ridden his luck making this one - he's been all-in and doubled up four times on Day 3.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 2 of 3, 2477 entries Six left in this one also, and we have a big gap between first and second. Stephen Song hit all the right notes and has over 24m chips with second placed Sevak Mikaiel having about a quarter of that.
The only bracelet holder remaining is Ryan Laplante who sits in 4th place, but with not much 2nd and 6th it's really Song against the field at this point.
Phil Hellmuth had a deep run in this, making the last two tables but eventually falling in 16th.
The German with a very Italian name, Giuseppe Pantaleo is the chip leader after Day 1 of Event 28 with local player Steven McNally and China's Yang Zhang second and third.
The biggest British cashes went to Andrew Hills and Nathan Watson (42nd & 43rd respectively for $7356), Louis Salter, Iaron Lightbourne, Samuel Simister, David Marshall, Yudhishter Jaswal and Wayne Blodwell
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 2 of 4, 172 entries so far Brian Hastings has, to put it mildly, a chequered past but is undeniably a very succesful player. He was third on Day 1 and moved in the lead on Day 2, pushing the Day 1 leader Daniel Ospina down into second. Together with Dario Sammartino, they are the only ones with over a million chips at this point.
11 of the 20 remaining players are bracelet winners, including Scott Clements who bagged his 2nd in Event 11 a week ago.
The opening exchanges of the big HORSE events saw 161 entries, just 5 below last year's figure and with late reg still open we may well beat last year's total.
No Brits even managed to cash, and a few of the Day 2 casualties were Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Brian Rast and defending champion John Hennigan.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 1 of 3, 1526 entries A long day of PLO with over 13 hours at the tables has ended with Stefan Ivanov coming through late to claim the chip lead with just 309 players making Day 2.
The Bulgarian leads Luis Zedan and Joseph Sabe in the top 3, with 229 to be paid and the eventual winner taking home $236K.
The two top Brits sit side-by-side overnight, Jerome Bradpiece 1000 chips better off than Peter Linton in 58th & 59th. Chris Moorman, Philip Long, Jan Collado, Dimitri Holdeew, Sam Razavi, Adam Owen, Gasam Alaaldin, Jaspreet Panchhi, Usman Siddique, Joe Beevers, Lloyd Muir, Warren Colman, Paresh Doshi and Mohammad Ladak make up a strong British challenge, both in terms of numbers and quality.
After winning the PLO Deepstack, Andrew Donabedian jumped into this and is still technically in with a shout of a quick fire double, but he'll have to do a double of a different sort pretty sharpish on Day 2 as he has one of the smallest stacks in the entire field.
Some familiar names still in include Anton Morgenstern, JC Tran, Dan Shak, Eoghan O'Dea and Vitali Lunkin.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 4, 754 entries 754 players started but only 140 finished Day 1 with the leader being 2016 November Niner Griff Benger
Syvlain Loosli has made the FT of both the Main in the main Vegas WSOP and the WSOP Europe and he's still in, as is another who had a big run in the main, last years runner up Tony Miles.
Eight different nationalities in the top 8 places, with the British representative the 8th-placed Robert Bickley with Daniel Tang and Thomas Cazayous both inside the top 20 and Raul Martinez, Jonathan Proudfoot and Michael Kane inside the top 50.
To start today Event 32 - Seniors NLH, 4 Day Event Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, 3 Day Event
Prob takes me same time to read as you take to write! Lol! Was rather disappointed you not able to come up with a "Coleman balls" :-). Great reading as per ty
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 5 of 6, 1083 entries Down to two tables (and 16 players) in the Marathon, with Russian Romanev ahead of two Chinese players Yicheng Xu and Dong Sheng Peng.
They play down to 6 today with an average stack on the table of 44BB so plenty of play still left yet.
I think there's two previous bracelet winners still left in Preston Lee and Daniel Park, but they're both among the shorties.
The last British challenger Paul Hizer bit the dust midway through the day and finished 30th for $11K.
Everyone left has earned at least $16K, but survive just one more elimination and that jumps to $21K and the ladders just get better from there.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 4 of 4, 460 entries It's a fifth bracelet (breaking the tie with his brother) for Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, making him the most successful (in terms of bracelets at least) player of the 2010s.
After the Bolivian challenge was removed early, the 5 Americans were left to fight it out, Jan Stein was knocked out quickly after and Elias Hourani followed after the first break.
3-handed play was very swingy but eventually Michael Sopko swung down and out, leaving Mizrachi against Robert Gray. That started more or less even but it didn't take long for Mizrachi to establish an advantage which he drove home for that fifth bracelet and $142K.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 3 of 3, 2477 entries In 2008, Peter Kay in an alter-ego as Geraldine McQueen had a number two hit called "The Winner's Song". His prescience came good 11 years later as in Event 28 was indeed Song. Stephen Song.
Song started the day with a big chip lead, but it took him nearly four hours to beat his five rivals after losing a couple of big pots midway through the day temporarily dropped him to third. He was all-in against Ryan Laplante but managed to hit a flush draw on the river to double up three-handed, and twenty hands later he bust Laplante in 3rd, and after ten more Scot Masters became his final victim.
He's had some success on the WSOP domestic circuit, but this is far and away his biggest win and the $341K he got more than doubles his biggest payday.
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 3 of 4, 172 entries Seven left jockeying for position on the final table of the $10K horse with Dario Sammartino at the head of the field, with three times as many chips as second placed Craig Chait.
The next three on the chip listings all have at least one bracelet, Scott Clements (who remember won his earlier this month), Greg Mueller and Daniel Ospina.
That leaves Mikhail Semin from Russia in 6th and Matthew Gonzales whipping them in with just 1 Big Bet in his stack.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 2 of 3, 1526 entries Just 58 planers remain heading into Day 3 and amazingly 57 of them are looking for their first bracelet. The one that isn't is David Halpern who won a Stud Hi/Lo event ten years ago (but has only two cashes since, including 4th in this year's Event 4)
The chip leader is Gary Bolden ahead of Gregory Donatelli and Anton Morgenstern not far behind.
Two Brits, both familiar names who most people would love to see break their bracelet duck, Sam Razavi in 23rd and Joe Beevers among the short stacks in 54th. Two from Ireland too - Aidan Hynes & Zeik Tuit.
Finally 12th placed player Matthew Maggard is from a town called Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Make your own jokes here.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 3 of 4, 754 entries Exactly 20 players bagged and tagged at the end of Day 3 with a player who seems to specalise in odd-numbered years, Upeshka Da Silva in the chip lead. He has won bracelets in 2015 & 2017 and is looking to add 2019 to that list.
Along with Nicholas Howard and Thomas Cazayous, the top three have pulled away from the field a little but of course its NLH so one big double up from someone else could upset that order fairly quickly.
A couple of bracelet holders remain, Angel Guillen and Kyle Cartwright but the likes of Negreanu, Ferguson & Cada all went out on Day 3.
Cazayous is a French player resident in London and we have another EU national/London resident in for the ride in Raul Martinez while a 100% Brit survives in Jonathan Proudfoot, who already has a cash in the series back in the Shootout Event.
It was a big day for Toronto yesterday with the Raptors claiming the NBA Championship and there are two Torontonians (I think that's the correct word) inside the final 20, both great names that it's safer to cut and paste rather than risk getting them wrong: Veerab Zakarian and Demosthenes Kiriopoulos
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 1 of 4, 5916 entrants A tantalising two short of last year's record field, with 1778 of them making Day 2.
888 poker is one of the event's sponsors, but it may well be co-incidence that 888 players will make the money. Then again, it may not.
Dominick Scarola is the Day 1 chip leader with Adilson Moraes in second and Albert Halfon third. Halfon will have a story to tell his mates back home - Phil Hellmuth entered late and came to Halfon's table, and Halfon promptly busted him and added Hellmuth's chips to his already decent stack.
Mark Kroon is a long-time mate of Hellmuth's and as such was heavily featured in the TV coverage of the 2015 ME, making the Top 50 and lies 6th here after Day 1 while the top Brit is Keith Littlewood in 20th.
Some other well-known names making day 2 include Victor Ramdin, Barry Greenstein, Barbara Enright and Joe Hachem while amongst the UK challenge are Richard Chamberlain, Robert Parkin, Gary Solomons, Alain Bauer and Peter Costa all inside the top 300 with Paul Jackson is lurking a little (well quite a bit really) further down.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 3, 467 entries It's a British chip leader at the end of Day 1 of Event 33. Benny Glaser leads the 139 who are playing for 71 places in the cash and eventually the bracelet and $144K first prize.
Early days of course, but good to see Ben Dobson, Nicholas Marchington also there with the Union Jack beside their names.
Other survivors include defending bracelet holder Hanh Tran, Phil Hellmuth who has lasted longer in this than the Seniors, Daniel Negreanu and Nick Schulman.
To start today Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, 2 starting flights Fri/Sat Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, 4 Day Event
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 5 of 6, 1083 entries The WSOP event that seems like it has been going on longer than the Cricket World Cup has at last reached its final table of 6.
Jared Koppel has the chip lead with 11.7 chips, almost double the stack of Dong Sheng Peng in 2nd (5.8m).
Behind that come Francis Anderson (3.7m), Roman Korenev (3.3m) , Joseph Liberta (2.5m) and Joe Curcio (1.5m)
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 4 of 4, 172 entries It's a third bracelet for Canadian Greg Mueller as he defeated Colombia's Daniel Ospina heads-up for the bracelet and over $425K. Mueller's first two bracelets came just a fortnight apart back in 2009, both in Limit Hold'em.
Dario Sammartino finished third and Event 10 winner Scott Clements was fourth.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 3 of 3, 1526 entries Extra time will be needed here as 5 players are still involved at the end of the scheduled three days play.
There is still a British interest as Sam Razavi is the short stack of the table. Sam lost a hand to Thida Lin when her Aces made a flush while Sam's Aces didn't
The chip leader is Luis Zedan who went on a wrecking run and now has about 50% of the chips in play.
The other two players left are both Ryans, Robinson (USA) and Goindoo (Trinidad & Tobago) who also had a deep run in this same tournament last year when finishing 18th.
The only previous bracelet winner left on Day 3, David Halpert went out in 34th and Joe Beevers was knocked out in 46th for a little over $4K.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 754 entries Can we claim this as a part-British bracelet? 24 year old Gallic pro Thomas Cazayous is resident in London and was shown as being from GB for most of the duration of the event, but is now showing (properly) as French.
It is his first bracelet on his first FT and only his 5th ever cash (for $414K) after being Nicholas Howard heads-up with Upeshka De Silva in third.
Raul Martinez finished 6th and Jonathan Proudfoot 10th ($31595)
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 2 of 4, 5916 entrants Two days down in the Over 50s event and 252 players remaining. It's Howard Mash who has been the most successful over the first two days being the only player to bag over 2 million chips.
Two local players, Anthony Martin and Victor Ramdin have over 1.5m in second and third.
The British challenge has been reduced to 5 - David Stonehouse, Keith Littlewood, Ali Zihni, Peter Costa and Julian Mann.
Edit - Add Antony Ringe to that list, although he's shown as Estonian.
Barry Greenstein and Layne Flack are two of the better known players remaining,
All the players are guaranteed a minimum of $3279 with the winner taking home over $662K.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 2 of 3, 467 entries 2018 winner Hanh Tran has moved to the top of the chip listings after the penultimate day of this, the Austrian one of just 17 survivors.
Jared Bleznick sits second while Frankie O'Dell is third. O'Dell together with 13th placed Daniel Strelitz are both looking for their second bracelet of 2019.
The only British player among the 17 is 3-time bracelet winner and Day 1 chip leader Benny Glaser, lying in the middle of the pack.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1A It's always nice to see a familiar British name near the top of the overnight chip listings, and we have just that in Day 1A of Event 34. Sunny Chatha is the man in question. Preliminary reports actually had him at the top, but when all the stacks (of the 1096 survivors) were compared, he lies second to Juan Esirviez from Argentina but ahead of Imran Mukati in third.
There's some well known names giving this a whirl - Phil Hellmuth being the biggest one but there's also Ari Engel, Ben Yu, Dan Shak & Phil Laak.
From the UK, second Brit is Jack Sinclair while others in the upper to mid echelons include Usman Siddique, Timothy Chung, Gasam Alaaldin, Tsz Ho and Matthew Hunt. Barny Boatman, James Rann, Iaron Lightbourne and Ben Dobson have progressively smaller stacks, the last named precariously short.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 1 of 4, 114 or 115 entrants The WSOP are showing 114 players in one place and 115 in another, either way it's marginally up on last year's 111 with still some late reg to come.
Jeffrey Lisandro has started off the best and holds the Day 1 chip lead with Shaun Deeb only a few chips behind and Phillip **** in third.
Xunen Zheng is the first GB player listed, with Adam Owen, Luke Schwartz and Patrick Leonard all also inside the top 24.
Last year's winner Adam Friedman (remember he beat Stu Rutter heads-up) has made it through Day 1 as have several other bracelet winners including Frank Kassela, Phil Galfont, another Friedman (Prahlad Friedman) and fresh from his 5th bracelet yesterday, Michael Mizrachi.
To start today Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, 3 Day Event
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 6 of 6, 1083 entries A Marathon event deserved a marathon heads-up match and that's just what we got. It took over 200 hands, five hours and 12 double-ups for the short stack before Roman Koronev got the better of Jared Kopel to take his first bracelet and $477K.
By way of contrast the FT took just 90 minutes from the start of play to go from 6 players to 2, Dong Sheng Peng (who missed the first 10 hands of the day by arriving late) finishing in third place.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 4 of 3, 1526 entries Luis Zedan managed to convert the chip lead at the end of Day 3 into the win, the bracelet and $236K without being headed.
He beat Thida Lin heads-up, her performance being the best by a female player so far this year, with the last British hope Sam Razavi bowing out in third.
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 3 of 4, 5916 entrants The plan was to play down to 6 on Day 3, but that wasn't possible as after the scheduled 10 levels no fewer than 19 players remained, and without any likelihood of getting to even a single table anytime soon looking slim (more than half the players had over 40BB), the sensible decision to pack up for the night was taken.
None of the 19 have bracelets to their name and it's anyone's guess who will win their first here.
Day 2 chip leader Howard Mash repeated the feat as Day 3 chip leader ahead of French player Jean-René Fontaine and Farhad Jamasi from Ocoee, Florida. I still have nightmares about Ocoee as a bus I was in broke down there back in the last 80s and left a group of us stranded for hours.
The good news is there is a British player among the 19 in Ali Zihni. Looking at his Hendon Mob profile he has been playing for a decade or so with his best result winning the "Mini Main" at the GUKPT Grand Final last November for £18K. Converting that into dollars gives about $23.5K, so he needs to survive just one more elimination to record a career best score.
The small stack of the 19 belongs to Peter Mullin whose stickability has been remarkable. He had less than 1BB on the final hand of the night and managed to hit trip twos (I hate calling them "deuces") and apparently increased the number of all-ins he has survived over the three days to "the mid twenties"! A barnacle to beat all other barnacles!
The eventual winner will take home nearly two thirds of a million dollars.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 3 of 3, 467 entries The WSOP have deleted all updates to Day 3 so I can't give you much other than the basic facts here.
The title and the bracelet went to 35 year old Robert Campbell, born in Australia but now resident in Ararat, Turkey. It's his first bracelet on his 7th FT.
David Bach was second, Jared Bleznick 3rd and defending champion Hanh Tran 7th.
Benny Glaser was the last British challenger, falling in 10th spot for a little over $10K.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1B, 6214 entries across the two flights. 1229 players made it through from Day 1B to join the 1111 from Day 1A, with Sean Getzwiller having the biggest stack from 1B.
It's another pleasingly international leader board, with Yasheel Doddanavar (India) 2nd, Andres Jeckeln (Argentina) 3rd and players from Lativa, Taiwan, Switzerland and Hong Kong all in the top 10.
We can't manage a Brit in the top 10, but 14th isn't too shabby, the position being occupied by Guilio Mascolo who cashed in Event 28 a couple of days ago.
Someone who did better than just cash a couple of days ago was Thomas Cazayous, and he invested a little of his winnings here and has managed to take a stack through to day 2 along with 3 former ME champions Jamie Gold, Scotty Nguyen and Chris Ferguson.
A few of the large number of Brits through - Lynne Beaumont, Craig McCorkell, Aaron Woodcock, Kenneth Broad, Paul Sokoloff, Katie Swift, Sam Razavi, Scott Margereson, Luke Schwartz, Paul Jackson and Simon Deadman
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 2 of 4, 122 entrants A few late entrants added to the prize pool, making the first prize worth over $312K, a little up on the figure Adam Friedman took for last year's win.
A back-to-back win is still a possibility, as he's not only among the 11 players who made Day 3, he's the chip leader.
What there isn't is any British players, although we did get three into the 19 who cashed, they all departed post-bubble. First was Luke Schwartz (18th), quickly followed by Xunen Zhang (17th) and a little while later Adam Owen (14th) joined then on the sidelines. All collected $14818.
Plenty of formidable opponents, as you would expect in a $10K mixed-games event including Shaun Deeb, Matt Glantz and Jeffrey Lisandro.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries The 313 were split between 40 tables, all of which played down to a winner who will progress to Day 2.
Ryan Leng was the first player through after beating Phil Ivey heads-up, and he was joined by a number of other bracelet holders such as Justin Bonomo, Taylor Paur, James Obst and Kristin Bicknell.
Two Brits were successful, Harry Lodge and Ben Farrell. They've guarenteed doubling their $3K stake but to ladder up it will take winning their table as the next second, third and fourth on the day 2 tables all pay the same. The eventual winner will be over $200K richer.
The last 40 will play short-handed poker on Day 2, 10 tables of 4 to come up with a FT of 10.
To start today Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, 3 Day Event, $750K guaranteed Event 38 - $600 WSOP.com Online NLH Knockout Bounty, 1 Day Event
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 4 of 4, 5916 entrants The top two players after Day 3 ended as the top two players after Day 4, as Howard Mash defeated Jean-René Fontaine heads-up to win his first bracelet and $662K.
Playing his first Seniors event (he's not long turned 50), Mash did lose the chip lead he's held since Day 2 briefly on the final day (Jim McNurlan had the lead at the start of the FT), but soon reasserted his position and although the stacks were pretty even for much of the heads-up match, 80 or so hands later Mash had done the job.
Frenchman Fontaine took $409K and McNurlan $303K for third.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 3 of 5, 6214 entries The players from Day 1A merged with those from Day 1B and at the end of Level 21, there were 359 players remaining with Arianna Son having moved into the chip lead. Her 2.3m is about 15% more than her nearest challenger Radoslav Stoyanov with Ignacio Molina a few chips further back.
Jack Sinclair, the 2018 WSOP Europe Main Event winner is one of a number of previous bracelet holders still active is the top Brit with James Millman, Guilio Mascolo, Neil McFayden, Angelo Milioto, Simon Deadman, Philip Ford, Andrew Hawksby and Nikolay Ponomarev the other Brits through to Day 3.
Not too many other recognisable names left in - Faraz Jaka and Marcel Vonk maybe the two best known so I'm reduced to looking for funny names or funny hometowns and I can't see many. Whoops yes I can. Many, Louisiana is the hometown of 169th placed Clay Henry.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 3 of 4, 122 entrants A quietish day, playing down from 11 to 5 with the most noise about the end of play.
Philip **** was knocked out in 7th and in the next hand Nick Schulman went out too, leaving 5. There was a break soon after, and then discussions ensued about whether to play on or end, as scheduled, when they were down to 6 (or in this case a couple of hands later due to the imminent break). The decision was made to stop unless the 5 players were unanimous to carry on, and they weren't so the chip bags came out leaving Shaun Deeb and Matt Glantz to protest
Anyway, what have the following got in common - Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan & Phil Hellmuth? Not just they're all ME winners, but they've won the same tournament two years running. Adam Friedman is still in the running to add his name to that illustrious list as he was second in chips overnight, behind only Deeb.
Glantz is third, Michael McKenna fourth and David Moskowitz is the short stack in an all-American final five.
With Deeb at least wanting to play the $10K Stud Championship on Monday, the dynamic will be interesting as the others might want to slow him up.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries The winners of the 10 Day 2 tables are all set and will meet to play it out for a bracelet and over $200K, and we have a British challenger who will sit in Seat 1 on the FT in the shape of Ben Farrell.
Andrew Lichtenberger has already finished second to one British Ben this series when losing heads-up to Ben Heath in Event 5, perhaps lightning will strike twice.
He's one of three bracelet winners still left, alongside Alexandru Papazian of Romania and Justin Bonomo (3 bracelets)
Everyone at the FT is guaranteed a minimum of $12937.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 1 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries An unusual price point saw a massive entry, with 671 through to Day 2.
With 422 to cash, the plan is to play all the way down to a FT of 6 but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of players left at the end of the day is nearer 20.
The two big named Phils are the main attraction - both Ivey and Hellmuth have enough chips to be going on with, but will have to watch out as blinds are rising every 40 minutes.
Some others in include Elio Fox, Kelly Minkin, Manig Loeser, Ismael Bojang, Kenny Hallaert & Jeremy Ausmus, while the top three are Jose Brito, Danny Ghobrial and Ben Gilbert.
For the UK, we have Miranda at 29th. Miranda who? I have no idea. It might even be a surname, but it's just listed as Miranda.
Joshua Boulton is 44th, Leo Worthington-Leese 49th and Dragos Trofimov 55th. Chris Moorman and our very own Adam Bromley are also still in the tournament. Moorman and Ivey will be sat in adjacent seats for the start of Day 2
Event 38 - $600 WSOP.com Online NLH Knockout Bounty, 1 Day Event, 1224 entries I mentioned a few days ago that Upeshka De Silva wins bracelets in odd-numbered years. Well he's added 2019 to 2015 & 2017 by winning the online bounty Event 38.
He won just over $98K from the main prize pool, plus $1800 for 18 bounties at $100 a pop, taking his earnings fractionally over the $100K mark for 11 hours work.
David Nodes was the defeated heads-up player with David Fhima continuing a good week or so for France by taking third.
To start today Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, 3 Day Event Event 40 - $1500 PLO, 3 Day Event Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, 4 Day Event
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 4 of 5, 6214 entries 40 players remain in the quest for the $678K first prize and the bracelet, already having ensured a payout of at least $15K.
There's only one previous bracelet winner among the 40, and he is Jack Sinclair, half of a two-pronged British challenge (the other prong being Andrew Hawksby) Neither hold one of the larger stacks in the room, but with 13 & 23BB respectively they've still got some play left in them.
The chip leader is one of an ever increasing number of Chinese players at the WSOP - Zinan Xu, with a reasonable lead over Ida Ashkenazi and Matthew Wantman.
There is also an Irish rep in the last 40 - Patrick Clarke.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 3 of 4, 122 entrants A historic day for Adam Friedman as he joined the list of notable players I typed up yesterday, winning the same WSOP event in back-to-back years.
Michael McKenna was eliminated in 5th place playing pot-limit 2-7 Triple Draw, followed by David Moskowitz in his game of choice, PLO.
While Matt Glantz sat still as the short stack, Friedman was able to attack Shaun Deeb in NLH and managed to take the lead before Glantz was busted, also in 2-7 Triple Draw.
During heads-up, Deeb snatched the lead a couple of times but never for very long, and while Friedman swapped his choice of games up, Deeb went back to what he knows best, NLH for the last few hands which ironically cost him the tournament.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries The event that plays like three single table Sit & Gos is done and dusted and the bracelet is on the wrist of first-time winner David Lambard.
The 44-year old, whose father was a poker pro, beat the 9 other survivors including 3 previous braclet holders to win the title and over $200K.
He beat French player Johan Guilbert heads-up, a major hand coming when Lambard ran a bluff with 5-3 with another of those Chinese players, Weiyi Zhang 3rd.
The British challenger on the FT, Ben Farrell, ended up in 6th for $37K.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 1 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries As I thought, the likelihood of playing down to just 6 on Day 2 was low, but even I under-estimated the number of players who would be left.
In fact it was 26 who made Day 3 headed by Hamid Feiz, ahead of one of the two previous bracelet winners in the field, Nick Jivkov from Bulgaria and the only British player left, Joshua Boulton.
The other bracelet holder left? Kevin Song. I don't he's related to Stephen Song who won an event a week or so ago!
Still no update on who the mysterious "Miranda" was, but she (I presume it's a she) just missed the top 100, finishing 102nd for $2018.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 1 of 3, 2650 entries You've got to be 60 years of age to play the Super Seniors, and there are plenty of eligible players in the card rooms of Vegas this time of year - the 2650 is a record for this event.
The day 1 chip leader is Charles Bailey from Alaska, with 836 others accompanying him through to Day 2 ahead of Ken Gurley and Dennis Owen.
No sign of tikay, perhaps he isn't old enough, but we do have some GB players through led by Tony Bedford, Linda Iwaniak, Michael Davis, Murray Henderson and Mark McCluskey.
Some well known names left in - TJ Cloutier, Barry Greenstein and the two Toms, Franklin & McEvoy.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 1 of 3, 1216 entries Exactly 200 remain after Day 1 of Event 40, with an Israeli at the top in the shape of Shahar Levi, with Sajal Gupta and one of the players of the series so far, Keith Lehr in third.
It looks like there is a Brit inside the top 5, but Dimitri Holdeew is an Austrian shown as being resident in Brighton. That means we have to look down to 50th spot for Adam Monaghan, and further down we see Gary Solomons, Barny Boatman and Jan Collado
Matt Glantz jumped into this after finishing 3rd in the Dealers Choice and that looks a good decision so far with him lying 8th overnight, while also in are Erik Seidel, meerkat Alexandr Orlov and Kenny Hallaert, and Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey player Phil Kessel.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, 4 Day Event Early stages in a star-studded (sorry) field with less than 80 players entered on Day 1 with some late reg still available.
Almost half survive, 36 to be exact led by Scott Siever, with two of 2019's bracelet winners Scott Clements and Greg Mueller close behind and another, Michael Mizrachi in 5th.
No prizes for guessing the only Brit to make Day 2, Benny Glaser very rarely gets knocked out early in these $10K events, but he's on fumes after Day 1, with only about 10% of the stack of the leader.
To start today Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, 2 Day Event, $500K Guaranteed prize pool Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, 3 Day Event
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 4 of 5, 6214 entries We're down to a Final Table of 6, and the chip leader is a familiar name, although he hasn't bagged himself a bracelet yet. Joseph Cheong has over $13m in live cashes, headlined by the over $4m he got for finishing 3rd to Jonathan Duhamel in the 2010 ME (the year Redmond got to 21st). He is aiming to add over $687K to that total but is of course mainly in pursuit of that elusive first bracelet.
Cheong has 100.3m chips and as they'll come back to blinds of 500K/1m, it's easy to work out he has 100BB, a long way clear of nearest rival David Ivers (60BB) and Zinan Xu is third with 54BB
There is still a female challenger - Arianna Son who has been up among the chip leaders most of the tournament has now dropped to the back, with just 5BB but like everyone else left in, she has earned at least $134K.
The last two British challengers both fell on Day 4 - Jack Sinclair went out in 27th for $27K, ten places earlier than Andrew Hawskby whose payout slip bore the amount $29666.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 3 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries A long day of poker saw them play all the way from 26 to just 1, and that 1 was Robert Mitchell who took nearly $300K and a gold bracelet and will return home to Utah a WSOP Champion.
Holding pockets aces and have the opponent go all-in on you pre-flop when heads-up for a bracelet must be a very surreal experience, and then to see the board run out dry must make it even more so. Marco Bognanni got no help for his pocket threes and Mitchell was the champion.
France's Axel Halley finished third with players from Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine 4th 5th & 6th.
The only Briton through to the final day was Joshua Boulton who ended up 10th with a very nice cash of $19601 more than doubling his entire career recorded cashes, most of which have come in Torquay.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 2 of 3, 2650 entries Day 2 of the Super Seniors reduced the field to 120 which I expect to mean that an extra days play will be needed
Jay Hong is the chip leader, but the player in second is bound to extract some interest - double bracelet winner (including a WSOP Europe Main Event) Barry Shulman. And he's not the only Shulman in the 120, his wife, Allyn is also through.
Humberto Brenes and Tom Franklin are a couple more former bracelet winners qualifying (does Brenes still have that annoying toy shark shtick?) along with three from these shores - in descending stack order Michael Davis, Peter Costa (2 cashes already this WSOP) and Edwin Bibes.
We lost plenty of British players over the day, those who cashed included Tony Bedford (almost immediately after the bursting of the bubble), Linda Iwaniak (who finalled this event last year) and Mark McCluskey.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 2 of 3, 1216 entries Twenty one players remain in the chase for Event 40, all now sure of at least $8807 but with $298K up top there's going to be some ups and downs yet.
Barny Boatman suffered one of the downs, getting knocked out on the bubble by Mike "The Mouth" Matusow
It is Denis Bagsadarov who tucked away the biggest stack of Day 2 ahead of Glen Cressman and Johannes Toebbe, with double bracelet holder Ben Zamani in 4th. Even lying 4th, he's not the highest player from Boca Raton, Florida as Crossman is also from that hometown.
It looks like we have one British challenger still involved, Adam Monaghan, but the only player of that name in the Hendon Mob Database is an Aussie.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, Day 2 of 4, 88 entries A few late registrants took the field to 88 and just seven of them are left.
Daniel Negreanu spent the day almost relentlessly chipping up, first taking out a number of smaller stacks and finally busting Michael Mizrachi to establish a chip lead.
In contrast to some of the other events, this one will probably end up finishing a day early as they're already down to the FT which will free up the players for the next $10K event, the 2-7 Triple Draw.
Six of the seven left already have bracelets to their credit, Negreanu, David "ODB" Baker, Frank Kassela, John Hennigan, Chris Tryba & David Singer. The odd one out is Russia's Mikhail Semin
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 1 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries The field for this has already been depleted from 2403 to just 195, and while it should finish inside the planned two days, the expected early finish of Event 41 has meant that arrangements have been made for a Day 3 here if necessary.
Adam Lamphere is the Day 2 chip leader from Caleb Hershey and Dustin Goldklang a respectable distance back in second and third.
Scanning down the list of qualifiers I can see some who had Final Table runs in the main - Ylon Schwartz, Jesse Sylvia, Eoghan O'Dea and Tony Miles, and one who had the dream to Main Event glory, Jamie Gold, who won $12m for that win back in 2006, and has yet to reach $13m in career earnings.
A decent British challenge with Robert Cowen, James Dempsey, Barny Boatman, Sam Razavi aand Jeff Kimber amongst them.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 1 of 3, 218 entries This one is rocking along at a furious pace, only 52 players still chasing 33 spots in the money and a first prize of $127K.
Jonathan Depa moved into the lead late on, overtaking Jared Bleznick who had been among the bigger stacks all day.
Phil Hellmuth by contrast was down almost to a chip and a chair before getting two late double ups to least give him something to work with on Day 2, even if he is still among the smaller stacks.
Somewhere in between we can find David Baker, not "ODB" who is on the FT of Event 41, but "Bakes", Brandon Shack-Harris, Mike Sexton, Chris Ferguson, David Benyamine, Eli Elezra and German footballer and regular WSOP participant Max Kruse.
The only British name I can find is Usman Siddique.
To start today, marking the halfway point of the 89 bracelet events Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, 3 Day Event Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, 4 Day Event
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 5 of 5, 6214 entries Joseph Cheong had two runner-up finishes, a third (in the Main Event) and a fourth, and has now added a WSOP bracelet to his poker CV.
He managed to use his big stack to his advantage and by the time heads-up play with David Ivers started, he had a 3:1 advantage and although Ivers came back at one point, Cheong was never to be headed and won the bracelet and over $687K
The day started 6-handed, but within 8 hands they were down to 3 as first Ido Ashkenazi bust, quickly followed by Arianna Son and then in the very next hand we said "Arrividerci" to Andrea Bunonocore.
Zinan Xu was the short stack throughout three-handed play and never managed to improve on that.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 3 of 3, 2650 entries Extra time required here as there are still 10 players involved. Michael Blake has been like a wrecking ball on Day 3, eliminating player after player and earning himself the chip lead.
He'll be sat next to two-time bracelet winner Barry Shulman as they reconvene for Day 4, on two five-handed tables rather than combining for an unofficial FT of 10.
Second place belongs to Kanajett Hathaitham and third to Rick Austin in an all-American final 10.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 3 of 3, 1216 entries Ismael Bojang has won his first bracelet in his 75th WSOP cash (and 10th this series) by beating James Little heads-up. Little entered heads-up 2.4:1 down and Bojang never left him off the hook, winning all the big hands and eventually finishing tbe job off with a 7-high straight.
Ben Zamani won the battle to be best of Boca Raton in third, with Day 2 chip leader Denis Bagdasarov finishing 4th.
A quick mention for 18th placed Carson Wieland, who was playing his first ever WSOP event and made it to the final day.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, Day 3 of 4, 88 entries As expected, done and dusted within three days. With 6 of the 7 remaining players having already won WSOP bracelets, a star-studded heads-up match was likely, and we got what Lance Bradley tweeted was the first ever heads-up match for a bracelet between two Poker Hall of Fame members.
The final was between Daniel Negreanu (6 bracelets) and John Hennigan (5 bracelets) with the Canadian having the early lead, but 4 hours or so of up & down stud poker later, it was Hennigan who got the better of it and equalised the bracelet count between the two at 6-each.
Hennigan won $245K, Negreanu (who hasn't won a bracelet in Vegas since 2008) $151K and third-placed David "ODB" Baker $104K.
I mentioned a few days ago that Upeshka Da Silva wins his bracelets in odd-numbered years, well this breaks the opposite sequence for Hennigan, who won his first five in 02/04/14/16 & 18
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 2 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries As expected, a Day 3 will be necessary as eight players bagged chips at the end of Day 2.
It's no change at the top as Day 1 chip leader Adam Lamphere is back at the top of the listings on Day 2, with only Dan Matsuzki anywhere near his chip total.
It's four Americans against four international players, 2 of which come from India with third placed Raghav Bansal one of the duo from the subcontinent.
Sam Razavi put in a gallant effort to make his second FT of the series, but fell short when eliminated in 10th ($16603) after being chip leader for a part of the day.
Other British cashes included $2473 for Robert Cowen, $2097 for Gilad Tiefenbrun and $1796 for James Dempsey.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 2 of 3, 218 entries With some tournaments finishing early and others requiring extra time, it's a bit of normality to see an event that should finish in its normal compliment of 3 days.
7 remain, headed up by last years runner-up Ryan Hughes who has already eliminated the player who outlasted him last year, Scott Bohlman in the last bustout of the day.
5 of the seven have bracelets already in their trophy cabinet, Loren Klein having three and Hughes two. One of the others who has one previous bracelet is WPT commentator Mike Sexton who appears to be playing better now he's in his seventies than he has for years.
Usman Siddique was the only British player to cash, squeaking in to the money and being the first player eliminated post-bubble for $3767.
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, Day 1 of 3, 1807 entries With good timing, the bubble burst on the last hand of the day meaning all 272 players who return for day 2 are in the money (a min cash is $1414)
I'm not sure I've referenced anyone from Andorra in these updates before now but there's a first time for most things, and that time is now. Ignacio Molina picked up his first WSOP cash earlier in the week in Event 34, and he's now got a second and is in good shape as the Day 1 chip leader.
Geographic neighbour Kevin Naegelen from France is second and Baitai Li from New York state is third.
A decent amount of GB players made the money headed by Tom Hall in 7th spot with Scott Margereson 24th and Andrew Hills 55th the best of them.
Looking at a few other names, Sam Grizzle is a real blast from the past, with Hendon Mob cashes dating back to 1988, Barry Greenstein can't match that, only going back to 1992 but does have 3 bracelets, and the looming spectre of Phil Ivey who is still looking for a really deep run to possibly add to his 10 bracelets is through too, but will need a double-up pretty soon on Day 2.
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 1 of 4, 222 entries so far One of the big boy events, which will have a significant effect on the Player of the Year standings and needs just 8 late registrations to match last year's record field.
128 of the 222 remain, with Keith Lehr a smidgin ahead of Paul Volpe at the top of the standings, and Firas Sadou a little further back in third.
Ludovic Geilich is the highest placed of the British challenge in 5th, with another LG, Lautaro Guerra just outside the top 10 and Gavin Cochrane in 18th.
Next placed with a Union Jack against their name is Jorryt Van Hoff, showing as from London, but the 2014 ME third-placed is from the Netherlands and is presumably a resident of our capital.
Plenty of bracelet winners left, including Robert Mizrachi now on a mission to get back level with his brother, last year's winner Shaun Deeb and the 2015 winner Anthony Zinno.
Event 46 - $500 WSOP.com Online NLH Turbo Deepstack, 1 Day Event, 1181 entries A long event title, but for an online bracelet it was more of a sprint than a marathon and was done and dusted in just over seven hours.
The player who ended up as last man standing was Dan Lupo who had been prominent throughout the day, and saw off David Clarke to take the bracelet and $145K.
Third place went to someone who is still only listed by his on-line alias, "johnsonck".
To start today Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, 4 Day Event Event 48 - $2500 NLH, 4 Day Event Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, 4 Day Event
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 4 of 3, 2650 entries Michael Blake comes to the WSOP just to play this one event, he's played it for the last three years and cashed in it each time. Now he's gone all the way and taken first WSOP title and over $369K.
He led going into the extra Day 4, and despite losing it at one point to Cary Marshall who started the day like a house on fire, but lost a big hand to Barry Shulman and went out in 3rd.
Stacks were pretty even for a while, but inexorably Blake drew ahead and after about 50 hands of heads-up Shulman shoved with both a flush draw and an open ended-straight draw, but Blake had two pair and all Shulman's draws missed, his hopes for a third bracelet disppeared and Blake could start the celebrations.
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 3 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries Early in the event, Aristeidis Moschonas was down to half a big blind, but over 48 hours later he converted a chip and a chair into a WSOP gold bracelet and $194K after beating 2018 bracelet winner Dan Matsuzuki heads-up.
The two Indian players at the FT finished 5th (Ashish Ahuja) and 3rd (Raghav Bansal) with Germany's Rainer Kempe in between them in 4th.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 3 of 3, 218 entries In the 1970s, Bill Boyd and Doyle Brunson both won four bracelets in consecutive years. There are a lot more bracelets now, but the fields are much bigger too so it's still a very impressive achievement matched today by Loren Klein
Klein won a mixed NLH/PLO event in 2016, a $1500 PLO the next year and last year a $10K Championship bracelet in PLO 8-handed. Now he's made it four in a bracelet event that encompasses 7 variants (Big O, No-Limit Hold’em, No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better,No-Limit 5-Card Draw High, Pot-Limit Omaha & Pot-Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw)
He was the short stack when the day started, but together with Ryan Hughes and Phil **** gradually drew away from the rest of the contenders.
**** bust in third and then Klein had a good set of Big O and NLH hands to propel him into a chip lead, and after the game changed to PLO Hi-Lo, a flush condemned Hughes to be the runner-up in this event for the second consecutive year.
Mike Sexton was the first bustout of the day and collected $12K, third placed **** $51K, Hughes nearly $79K and Klein a very nice $127K.
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, Day 2 of 3, 1807 entries Only two bracelet holders are among the 23 who will play for the Event 44 title on Friday, including second-placed Asi Moshe who has 2 to his credit while Harrison Gimbel in 4th place has just the one.
Everyone else is looking for their maiden victory, including chip leader Damjan Radanov and fifth place Andrew Hills who hails from Preston.
It would not only be the first bracelet for Vitaljis Zavorotnijs but the first ever for a player from Lativa, while Martijn Gerrits has already made the FT of one bounty event here and is in the top half of the Day 3 field.
Of the other British players, David Tovar in 31st and Dragos Trofimov (36th) both collected $6434 while Scott Margereson (80th) pocketed $2752 the same as a certain Mr Phil Ivey.
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 278 entries We're down to 39 halfway through the PLO High Roller, with two Asian players way out in front. Anson Tsang from Hong Kong and James Chen from Taiwan both have over 4m chips in their bags with nearest challenger Alex Epstein (winner of 8) just under 2.5m in third.
Three British challengers are still in with a shout, Ludovic Geilich, Stephen Chidwick and Lautaro Guerra are clustered between 13th and 18th in the overnight standings.
Former ME winner Joe Hachem has survived (albeit with a short stack) as has Erik Seidel, Robert Mizrachi, Paul Volpe and Justin Bonomo.
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 1 of 4, 968 entries It may not be "Jenny From The Block" but it is Jennifer Lopez who is the Day 1 leader in the Ladies Event, ahead of Katie Lindsay and Diane Cooley.
Two of last years FT are still involved, Jill Pike and Molly Mossey, and some former bracelet winners like Allyn Shulman, Jackie Glazier and Kathy Liebert.
From the UK, Daiva Barauskaite, Natalia Brevigliere and Deborah Worley-Roberts all have long names and are all inside the top 17, but they're the only ones who have made the 261 who will re-start on Day 2.
146 will get a min-cash of just under $1500 with the winner collecting $167K.
Thankfully, I have seen no evidence of any men trying to enter the ladies event again this year.
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 1 of 4, 996 entries So close to some nice round numbers, with just 4 shy of 1000 entries and 1 more than 200 who will be back for Day 2.
Baitai Li holds the chip lead, but it is the player in 2nd most of us in the UK will be interested in as that is the Hendon Mob's very own Barny Boatman.
Canada, Austria, Denmark, Spain and Bulgaria are all represented inside the Top 10 (in fact there's three Austrians inside the Top 11)
A sprinkling of other British names can be found in the reporting, Robert Heidorn, Niall Farrell and Ben Dobson amongst them while there's a first sighting (for me at least) of the 2014 ME winner Martin Jacobson who will come back inside top quartile of the field.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 4, 92 entries so far 32 players advance with Johannes Becker from Germany the chip leader, but with a couple of Brits hard on his heels in the shapes of Benny Glaser and Luke Schwartz.
I could run through most of the rest of the 32 players as "well known names" but I'll just pick out a few - Calvin Anderson, Max Kruse, Brian Hastings, David Benyamine, Event 33 (also in 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw) winner Robert Campbell and Mike Matusow.
Expect a couple more players to jump in before late reg expires early on Day 2.
To start today Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, 2 starting flights Fri/Sat Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, 3 Day Event
Player of the year leaders 1. Upeshka De Silva 2162 2. Daniel Zack 2146 3. Scott Clements 1837 4. Ismael Bojang 1816 5. Robert Campbell (see above) 1605. Loren Klein moved into 7th with his win while top Brit is Ben Dobson in 17th. This will run through the Vegas WSOP and the WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, later in the year.
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, Day 3 of 3, 1807 entries Second place entering the final day, Asi Moshe came to the fore and collected his third bracelet, with the Israeli also picking up a very nice $253K, plus I think another $12K in bounties.
He entrered heads-up play against Damjan Radanov with almost an 8:1 lead and not surprising it didn't take long for him to finish the American off, although there was one double-up which delayed the inevitable.
Germany's Tonio Roder ran a three barrel bluff with his last 7m chips at just the wrong time, Moshe holding pocket aces to knock Roder out in third.
The last Brit standing was Andrew Hills who made the FT, finishing 6th for $45K,
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 3 of 4, 278 entries A select field of 7 remain with a British presence at the very top of the leaderboard. Stephen Chidwick has almost 13m chips and only Alex Epstein with 10.8m is anywhere close.
Robert Mizrachi lies 3rd, with 8-time bracelet holder Erik Seidel in 6th.
Two other GB players were busted on Day 3, Ludovic Geilich in 23th and Lautaro Guerrain 17th, both for over $50K,
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 2 of 4, 968 entries I mentioned yesterday that the 3 remaining GB players were all ones with compartively long names, well the chip leader today is the polar opposite as it is the Canadian Tu Dao.
She has just one WSOP cash, from back in 2005 which is one less than second placed Nancy Matson (although she has a WSOP Circuit ring to her name).
Day 1 chip leader Jennifer Lopez has progressed through to Day 2 together with two former bracelet winners in Jackie Glazier and Kathy Leibert, plus some who have had deep runs in this very event, Jill Pike, Lisa Fong and Deborah Worley-Roberts
Worley-Roberts is accompanied by another player with the Union Jack beside her name, Natalia Brevigliere, while third player I had listed in that category yesterday (Daiva Barauskaite) is now showing as Daiva Byrne from Lithuania
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 2 of 4, 996 entries Just 26 players are left, with Baitai Le the chip leader for a second day running. Two more Americans come next (Michael Finstein and Ryan Olisar) before we come to a rare player from Uruguay (Pablo Melongo)
After that, the better known players appear with Josh Arieh 5th, Ari Engel 6th and in 7th place no other than Barny Boatman.
Robert Heidorn and Michael Stephenson make up a three-strong UK challenge, nicely split one on each of the 3 tables, and all guarenteed at least $12244 with the eventual winner picking up $427K.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 4, 100 entries 9% of the runners have made Day 3, and despite losing Benny Glaser as the last elimination of the Day there is still a chance of a British winner with Luke Schwartz in second place.
He marginally trails just George Wolff, each of the top with more than 50% more chips than third placed Mark Gregorich.
Brian Hastings, Calvin Anderson, Daniel Ospina, Johannes Becker, Mike Gorodinsky & Yueqi Zhu make up the rest of a very talented final 9.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1A, 2428 entries Two Brits in the top 6, with Conor Beresford holding the chiplead (almost half the Day 1A field moving on) and Dean Hutchison in 6th spot.
Iaron Lightbourne, Sunny Chattha, Usman Siddique, Simon Deadman and Adam Owen are also among about 30 British players who have made Day 2.
Amnon Filippi doesn't have a bracelet to his credit, but seems like he's been prominent for years with his best WSOP result being 4th in the Poker Players Championship in 2007 and lies second here with Mark Johnson third.
In fourth spot is Alisson Piekazewicz who I initially assumed was a) female and b) Polish. I was wrong on both counts, he's a young Brazilian male player.
Some other names through - Pierre Neuville, Matt Stout, Neil Blumenfield and Ali Imsirovic
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 1 of 3, 401 entries It's Russia to the fore with Andrey Zaichenko the leader after the opening day of action, one of 128 players still in with a shout.
The American challenge starts at No. 2, with last year's Player of the Year Shaun Deeb trying to notch up points in a bid to retain that award, and Tom Schneider in third.
אלי אלעזרא (Eli Elezra) and Michael Mizrachi have already padded their bracelet totals this year and are still in this one too, and Phil Ivey was one of the latest of the late reggers and hasn't done much more than protect his opening stack yet while Phil Hellmuth similarly joined the show late on and has at least had one double up.
From these shores, it's a first shout-out of the 2019 WSOP for Stuart Rutter, plus Xunen Zheng, Philip Long, Ben Dobson and Aussie-in-residence Mel Judah bagging chips at close of play.
There son't be a repeat winner here as 2018 bracelet hero David Brookshire was one of the Day 1 casualties.
To start today Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, 4 Day Event
Thanks Tikay, haven't hit my traditional "lull" yet and with less than a fortnight to the start of the main, hopefully I won't get to that point this year. A few more British deep runs would help...
What will happen is that I'm in London next weekend (Fri-Mon) for the Baseball game at the Olympic Stadium on Sunday afternoon, so updates over that four days may be patchy.
Comments
Frankie O'Dell became the first person in WSOP history to win a third bracelet exclusively in Omaha Hi-Lo as he took the $10K event to add to bracelets way back in 2003 and 2007.
This one earned him more than the other two put together, $443,641. The new grandfather deafeated Owais Ahmed heads-up with another former bracelet winner Robert Mizrachi in 3rd.
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 2 of 5, 8809 entries
Its The Cosby Show in the Millionaire Maker as Samuel Cosby is the Day 2 chip leader, the only player over 3 million in chips.
The second placed player is listed as "Did Not Report" with Nathan Russler in third.
Former ME winner Joe McKeehen is the first well known player in 4th spot, while Calvin Anderson is near the top of the listings for the second day running and some other players inside the top 200 of 309 are Kathy Liebert, JC Tran, Bruno Politano and Brock Parker
Brits? Stefan Fanian (42nd), Paul Hizer (98th) and Ben Farrell 118th, with others including Sam Welbourne and Peter Charalambous
Event 20 - $1500 Seven Card Stud, Day 2 of 4, 285 entries
They did stop at 6 players and will resume for the FT with almost a two-way at the top between Anthony Zinno and Eli Elezra who between tham have over 80% of the chips in play.
They each have over 50 Big Bets, Valentin Vornicu has 11, while Rep Porter, Phongthep Thiptinnakon and David Singer are on fumes, with only about 5 Big Bets between the three of them so we may some laddering up considerations even at this level.
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 2 of 4, 91 entries
In contrast to Event 20, this one will finish with only 3 days play but not today as they have reached a Final Table, but will take a day's break before playing to a finish on Tuesday.
Some well known names among the 7, with Jean-Robert Ballande the chip leader, Prahland Friedman in second and Paul Volpe (who won this corresponding event in 2014) third.
I'm not finished yet, as the most successful player in WPT history Darren Elias 4th, 1993 ME winner Jim Bechtel 5th and 2-7 lowball specialist Vince Musso trailing in 7th.
That leaves Brazilian Pedro Bromfman who the most impressive thing I can say about is that he was the Day 1 chip leader.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 1 of 2, 3253 entries
Nearly 90% of the players were eliminated by the end of Day 2 with an Bulgaria/Israel/Portugal top 3 - Ivan Uzunov, Timur Margolin and Jose Carlos Brito the players concerned.
It's rare that the biggest name in a WSOP event isn't actually a poker player, but that's possibly the case here as sitting in 50th spot is former Olympic boxing champion Audley Harrison nowadays listing Westlake Village, California as his home town.
Jennifer Tilly & Maria Ho are perhaps the two best known actual poker players, but this is going to be fast and furious on Day 2 playing down to a winner and my money is on a comparitive unknown taking the bracelet.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 1 of 3, 612 entries
A record field of 612 entered, 225 are still with 92 to be paid after the bubble bursts some time on Day 2. The winner will take home $177K
Aleksandr Gofman currently has the chip lead and there's a decent gap back to second placed Mihails Morozovs with the first of the big names, Michael Mizrachi 3rd and "Miami" John Cernuto 4th.
Phil Hellmuth has had a relatively quiet time in the live events so far, but he's made two here alongside both David Bakers, Chris Ferguson (boo), Allen Kessler, Jen Harman, Shaun Deeb etc.
Philip Long took this bracelet for GB last year and he's still involved, as is another former winner Ron Ware, and some more UK players Patrick Leonard, David Tarbet, Toby Lewis and Adam Owen (first mention this year I think)
Event 24 - $600 WSOP.com Online PLO 6 handed, 1 Day Event, 1216 entrants
13 hours of online PLO were necessary to reduce a field of 1216 down to 1, and when all the virtual chips had settled, they were in the possession of Josh Pollock who was collecting his second overall bracelet, his first also coming in PLO but in the live environment back in 2013.
Jason Gooch and Jared Bleznick were second and third while the best known player on the FT was 3-time bracelet winner Phil Galfont who went out in 5th.
To start today
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, 2 Day Event
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, 6 Day Event
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 3 of 5, 8809 entries
Just 34 players survive, and they are led by Josh Reichard, a very familiar face on the WSOP circuit, but hasn't shone so much at the WSOP proper. He leapt up the standings on the last level as he busted three players in quick succession.
Andrew Hinrichsen and Cory Albertson are second and third.
As you would expect given the attrition rate, most of the bigger name players departed the scene, but Keith Lehr is having an excellent week and has a playable stack, while Calvin Anderson is now down to less than 10 BB.
Last GB player standing was Klas Lafberg, knocked out in 47th for $25K.
Event 20 - $1500 Seven Card Stud, Day 4 of 4, 285 entries
The three short stacks were dispatched pretty quickly, and then Valentin Vornicu followed them, leaving the expected heads-up between the two big stacks of Anthony Zinno and Eli Elezra.
In the end it was Elezra who got the job done for his 4th bracelet, the third in a stud game, and his second in this exact event.
The 58-year old former Israeli army commando took his career WSOP earnings to over $2m with this win which added almost $94K to his balance.
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 3 of 4, 91 entries
Easy to write up this one - it was a day off. The 7 players will resume on Tuesday night to play for the title and the bracelet.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 2 of 2, 3253 entries
This one didn't finish on time, 11 players will come back for an unscheduled Day 3 with Jorden Fox the top dog (Well at least a Fox is a canid so it's close enough). If only 39th placed finisher Tomer Wolf had also made Day 3!
Fox has 26m chips ahead of Jeffrey Smith's nearly 22m and Scott Vener's 17.6m
Two Europeans (but no Brits) are still involved, Christopher Andler (Sweden) & Simon Legat (France)
Eliminations thick and fast saw the UK contingent disappear at regular intervals throughout the day, Sam Razavi being the last to fall in 25th spot for $14149, but an honourable mention to Audley Harrison who must have exceeded even his most optimistic expectations when lasting until 32nd for $11397. Other GB players who made the top 100 were David Winter, Yiannis Liperis and Simon Williams.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 2 of 3, 612 entries
I'm going to start with the player in 4th place overnight as that player is Philip Long. The Londoner won this event last year and is still in with a chance of a very rare repeat performance.
First though he has to get through the rest of the 28 strong Day 3 field, led by Alexander Livingston (had a deep run to 13th in the 2013 ME)
Several other bracelet holders are also through including Chris Vitch who lies 2nd overnight, Chris Klodnicki, Chris Bjorin, Vladimir Shchemelev and winner of Event 14 a few days ago, Muril Souza.
There's also a second string to the GB bow, so to speak as Toby Lewis is also through, albeit with a smallish stack.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 1 of 2, 2577 entries
Yes it's a Deepstack but with a very fast structure as the plan remains to go from 2577 to 1 in just two days. We'll see if they manage that, with 215 players having made Day 2.
10 of those 215 are British, with 6 inside the top 100 and 2 in the top 15 - Peter Linton (4th) and Usman Siddique (13th)
The top 3 are Corey Wright, Robert Valden and Ryan Bambrick with three former November Niners (Cliff Josephy, JC Tran and William Tonking) in the field and Layne Flack, Guiseppe Panataleo, Brandon Shack-Harris and Upeshka De Silva a few more names spotted when perusing the chip listings.
The other GB players who bagged and tagged are Jaspreet Panchhi, Chris Moorman, Barny Boatman, Paresh Doshi, Jerome Bradpiece, Mohammed Ladak, Thomas Cazayous and Andrew Teng.
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 1 of 6, 941 entries so far
After an event that has a breakneck pace, there's the opposite, a 6-day grind but still almost exactly half of the field bowed out on Day 1 and we have 467 through, but still oodles of late reg to boost that field.
Of the 467 it is Peter Hong who has the Day 1 chip lead, marginally ahead of Christopher Godfrey and Scott Menard. Godfrey is from Fremont, California. I wonder if that is where Vegas' Fremont Street downtown got it's name?
It's too early to concentrate too much on who's still left in, but I'm going to do it anyway as we've got three well known GB players (Sam Grafton, Niall Farrell and Patrick Leonard) through together with 2006 ME winner Jamie Gold, Marvin Rettenmaier, Matt Stout, Adrian Mateos, Taylor Paur, Neil Blumenfield and the very short-stacked Kristin Bicknell.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 460 entries
Eli Elezra won't be adding another stud bracelet to his collection, he jumped into this after winning the bracelet earlier in the day but wasn't able to make Day 2.
195 did though, and there is an Alpha Male at the top in the shape of Dave Alfa. Second place belongs to Andrew Kelsall, and in third place is Barbara Enright, still the only female player to make the WSOP ME FT, 24 years on.
Another veteran name can be found in 10th spot, Norman Chad, best known for being the WSOP TV coverage co-commentator, but he is a pretty well regarded Stud player in his own right.
Players from Reading and Manchester lie 7th and 8th, but thats Reading, Pennsylvania and Manchester, New Hampshire and you also have to pass players from American versions of Portland, Birmingham and Mansfield before reaching the first British representative, Paul Sokoloff in 85th. Also through from these shores are Ben Dobson, Adam Owen and Mel Judah along with Andy Bloch, Allen Cunningham, Daniel Negreanu, Steve Zolotow, John Racener etc.
To start today
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, 3 Day Event
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, 4 Day Event
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 4 of 5, 8809 entries
We're well into the FT at the end of Day 4, with just 6 players remaining and I don't think any of them have won a bracleet before.
Japanese player Kazuki Ikeuchi is the chip leader, followed by four Americans (Cory Albertson, Lokesh Garg, Joshua Thibodaux and Josh Gorsush) with Lithuania's Vincas Tamasauskas bringing up the rear. The top 2 have about 55BB each, but the other 4 all have re-shoving stacks so action could start quite soon.
The winner will take $1.345m while everyone left will get at least $266K, with some serious laddering to be done (next pay jump is $94K).
Event 21 - $10K No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Day 4 of 4, 91 entries
There's a story here. For 13 years, the record gap between bracelets was the late David "Chip" Reese won the 2006 $50K HORSE event, 24 years after winning a Stud braclet back in 1982.
That 50K HORSE of course now is the "Poker Player's Championship" and the trophy bears Reese's name. In 4th place on that 2006 FT was Jim Bechtel, the 1993 ME winner (2nd was Andy Bloch and 3rd Phil Ivey so you can see the quality of the field).
On Tuesday, Bechtel, now 69, took Reese's record after winning the $10K 2-7 Draw, beating Vince Musso heads-up with Darren Elias departing in third.
Bechtel won a round million for his 1993 ME win, but will get just over a quarter of that for this win.
Event 22 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, Day 3 of 2, 3253 entries
The Fox finished the job off, as Jorden Fox saw off all those who where hunting him up and claimed his maiden bracelet. His rail included his father, brother and a cousin, but not his partner, as she is eight months pregnant and had to be satisfied with watching the coup de grace via smartphone.
Jayachandra Gangaiah was the runner-up and Jeffrey Smith finished third.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 3 of 3, 612 entries
It wasn't to be a repeat for Philip Long, as despite having a big stack most of the day, suffered a run of bad hands on the FT and went out in 4th spot.
When Chris Klodnicki went out very late on Day 3, we were left with a a heads-up match between Rami Boukai and John Evans and they'll need to come back for an unscheduled 4th day to decide the winner.
Saudi-born Boukai won a bracelet back in 2009, while Evans has the one WSOP cash to his name. Boukai holds a 3:1 advantage, but with relatively few chips in play compared to the blinds/big bets, this one may not last much longer.
Allen Kessler's bid for a first bracelet after over 70 WSOP cashes ended in 5th while Toby Lewis went out in 18th.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 2 of 2, 2577 entries
I sort of predicted yesterday that this wouldn't finish within the 2 days and I was right, as 12 players remained alive at the end of the day's play.
No British challengers unfortunately, as Day 1 chip leader Corey Wright became Day 2 chip leader Corey Wright.
Austrian Florian Fuchs is second and in third place is the only former bracelet winner left, "Captain" Tom Franklin. Franklin has two cashes already this Series, but his big day was 20 years ago (so not quite as long ago as Jim Bechtel) when he won a $2500 Limit Omaha event (he also made the FT ME in both 1995 and 2000)
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 2 of 6, 1083 entries
The Marathon field has been thinned down to 188 players after two days.
The Day 1 leader is David Coleman. No not that David Coleman, he died in 2013 but a poker player from New Jersey.
There's a meaty European presence in the top end of the leader board, Morten Mortensen from Denmark is second, and players from Greece, Bulgaria and Austria are all inside the top 10.
The British presence is a little more under-stated, Paul Hizer in 54th and Steven Warburton in 106th are the highest ahead of Joel Isla the only other survivor.
Not many "big names" (I don't suppose they want to tie up 6 days) but there are some November Niners there in Joseph Cheong, Cliff Josephy, Burno Politano, Amir Lehavot and Neil Blumenfield while lurking in 157th spot is Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 460 entries
The Day 2 chip leader is "The Grinder", Michael Mizrachi aiming to win his 4th WSOP bracelet and break a tie with brother Robert.
A late run, doubling his stack in the final level brought him to the chip lead, where he is followed by Robert Gray and Jason Day.
It's another disappointing tournament for the Brits, but then we didn't have too many in there to start with, as the only cash went to Paul Sokoloff (49th spot for $2475).
Among the 22 players making Day 3 is Event 13 winner Yuhal Bronshtein and a couple of female players, Anna Wroblewski and Patricia Yannuzzzi.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 1 of 3, 2477 entries
The German with a very Italian name, Giuseppe Pantaleo is the chip leader after Day 1 of Event 28 with local player Steven McNally and China's Yang Zhang second and third.
Two GB players lie 6th & 7th, Iaron Lightbourne who has featured a number of times in these reports over the years, and Wayne Blodwell who's only recorded WSOP cash was in Event 19 last week. There are a number of other GB players in the field too, Samuel Simister, Daniel Watson, Louis Salter and Ben Dobson amongst them.
Daniel Strelitz who won event 11, winner of event 6 are both trying to win a second bracelet this summer, while Phil Hellmuth is trying to extend his record number too.
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 1 of 4, 161 entries so far
The opening exchanges of the big HORSE events saw 161 entries, just 5 below last year's figure and with late reg still open we may well beat last year's total.
The only Colombian bracelet winner, Daniel Ospina, is the big stack after Day 1, with Randy Ohel and Brian Hastings the only 2 others over 200K in chips (starting stack was 60K).
A lot of well known players among the 83 through - Greg Mueller, Mike Sexton, defending champion John Henningan, Daniel Negreanu, Jen Harman, Brian Rast etc. Oh yeah, and Phil Ivey. Just the one Brit in Adam Owen.
To start today
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, 3 Day Event
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, 4 Day Event
A lot of stuff to report on there Barny, must take an age, but it's appreciated.
Event 19 - $1500 Millionaire Maker, Day 5 of 5, 8809 entries
After five days, the winner of the Millionaire Maker proved to be 42-year-old John Gorsuch who, while has plenty of cashes on Hendon Mob, was actually winning his first recorded event with a $1.3m boost to his bank balance.
For a long while, it looked like the bracelet was going to Japan and Kazuki Ikeuchi - four handed he had 112BB while the other three players had less than 10BB each. But Gorsuch kept at it, got a little lucky in places, played well in others and benefitted by other players errors in others. Ikeuchi finished second in a WSOP event for the second year running, as he was part of the second placed team in the Tag Team event last year.
Third place went to Lokesh Garg.
Event 23 - $1500 Eight Game Mix, Day 4 of 3, 612 entries
Coming back for an unscheduled Day 4, it only took half an hour for Rami Boukai to see off John Evans in a hand of Limit Hold'em
Boukal takes $177K and his second bracelet while Evans settles for a career best of nearly $110K.
Event 25 - $600 PLO Deepstack, Day 3 of 2, 2577 entries
The third bracelet of the day went to Andrew Donabedian a regular placed player on the WSOP circuit, but only tends to win one event a year (always in PLO). He saved 2019's win for the big stage and collected $205K for his three days of work.
Todd Dreyer finished second ($127K) and Robert Valden ($92K) was third.
Of the others who I mentioned yesterday, Day 1 & 2 chip leader Corey Wright was 4th and Tom Franklin departed in 7th.
Event 26 - $2520 NLH Marathon, Day 3 of 6, 1083 entries
Three days down, three days to go with the lead now belonging to Matt Russell ahead of 51 other survivors.
Peter Hong and Johan Guilbert make up the top three, both of whom have recorded cashes dating back to 2010, but are still awaiting the really big one.
Joseph Cheong came close to getting one of the biggest of all the big ones, the 2010 ME but he finished third to Jonathan Duhamel when he won over $4m but he's still involved here but with an unspecified stack.
Previous bracelet winners Preston Lee, Mohsin Chanaria, Daniel Park and Ryan Leng are all still in, with a sole British challenger in Paul Hizer.
The current pay level is just over $8K, but the ladders will start to get substantial fairly soon with the eventual winner bagging $477K.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 3 of 4, 460 entries
Six players remain in Event 27, and for the second day running the chip lead is in the formidable hands of Michael Mizrachi.
He only has 23 Big Bets heading into the final day, but that is more than nearest challengers Michael Sopko (20) and Robert Gray (17)
There is a rare Bolivian presence on a FT in the shape of Jose Paz-Guttierez, while the short stack Jan Stein has been playing WSOP events for 19 years without making a FT and he's ridden his luck making this one - he's been all-in and doubled up four times on Day 3.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 2 of 3, 2477 entries
Six left in this one also, and we have a big gap between first and second. Stephen Song hit all the right notes and has over 24m chips with second placed Sevak Mikaiel having about a quarter of that.
The only bracelet holder remaining is Ryan Laplante who sits in 4th place, but with not much 2nd and 6th it's really Song against the field at this point.
Phil Hellmuth had a deep run in this, making the last two tables but eventually falling in 16th.
The German with a very Italian name, Giuseppe Pantaleo is the chip leader after Day 1 of Event 28 with local player Steven McNally and China's Yang Zhang second and third.
The biggest British cashes went to Andrew Hills and Nathan Watson (42nd & 43rd respectively for $7356), Louis Salter, Iaron Lightbourne, Samuel Simister, David Marshall, Yudhishter Jaswal and Wayne Blodwell
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 2 of 4, 172 entries so far
Brian Hastings has, to put it mildly, a chequered past but is undeniably a very succesful player. He was third on Day 1 and moved in the lead on Day 2, pushing the Day 1 leader Daniel Ospina down into second. Together with Dario Sammartino, they are the only ones with over a million chips at this point.
11 of the 20 remaining players are bracelet winners, including Scott Clements who bagged his 2nd in Event 11 a week ago.
The opening exchanges of the big HORSE events saw 161 entries, just 5 below last year's figure and with late reg still open we may well beat last year's total.
No Brits even managed to cash, and a few of the Day 2 casualties were Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Brian Rast and defending champion John Hennigan.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 1 of 3, 1526 entries
A long day of PLO with over 13 hours at the tables has ended with Stefan Ivanov coming through late to claim the chip lead with just 309 players making Day 2.
The Bulgarian leads Luis Zedan and Joseph Sabe in the top 3, with 229 to be paid and the eventual winner taking home $236K.
The two top Brits sit side-by-side overnight, Jerome Bradpiece 1000 chips better off than Peter Linton in 58th & 59th. Chris Moorman, Philip Long, Jan Collado, Dimitri Holdeew, Sam Razavi, Adam Owen, Gasam Alaaldin, Jaspreet Panchhi, Usman Siddique, Joe Beevers, Lloyd Muir, Warren Colman, Paresh Doshi and Mohammad Ladak make up a strong British challenge, both in terms of numbers and quality.
After winning the PLO Deepstack, Andrew Donabedian jumped into this and is still technically in with a shout of a quick fire double, but he'll have to do a double of a different sort pretty sharpish on Day 2 as he has one of the smallest stacks in the entire field.
Some familiar names still in include Anton Morgenstern, JC Tran, Dan Shak, Eoghan O'Dea and Vitali Lunkin.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 4, 754 entries
754 players started but only 140 finished Day 1 with the leader being 2016 November Niner Griff Benger
Syvlain Loosli has made the FT of both the Main in the main Vegas WSOP and the WSOP Europe and he's still in, as is another who had a big run in the main, last years runner up Tony Miles.
Eight different nationalities in the top 8 places, with the British representative the 8th-placed Robert Bickley with Daniel Tang and Thomas Cazayous both inside the top 20 and Raul Martinez, Jonathan Proudfoot and Michael Kane inside the top 50.
To start today
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, 4 Day Event
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, 3 Day Event
Down to two tables (and 16 players) in the Marathon, with Russian Romanev ahead of two Chinese players Yicheng Xu and Dong Sheng Peng.
They play down to 6 today with an average stack on the table of 44BB so plenty of play still left yet.
I think there's two previous bracelet winners still left in Preston Lee and Daniel Park, but they're both among the shorties.
The last British challenger Paul Hizer bit the dust midway through the day and finished 30th for $11K.
Everyone left has earned at least $16K, but survive just one more elimination and that jumps to $21K and the ladders just get better from there.
Event 27 - $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 4 of 4, 460 entries
It's a fifth bracelet (breaking the tie with his brother) for Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, making him the most successful (in terms of bracelets at least) player of the 2010s.
After the Bolivian challenge was removed early, the 5 Americans were left to fight it out, Jan Stein was knocked out quickly after and Elias Hourani followed after the first break.
3-handed play was very swingy but eventually Michael Sopko swung down and out, leaving Mizrachi against Robert Gray. That started more or less even but it didn't take long for Mizrachi to establish an advantage which he drove home for that fifth bracelet and $142K.
Event 28 - $1000 NLH, Day 3 of 3, 2477 entries
In 2008, Peter Kay in an alter-ego as Geraldine McQueen had a number two hit called "The Winner's Song". His prescience came good 11 years later as in Event 28 was indeed Song. Stephen Song.
Song started the day with a big chip lead, but it took him nearly four hours to beat his five rivals after losing a couple of big pots midway through the day temporarily dropped him to third. He was all-in against Ryan Laplante but managed to hit a flush draw on the river to double up three-handed, and twenty hands later he bust Laplante in 3rd, and after ten more Scot Masters became his final victim.
He's had some success on the WSOP domestic circuit, but this is far and away his biggest win and the $341K he got more than doubles his biggest payday.
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 3 of 4, 172 entries
Seven left jockeying for position on the final table of the $10K horse with Dario Sammartino at the head of the field, with three times as many chips as second placed Craig Chait.
The next three on the chip listings all have at least one bracelet, Scott Clements (who remember won his earlier this month), Greg Mueller and Daniel Ospina.
That leaves Mikhail Semin from Russia in 6th and Matthew Gonzales whipping them in with just 1 Big Bet in his stack.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 2 of 3, 1526 entries
Just 58 planers remain heading into Day 3 and amazingly 57 of them are looking for their first bracelet. The one that isn't is David Halpern who won a Stud Hi/Lo event ten years ago (but has only two cashes since, including 4th in this year's Event 4)
The chip leader is Gary Bolden ahead of Gregory Donatelli and Anton Morgenstern not far behind.
Two Brits, both familiar names who most people would love to see break their bracelet duck, Sam Razavi in 23rd and Joe Beevers among the short stacks in 54th. Two from Ireland too - Aidan Hynes & Zeik Tuit.
Finally 12th placed player Matthew Maggard is from a town called Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Make your own jokes here.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 3 of 4, 754 entries
Exactly 20 players bagged and tagged at the end of Day 3 with a player who seems to specalise in odd-numbered years, Upeshka Da Silva in the chip lead. He has won bracelets in 2015 & 2017 and is looking to add 2019 to that list.
Along with Nicholas Howard and Thomas Cazayous, the top three have pulled away from the field a little but of course its NLH so one big double up from someone else could upset that order fairly quickly.
A couple of bracelet holders remain, Angel Guillen and Kyle Cartwright but the likes of Negreanu, Ferguson & Cada all went out on Day 3.
Cazayous is a French player resident in London and we have another EU national/London resident in for the ride in Raul Martinez while a 100% Brit survives in Jonathan Proudfoot, who already has a cash in the series back in the Shootout Event.
It was a big day for Toronto yesterday with the Raptors claiming the NBA Championship and there are two Torontonians (I think that's the correct word) inside the final 20, both great names that it's safer to cut and paste rather than risk getting them wrong: Veerab Zakarian and Demosthenes Kiriopoulos
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 1 of 4, 5916 entrants
A tantalising two short of last year's record field, with 1778 of them making Day 2.
888 poker is one of the event's sponsors, but it may well be co-incidence that 888 players will make the money. Then again, it may not.
Dominick Scarola is the Day 1 chip leader with Adilson Moraes in second and Albert Halfon third. Halfon will have a story to tell his mates back home - Phil Hellmuth entered late and came to Halfon's table, and Halfon promptly busted him and added Hellmuth's chips to his already decent stack.
Mark Kroon is a long-time mate of Hellmuth's and as such was heavily featured in the TV coverage of the 2015 ME, making the Top 50 and lies 6th here after Day 1 while the top Brit is Keith Littlewood in 20th.
Some other well-known names making day 2 include Victor Ramdin, Barry Greenstein, Barbara Enright and Joe Hachem while amongst the UK challenge are Richard Chamberlain, Robert Parkin, Gary Solomons, Alain Bauer and Peter Costa all inside the top 300 with Paul Jackson is lurking a little (well quite a bit really) further down.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 3, 467 entries
It's a British chip leader at the end of Day 1 of Event 33. Benny Glaser leads the 139 who are playing for 71 places in the cash and eventually the bracelet and $144K first prize.
Early days of course, but good to see Ben Dobson, Nicholas Marchington also there with the Union Jack beside their names.
Other survivors include defending bracelet holder Hanh Tran, Phil Hellmuth who has lasted longer in this than the Seniors, Daniel Negreanu and Nick Schulman.
To start today
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, 2 starting flights Fri/Sat
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, 4 Day Event
@FCHD
Don't be thinking this went un-noticed Barny.....
Seven left jockeying for position on the final table of the $10K horse
9/10 on the Groan-O-Meter.
The WSOP event that seems like it has been going on longer than the Cricket World Cup has at last reached its final table of 6.
Jared Koppel has the chip lead with 11.7 chips, almost double the stack of Dong Sheng Peng in 2nd (5.8m).
Behind that come Francis Anderson (3.7m), Roman Korenev (3.3m) , Joseph Liberta (2.5m) and Joe Curcio (1.5m)
Event 29 - $10K HORSE, Day 4 of 4, 172 entries
It's a third bracelet for Canadian Greg Mueller as he defeated Colombia's Daniel Ospina heads-up for the bracelet and over $425K. Mueller's first two bracelets came just a fortnight apart back in 2009, both in Limit Hold'em.
Dario Sammartino finished third and Event 10 winner Scott Clements was fourth.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 3 of 3, 1526 entries
Extra time will be needed here as 5 players are still involved at the end of the scheduled three days play.
There is still a British interest as Sam Razavi is the short stack of the table. Sam lost a hand to Thida Lin when her Aces made a flush while Sam's Aces didn't
The chip leader is Luis Zedan who went on a wrecking run and now has about 50% of the chips in play.
The other two players left are both Ryans, Robinson (USA) and Goindoo (Trinidad & Tobago) who also had a deep run in this same tournament last year when finishing 18th.
The only previous bracelet winner left on Day 3, David Halpert went out in 34th and Joe Beevers was knocked out in 46th for a little over $4K.
Event 31 - $3K NLH 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 754 entries
Can we claim this as a part-British bracelet? 24 year old Gallic pro Thomas Cazayous is resident in London and was shown as being from GB for most of the duration of the event, but is now showing (properly) as French.
It is his first bracelet on his first FT and only his 5th ever cash (for $414K) after being Nicholas Howard heads-up with Upeshka De Silva in third.
Raul Martinez finished 6th and Jonathan Proudfoot 10th ($31595)
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 2 of 4, 5916 entrants
Two days down in the Over 50s event and 252 players remaining. It's Howard Mash who has been the most successful over the first two days being the only player to bag over 2 million chips.
Two local players, Anthony Martin and Victor Ramdin have over 1.5m in second and third.
The British challenge has been reduced to 5 - David Stonehouse, Keith Littlewood, Ali Zihni, Peter Costa and Julian Mann.
Edit - Add Antony Ringe to that list, although he's shown as Estonian.
Barry Greenstein and Layne Flack are two of the better known players remaining,
All the players are guaranteed a minimum of $3279 with the winner taking home over $662K.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 2 of 3, 467 entries
2018 winner Hanh Tran has moved to the top of the chip listings after the penultimate day of this, the Austrian one of just 17 survivors.
Jared Bleznick sits second while Frankie O'Dell is third. O'Dell together with 13th placed Daniel Strelitz are both looking for their second bracelet of 2019.
The only British player among the 17 is 3-time bracelet winner and Day 1 chip leader Benny Glaser, lying in the middle of the pack.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1A
It's always nice to see a familiar British name near the top of the overnight chip listings, and we have just that in Day 1A of Event 34. Sunny Chatha is the man in question. Preliminary reports actually had him at the top, but when all the stacks (of the 1096 survivors) were compared, he lies second to Juan Esirviez from Argentina but ahead of Imran Mukati in third.
There's some well known names giving this a whirl - Phil Hellmuth being the biggest one but there's also Ari Engel, Ben Yu, Dan Shak & Phil Laak.
From the UK, second Brit is Jack Sinclair while others in the upper to mid echelons include Usman Siddique, Timothy Chung, Gasam Alaaldin, Tsz Ho and Matthew Hunt. Barny Boatman, James Rann, Iaron Lightbourne and Ben Dobson have progressively smaller stacks, the last named precariously short.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 1 of 4, 114 or 115 entrants
The WSOP are showing 114 players in one place and 115 in another, either way it's marginally up on last year's 111 with still some late reg to come.
Jeffrey Lisandro has started off the best and holds the Day 1 chip lead with Shaun Deeb only a few chips behind and Phillip **** in third.
Xunen Zheng is the first GB player listed, with Adam Owen, Luke Schwartz and Patrick Leonard all also inside the top 24.
Last year's winner Adam Friedman (remember he beat Stu Rutter heads-up) has made it through Day 1 as have several other bracelet winners including Frank Kassela, Phil Galfont, another Friedman (Prahlad Friedman) and fresh from his 5th bracelet yesterday, Michael Mizrachi.
To start today
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, 3 Day Event
Plus Day 1B of the Double Stack.
A Marathon event deserved a marathon heads-up match and that's just what we got. It took over 200 hands, five hours and 12 double-ups for the short stack before Roman Koronev got the better of Jared Kopel to take his first bracelet and $477K.
By way of contrast the FT took just 90 minutes from the start of play to go from 6 players to 2, Dong Sheng Peng (who missed the first 10 hands of the day by arriving late) finishing in third place.
Event 30 - $1000 PLO, Day 4 of 3, 1526 entries
Luis Zedan managed to convert the chip lead at the end of Day 3 into the win, the bracelet and $236K without being headed.
He beat Thida Lin heads-up, her performance being the best by a female player so far this year, with the last British hope Sam Razavi bowing out in third.
Event 32 - Seniors NLH, Day 3 of 4, 5916 entrants
The plan was to play down to 6 on Day 3, but that wasn't possible as after the scheduled 10 levels no fewer than 19 players remained, and without any likelihood of getting to even a single table anytime soon looking slim (more than half the players had over 40BB), the sensible decision to pack up for the night was taken.
None of the 19 have bracelets to their name and it's anyone's guess who will win their first here.
Day 2 chip leader Howard Mash repeated the feat as Day 3 chip leader ahead of French player Jean-René Fontaine and Farhad Jamasi from Ocoee, Florida. I still have nightmares about Ocoee as a bus I was in broke down there back in the last 80s and left a group of us stranded for hours.
The good news is there is a British player among the 19 in Ali Zihni. Looking at his Hendon Mob profile he has been playing for a decade or so with his best result winning the "Mini Main" at the GUKPT Grand Final last November for £18K. Converting that into dollars gives about $23.5K, so he needs to survive just one more elimination to record a career best score.
The small stack of the 19 belongs to Peter Mullin whose stickability has been remarkable. He had less than 1BB on the final hand of the night and managed to hit trip twos (I hate calling them "deuces") and apparently increased the number of all-ins he has survived over the three days to "the mid twenties"! A barnacle to beat all other barnacles!
The eventual winner will take home nearly two thirds of a million dollars.
Event 33 - $1500, Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 3 of 3, 467 entries
The WSOP have deleted all updates to Day 3 so I can't give you much other than the basic facts here.
The title and the bracelet went to 35 year old Robert Campbell, born in Australia but now resident in Ararat, Turkey. It's his first bracelet on his 7th FT.
David Bach was second, Jared Bleznick 3rd and defending champion Hanh Tran 7th.
Benny Glaser was the last British challenger, falling in 10th spot for a little over $10K.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1B, 6214 entries across the two flights.
1229 players made it through from Day 1B to join the 1111 from Day 1A, with Sean Getzwiller having the biggest stack from 1B.
It's another pleasingly international leader board, with Yasheel Doddanavar (India) 2nd, Andres Jeckeln (Argentina) 3rd and players from Lativa, Taiwan, Switzerland and Hong Kong all in the top 10.
We can't manage a Brit in the top 10, but 14th isn't too shabby, the position being occupied by Guilio Mascolo who cashed in Event 28 a couple of days ago.
Someone who did better than just cash a couple of days ago was Thomas Cazayous, and he invested a little of his winnings here and has managed to take a stack through to day 2 along with 3 former ME champions Jamie Gold, Scotty Nguyen and Chris Ferguson.
A few of the large number of Brits through - Lynne Beaumont, Craig McCorkell, Aaron Woodcock, Kenneth Broad, Paul Sokoloff, Katie Swift, Sam Razavi, Scott Margereson, Luke Schwartz, Paul Jackson and Simon Deadman
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 2 of 4, 122 entrants
A few late entrants added to the prize pool, making the first prize worth over $312K, a little up on the figure Adam Friedman took for last year's win.
A back-to-back win is still a possibility, as he's not only among the 11 players who made Day 3, he's the chip leader.
What there isn't is any British players, although we did get three into the 19 who cashed, they all departed post-bubble. First was Luke Schwartz (18th), quickly followed by Xunen Zhang (17th) and a little while later Adam Owen (14th) joined then on the sidelines. All collected $14818.
Plenty of formidable opponents, as you would expect in a $10K mixed-games event including Shaun Deeb, Matt Glantz and Jeffrey Lisandro.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries
The 313 were split between 40 tables, all of which played down to a winner who will progress to Day 2.
Ryan Leng was the first player through after beating Phil Ivey heads-up, and he was joined by a number of other bracelet holders such as Justin Bonomo, Taylor Paur, James Obst and Kristin Bicknell.
Two Brits were successful, Harry Lodge and Ben Farrell. They've guarenteed doubling their $3K stake but to ladder up it will take winning their table as the next second, third and fourth on the day 2 tables all pay the same. The eventual winner will be over $200K richer.
The last 40 will play short-handed poker on Day 2, 10 tables of 4 to come up with a FT of 10.
To start today
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, 3 Day Event, $750K guaranteed
Event 38 - $600 WSOP.com Online NLH Knockout Bounty, 1 Day Event
The top two players after Day 3 ended as the top two players after Day 4, as Howard Mash defeated Jean-René Fontaine heads-up to win his first bracelet and $662K.
Playing his first Seniors event (he's not long turned 50), Mash did lose the chip lead he's held since Day 2 briefly on the final day (Jim McNurlan had the lead at the start of the FT), but soon reasserted his position and although the stacks were pretty even for much of the heads-up match, 80 or so hands later Mash had done the job.
Frenchman Fontaine took $409K and McNurlan $303K for third.
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 3 of 5, 6214 entries
The players from Day 1A merged with those from Day 1B and at the end of Level 21, there were 359 players remaining with Arianna Son having moved into the chip lead. Her 2.3m is about 15% more than her nearest challenger Radoslav Stoyanov with Ignacio Molina a few chips further back.
Jack Sinclair, the 2018 WSOP Europe Main Event winner is one of a number of previous bracelet holders still active is the top Brit with James Millman, Guilio Mascolo, Neil McFayden, Angelo Milioto, Simon Deadman, Philip Ford, Andrew Hawksby and Nikolay Ponomarev the other Brits through to Day 3.
Not too many other recognisable names left in - Faraz Jaka and Marcel Vonk maybe the two best known so I'm reduced to looking for funny names or funny hometowns and I can't see many. Whoops yes I can. Many, Louisiana is the hometown of 169th placed Clay Henry.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 3 of 4, 122 entrants
A quietish day, playing down from 11 to 5 with the most noise about the end of play.
Philip **** was knocked out in 7th and in the next hand Nick Schulman went out too, leaving 5. There was a break soon after, and then discussions ensued about whether to play on or end, as scheduled, when they were down to 6 (or in this case a couple of hands later due to the imminent break). The decision was made to stop unless the 5 players were unanimous to carry on, and they weren't so the chip bags came out leaving Shaun Deeb and Matt Glantz to protest
Anyway, what have the following got in common - Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan & Phil Hellmuth? Not just they're all ME winners, but they've won the same tournament two years running. Adam Friedman is still in the running to add his name to that illustrious list as he was second in chips overnight, behind only Deeb.
Glantz is third, Michael McKenna fourth and David Moskowitz is the short stack in an all-American final five.
With Deeb at least wanting to play the $10K Stud Championship on Monday, the dynamic will be interesting as the others might want to slow him up.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries
The winners of the 10 Day 2 tables are all set and will meet to play it out for a bracelet and over $200K, and we have a British challenger who will sit in Seat 1 on the FT in the shape of Ben Farrell.
Andrew Lichtenberger has already finished second to one British Ben this series when losing heads-up to Ben Heath in Event 5, perhaps lightning will strike twice.
He's one of three bracelet winners still left, alongside Alexandru Papazian of Romania and Justin Bonomo (3 bracelets)
Everyone at the FT is guaranteed a minimum of $12937.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 1 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries
An unusual price point saw a massive entry, with 671 through to Day 2.
With 422 to cash, the plan is to play all the way down to a FT of 6 but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of players left at the end of the day is nearer 20.
The two big named Phils are the main attraction - both Ivey and Hellmuth have enough chips to be going on with, but will have to watch out as blinds are rising every 40 minutes.
Some others in include Elio Fox, Kelly Minkin, Manig Loeser, Ismael Bojang, Kenny Hallaert & Jeremy Ausmus, while the top three are Jose Brito, Danny Ghobrial and Ben Gilbert.
For the UK, we have Miranda at 29th. Miranda who? I have no idea. It might even be a surname, but it's just listed as Miranda.
Joshua Boulton is 44th, Leo Worthington-Leese 49th and Dragos Trofimov 55th. Chris Moorman and our very own Adam Bromley are also still in the tournament. Moorman and Ivey will be sat in adjacent seats for the start of Day 2
Event 38 - $600 WSOP.com Online NLH Knockout Bounty, 1 Day Event, 1224 entries
I mentioned a few days ago that Upeshka De Silva wins bracelets in odd-numbered years. Well he's added 2019 to 2015 & 2017 by winning the online bounty Event 38.
He won just over $98K from the main prize pool, plus $1800 for 18 bounties at $100 a pop, taking his earnings fractionally over the $100K mark for 11 hours work.
David Nodes was the defeated heads-up player with David Fhima continuing a good week or so for France by taking third.
To start today
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, 3 Day Event
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, 3 Day Event
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, 4 Day Event
Event 34 - $1000 Double Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 4 of 5, 6214 entries
40 players remain in the quest for the $678K first prize and the bracelet, already having ensured a payout of at least $15K.
There's only one previous bracelet winner among the 40, and he is Jack Sinclair, half of a two-pronged British challenge (the other prong being Andrew Hawksby) Neither hold one of the larger stacks in the room, but with 13 & 23BB respectively they've still got some play left in them.
The chip leader is one of an ever increasing number of Chinese players at the WSOP - Zinan Xu, with a reasonable lead over Ida Ashkenazi and Matthew Wantman.
There is also an Irish rep in the last 40 - Patrick Clarke.
Event 35 - $10K Dealers Choice 6 Max, Day 3 of 4, 122 entrants
A historic day for Adam Friedman as he joined the list of notable players I typed up yesterday, winning the same WSOP event in back-to-back years.
Michael McKenna was eliminated in 5th place playing pot-limit 2-7 Triple Draw, followed by David Moskowitz in his game of choice, PLO.
While Matt Glantz sat still as the short stack, Friedman was able to attack Shaun Deeb in NLH and managed to take the lead before Glantz was busted, also in 2-7 Triple Draw.
During heads-up, Deeb snatched the lead a couple of times but never for very long, and while Friedman swapped his choice of games up, Deeb went back to what he knows best, NLH for the last few hands which ironically cost him the tournament.
Event 36 - $3K NLH Shootout, Day 1 of 3, 313 entries
The event that plays like three single table Sit & Gos is done and dusted and the bracelet is on the wrist of first-time winner David Lambard.
The 44-year old, whose father was a poker pro, beat the 9 other survivors including 3 previous braclet holders to win the title and over $200K.
He beat French player Johan Guilbert heads-up, a major hand coming when Lambard ran a bluff with 5-3 with another of those Chinese players, Weiyi Zhang 3rd.
The British challenger on the FT, Ben Farrell, ended up in 6th for $37K.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 1 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries
As I thought, the likelihood of playing down to just 6 on Day 2 was low, but even I under-estimated the number of players who would be left.
In fact it was 26 who made Day 3 headed by Hamid Feiz, ahead of one of the two previous bracelet winners in the field, Nick Jivkov from Bulgaria and the only British player left, Joshua Boulton.
The other bracelet holder left? Kevin Song. I don't he's related to Stephen Song who won an event a week or so ago!
Still no update on who the mysterious "Miranda" was, but she (I presume it's a she) just missed the top 100, finishing 102nd for $2018.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 1 of 3, 2650 entries
You've got to be 60 years of age to play the Super Seniors, and there are plenty of eligible players in the card rooms of Vegas this time of year - the 2650 is a record for this event.
The day 1 chip leader is Charles Bailey from Alaska, with 836 others accompanying him through to Day 2 ahead of Ken Gurley and Dennis Owen.
No sign of tikay, perhaps he isn't old enough, but we do have some GB players through led by Tony Bedford, Linda Iwaniak, Michael Davis, Murray Henderson and Mark McCluskey.
Some well known names left in - TJ Cloutier, Barry Greenstein and the two Toms, Franklin & McEvoy.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 1 of 3, 1216 entries
Exactly 200 remain after Day 1 of Event 40, with an Israeli at the top in the shape of Shahar Levi, with Sajal Gupta and one of the players of the series so far, Keith Lehr in third.
It looks like there is a Brit inside the top 5, but Dimitri Holdeew is an Austrian shown as being resident in Brighton. That means we have to look down to 50th spot for Adam Monaghan, and further down we see Gary Solomons, Barny Boatman and Jan Collado
Matt Glantz jumped into this after finishing 3rd in the Dealers Choice and that looks a good decision so far with him lying 8th overnight, while also in are Erik Seidel, meerkat Alexandr Orlov and Kenny Hallaert, and Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey player Phil Kessel.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, 4 Day Event
Early stages in a star-studded (sorry) field with less than 80 players entered on Day 1 with some late reg still available.
Almost half survive, 36 to be exact led by Scott Siever, with two of 2019's bracelet winners Scott Clements and Greg Mueller close behind and another, Michael Mizrachi in 5th.
No prizes for guessing the only Brit to make Day 2, Benny Glaser very rarely gets knocked out early in these $10K events, but he's on fumes after Day 1, with only about 10% of the stack of the leader.
To start today
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, 2 Day Event, $500K Guaranteed prize pool
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, 3 Day Event
Barny @FCHD
I suspect the mysterious "Miranda" might refer to the room in which they were playing. Rooms include Amazon, Palma, Pavilion, Miranda etc.
We're down to a Final Table of 6, and the chip leader is a familiar name, although he hasn't bagged himself a bracelet yet. Joseph Cheong has over $13m in live cashes, headlined by the over $4m he got for finishing 3rd to Jonathan Duhamel in the 2010 ME (the year Redmond got to 21st). He is aiming to add over $687K to that total but is of course mainly in pursuit of that elusive first bracelet.
Cheong has 100.3m chips and as they'll come back to blinds of 500K/1m, it's easy to work out he has 100BB, a long way clear of nearest rival David Ivers (60BB) and Zinan Xu is third with 54BB
There is still a female challenger - Arianna Son who has been up among the chip leaders most of the tournament has now dropped to the back, with just 5BB but like everyone else left in, she has earned at least $134K.
The last two British challengers both fell on Day 4 - Jack Sinclair went out in 27th for $27K, ten places earlier than Andrew Hawskby whose payout slip bore the amount $29666.
Event 37 - $800 NLH Deepstack, Day 3 of 3, $750K guaranteed, 2808 entries
A long day of poker saw them play all the way from 26 to just 1, and that 1 was Robert Mitchell who took nearly $300K and a gold bracelet and will return home to Utah a WSOP Champion.
Holding pockets aces and have the opponent go all-in on you pre-flop when heads-up for a bracelet must be a very surreal experience, and then to see the board run out dry must make it even more so. Marco Bognanni got no help for his pocket threes and Mitchell was the champion.
France's Axel Halley finished third with players from Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine 4th 5th & 6th.
The only Briton through to the final day was Joshua Boulton who ended up 10th with a very nice cash of $19601 more than doubling his entire career recorded cashes, most of which have come in Torquay.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 2 of 3, 2650 entries
Day 2 of the Super Seniors reduced the field to 120 which I expect to mean that an extra days play will be needed
Jay Hong is the chip leader, but the player in second is bound to extract some interest - double bracelet winner (including a WSOP Europe Main Event) Barry Shulman. And he's not the only Shulman in the 120, his wife, Allyn is also through.
Humberto Brenes and Tom Franklin are a couple more former bracelet winners qualifying (does Brenes still have that annoying toy shark shtick?) along with three from these shores - in descending stack order Michael Davis, Peter Costa (2 cashes already this WSOP) and Edwin Bibes.
We lost plenty of British players over the day, those who cashed included Tony Bedford (almost immediately after the bursting of the bubble), Linda Iwaniak (who finalled this event last year) and Mark McCluskey.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 2 of 3, 1216 entries
Twenty one players remain in the chase for Event 40, all now sure of at least $8807 but with $298K up top there's going to be some ups and downs yet.
Barny Boatman suffered one of the downs, getting knocked out on the bubble by Mike "The Mouth" Matusow
It is Denis Bagsadarov who tucked away the biggest stack of Day 2 ahead of Glen Cressman and Johannes Toebbe, with double bracelet holder Ben Zamani in 4th. Even lying 4th, he's not the highest player from Boca Raton, Florida as Crossman is also from that hometown.
It looks like we have one British challenger still involved, Adam Monaghan, but the only player of that name in the Hendon Mob Database is an Aussie.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, Day 2 of 4, 88 entries
A few late registrants took the field to 88 and just seven of them are left.
Daniel Negreanu spent the day almost relentlessly chipping up, first taking out a number of smaller stacks and finally busting Michael Mizrachi to establish a chip lead.
In contrast to some of the other events, this one will probably end up finishing a day early as they're already down to the FT which will free up the players for the next $10K event, the 2-7 Triple Draw.
Six of the seven left already have bracelets to their credit, Negreanu, David "ODB" Baker, Frank Kassela, John Hennigan, Chris Tryba & David Singer. The odd one out is Russia's Mikhail Semin
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 1 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries
The field for this has already been depleted from 2403 to just 195, and while it should finish inside the planned two days, the expected early finish of Event 41 has meant that arrangements have been made for a Day 3 here if necessary.
Adam Lamphere is the Day 2 chip leader from Caleb Hershey and Dustin Goldklang a respectable distance back in second and third.
Scanning down the list of qualifiers I can see some who had Final Table runs in the main - Ylon Schwartz, Jesse Sylvia, Eoghan O'Dea and Tony Miles, and one who had the dream to Main Event glory, Jamie Gold, who won $12m for that win back in 2006, and has yet to reach $13m in career earnings.
A decent British challenge with Robert Cowen, James Dempsey, Barny Boatman, Sam Razavi aand Jeff Kimber amongst them.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 1 of 3, 218 entries
This one is rocking along at a furious pace, only 52 players still chasing 33 spots in the money and a first prize of $127K.
Jonathan Depa moved into the lead late on, overtaking Jared Bleznick who had been among the bigger stacks all day.
Phil Hellmuth by contrast was down almost to a chip and a chair before getting two late double ups to least give him something to work with on Day 2, even if he is still among the smaller stacks.
Somewhere in between we can find David Baker, not "ODB" who is on the FT of Event 41, but "Bakes", Brandon Shack-Harris, Mike Sexton, Chris Ferguson, David Benyamine, Eli Elezra and German footballer and regular WSOP participant Max Kruse.
The only British name I can find is Usman Siddique.
To start today, marking the halfway point of the 89 bracelet events
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, 3 Day Event
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, 4 Day Event
Joseph Cheong had two runner-up finishes, a third (in the Main Event) and a fourth, and has now added a WSOP bracelet to his poker CV.
He managed to use his big stack to his advantage and by the time heads-up play with David Ivers started, he had a 3:1 advantage and although Ivers came back at one point, Cheong was never to be headed and won the bracelet and over $687K
The day started 6-handed, but within 8 hands they were down to 3 as first Ido Ashkenazi bust, quickly followed by Arianna Son and then in the very next hand we said "Arrividerci" to Andrea Bunonocore.
Zinan Xu was the short stack throughout three-handed play and never managed to improve on that.
Event 39 - $1000 Super Seniors NLH, Day 3 of 3, 2650 entries
Extra time required here as there are still 10 players involved. Michael Blake has been like a wrecking ball on Day 3, eliminating player after player and earning himself the chip lead.
He'll be sat next to two-time bracelet winner Barry Shulman as they reconvene for Day 4, on two five-handed tables rather than combining for an unofficial FT of 10.
Second place belongs to Kanajett Hathaitham and third to Rick Austin in an all-American final 10.
Event 40 - $1500 PLO, Day 3 of 3, 1216 entries
Ismael Bojang has won his first bracelet in his 75th WSOP cash (and 10th this series) by beating James Little heads-up. Little entered heads-up 2.4:1 down and Bojang never left him off the hook, winning all the big hands and eventually finishing tbe job off with a 7-high straight.
Ben Zamani won the battle to be best of Boca Raton in third, with Day 2 chip leader Denis Bagdasarov finishing 4th.
A quick mention for 18th placed Carson Wieland, who was playing his first ever WSOP event and made it to the final day.
Event 41 - $10K Seven Card Stud, Day 3 of 4, 88 entries
As expected, done and dusted within three days. With 6 of the 7 remaining players having already won WSOP bracelets, a star-studded heads-up match was likely, and we got what Lance Bradley tweeted was the first ever heads-up match for a bracelet between two Poker Hall of Fame members.
The final was between Daniel Negreanu (6 bracelets) and John Hennigan (5 bracelets) with the Canadian having the early lead, but 4 hours or so of up & down stud poker later, it was Hennigan who got the better of it and equalised the bracelet count between the two at 6-each.
Hennigan won $245K, Negreanu (who hasn't won a bracelet in Vegas since 2008) $151K and third-placed David "ODB" Baker $104K.
I mentioned a few days ago that Upeshka Da Silva wins his bracelets in odd-numbered years, well this breaks the opposite sequence for Hennigan, who won his first five in 02/04/14/16 & 18
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 2 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries
As expected, a Day 3 will be necessary as eight players bagged chips at the end of Day 2.
It's no change at the top as Day 1 chip leader Adam Lamphere is back at the top of the listings on Day 2, with only Dan Matsuzki anywhere near his chip total.
It's four Americans against four international players, 2 of which come from India with third placed Raghav Bansal one of the duo from the subcontinent.
Sam Razavi put in a gallant effort to make his second FT of the series, but fell short when eliminated in 10th ($16603) after being chip leader for a part of the day.
Other British cashes included $2473 for Robert Cowen, $2097 for Gilad Tiefenbrun and $1796 for James Dempsey.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 2 of 3, 218 entries
With some tournaments finishing early and others requiring extra time, it's a bit of normality to see an event that should finish in its normal compliment of 3 days.
7 remain, headed up by last years runner-up Ryan Hughes who has already eliminated the player who outlasted him last year, Scott Bohlman in the last bustout of the day.
5 of the seven have bracelets already in their trophy cabinet, Loren Klein having three and Hughes two. One of the others who has one previous bracelet is WPT commentator Mike Sexton who appears to be playing better now he's in his seventies than he has for years.
Usman Siddique was the only British player to cash, squeaking in to the money and being the first player eliminated post-bubble for $3767.
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, Day 1 of 3, 1807 entries
With good timing, the bubble burst on the last hand of the day meaning all 272 players who return for day 2 are in the money (a min cash is $1414)
I'm not sure I've referenced anyone from Andorra in these updates before now but there's a first time for most things, and that time is now. Ignacio Molina picked up his first WSOP cash earlier in the week in Event 34, and he's now got a second and is in good shape as the Day 1 chip leader.
Geographic neighbour Kevin Naegelen from France is second and Baitai Li from New York state is third.
A decent amount of GB players made the money headed by Tom Hall in 7th spot with Scott Margereson 24th and Andrew Hills 55th the best of them.
Looking at a few other names, Sam Grizzle is a real blast from the past, with Hendon Mob cashes dating back to 1988, Barry Greenstein can't match that, only going back to 1992 but does have 3 bracelets, and the looming spectre of Phil Ivey who is still looking for a really deep run to possibly add to his 10 bracelets is through too, but will need a double-up pretty soon on Day 2.
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 1 of 4, 222 entries so far
One of the big boy events, which will have a significant effect on the Player of the Year standings and needs just 8 late registrations to match last year's record field.
128 of the 222 remain, with Keith Lehr a smidgin ahead of Paul Volpe at the top of the standings, and Firas Sadou a little further back in third.
Ludovic Geilich is the highest placed of the British challenge in 5th, with another LG, Lautaro Guerra just outside the top 10 and Gavin Cochrane in 18th.
Next placed with a Union Jack against their name is Jorryt Van Hoff, showing as from London, but the 2014 ME third-placed is from the Netherlands and is presumably a resident of our capital.
Plenty of bracelet winners left, including Robert Mizrachi now on a mission to get back level with his brother, last year's winner Shaun Deeb and the 2015 winner Anthony Zinno.
Event 46 - $500 WSOP.com Online NLH Turbo Deepstack, 1 Day Event, 1181 entries
A long event title, but for an online bracelet it was more of a sprint than a marathon and was done and dusted in just over seven hours.
The player who ended up as last man standing was Dan Lupo who had been prominent throughout the day, and saw off David Clarke to take the bracelet and $145K.
Third place went to someone who is still only listed by his on-line alias, "johnsonck".
To start today
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, 4 Day Event
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, 4 Day Event
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, 4 Day Event
Michael Blake comes to the WSOP just to play this one event, he's played it for the last three years and cashed in it each time. Now he's gone all the way and taken first WSOP title and over $369K.
He led going into the extra Day 4, and despite losing it at one point to Cary Marshall who started the day like a house on fire, but lost a big hand to Barry Shulman and went out in 3rd.
Stacks were pretty even for a while, but inexorably Blake drew ahead and after about 50 hands of heads-up Shulman shoved with both a flush draw and an open ended-straight draw, but Blake had two pair and all Shulman's draws missed, his hopes for a third bracelet disppeared and Blake could start the celebrations.
Event 42 - $600 Mixed NLH/PLO deepstack, 8-max, Day 3 of 2, $500K Guaranteed prize pool, 2403 entries
Early in the event, Aristeidis Moschonas was down to half a big blind, but over 48 hours later he converted a chip and a chair into a WSOP gold bracelet and $194K after beating 2018 bracelet winner Dan Matsuzuki heads-up.
The two Indian players at the FT finished 5th (Ashish Ahuja) and 3rd (Raghav Bansal) with Germany's Rainer Kempe in between them in 4th.
Event 43 - $2500 Mixed Big Bet, Day 3 of 3, 218 entries
In the 1970s, Bill Boyd and Doyle Brunson both won four bracelets in consecutive years. There are a lot more bracelets now, but the fields are much bigger too so it's still a very impressive achievement matched today by Loren Klein
Klein won a mixed NLH/PLO event in 2016, a $1500 PLO the next year and last year a $10K Championship bracelet in PLO 8-handed. Now he's made it four in a bracelet event that encompasses 7 variants (Big O, No-Limit Hold’em, No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better,No-Limit 5-Card Draw High, Pot-Limit Omaha & Pot-Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw)
He was the short stack when the day started, but together with Ryan Hughes and Phil **** gradually drew away from the rest of the contenders.
**** bust in third and then Klein had a good set of Big O and NLH hands to propel him into a chip lead, and after the game changed to PLO Hi-Lo, a flush condemned Hughes to be the runner-up in this event for the second consecutive year.
Mike Sexton was the first bustout of the day and collected $12K, third placed **** $51K, Hughes nearly $79K and Klein a very nice $127K.
Event 44 - $1500 NLH Bounty, Day 2 of 3, 1807 entries
Only two bracelet holders are among the 23 who will play for the Event 44 title on Friday, including second-placed Asi Moshe who has 2 to his credit while Harrison Gimbel in 4th place has just the one.
Everyone else is looking for their maiden victory, including chip leader Damjan Radanov and fifth place Andrew Hills who hails from Preston.
It would not only be the first bracelet for Vitaljis Zavorotnijs but the first ever for a player from Lativa, while Martijn Gerrits has already made the FT of one bounty event here and is in the top half of the Day 3 field.
Of the other British players, David Tovar in 31st and Dragos Trofimov (36th) both collected $6434 while Scott Margereson (80th) pocketed $2752 the same as a certain Mr Phil Ivey.
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 2 of 4, 278 entries
We're down to 39 halfway through the PLO High Roller, with two Asian players way out in front. Anson Tsang from Hong Kong and James Chen from Taiwan both have over 4m chips in their bags with nearest challenger Alex Epstein (winner of 8) just under 2.5m in third.
Three British challengers are still in with a shout, Ludovic Geilich, Stephen Chidwick and Lautaro Guerra are clustered between 13th and 18th in the overnight standings.
Former ME winner Joe Hachem has survived (albeit with a short stack) as has Erik Seidel, Robert Mizrachi, Paul Volpe and Justin Bonomo.
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 1 of 4, 968 entries
It may not be "Jenny From The Block" but it is Jennifer Lopez who is the Day 1 leader in the Ladies Event, ahead of Katie Lindsay and Diane Cooley.
Two of last years FT are still involved, Jill Pike and Molly Mossey, and some former bracelet winners like Allyn Shulman, Jackie Glazier and Kathy Liebert.
From the UK, Daiva Barauskaite, Natalia Brevigliere and Deborah Worley-Roberts all have long names and are all inside the top 17, but they're the only ones who have made the 261 who will re-start on Day 2.
146 will get a min-cash of just under $1500 with the winner collecting $167K.
Thankfully, I have seen no evidence of any men trying to enter the ladies event again this year.
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 1 of 4, 996 entries
So close to some nice round numbers, with just 4 shy of 1000 entries and 1 more than 200 who will be back for Day 2.
Baitai Li holds the chip lead, but it is the player in 2nd most of us in the UK will be interested in as that is the Hendon Mob's very own Barny Boatman.
Canada, Austria, Denmark, Spain and Bulgaria are all represented inside the Top 10 (in fact there's three Austrians inside the Top 11)
A sprinkling of other British names can be found in the reporting, Robert Heidorn, Niall Farrell and Ben Dobson amongst them while there's a first sighting (for me at least) of the 2014 ME winner Martin Jacobson who will come back inside top quartile of the field.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 4, 92 entries so far
32 players advance with Johannes Becker from Germany the chip leader, but with a couple of Brits hard on his heels in the shapes of Benny Glaser and Luke Schwartz.
I could run through most of the rest of the 32 players as "well known names" but I'll just pick out a few - Calvin Anderson, Max Kruse, Brian Hastings, David Benyamine, Event 33 (also in 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw) winner Robert Campbell and Mike Matusow.
Expect a couple more players to jump in before late reg expires early on Day 2.
To start today
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, 2 starting flights Fri/Sat
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, 3 Day Event
Player of the year leaders
1. Upeshka De Silva 2162
2. Daniel Zack 2146
3. Scott Clements 1837
4. Ismael Bojang 1816
5. Robert Campbell (see above) 1605.
Loren Klein moved into 7th with his win while top Brit is Ben Dobson in 17th.
This will run through the Vegas WSOP and the WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, later in the year.
Second place entering the final day, Asi Moshe came to the fore and collected his third bracelet, with the Israeli also picking up a very nice $253K, plus I think another $12K in bounties.
He entrered heads-up play against Damjan Radanov with almost an 8:1 lead and not surprising it didn't take long for him to finish the American off, although there was one double-up which delayed the inevitable.
Germany's Tonio Roder ran a three barrel bluff with his last 7m chips at just the wrong time, Moshe holding pocket aces to knock Roder out in third.
The last Brit standing was Andrew Hills who made the FT, finishing 6th for $45K,
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 3 of 4, 278 entries
A select field of 7 remain with a British presence at the very top of the leaderboard. Stephen Chidwick has almost 13m chips and only Alex Epstein with 10.8m is anywhere close.
Robert Mizrachi lies 3rd, with 8-time bracelet holder Erik Seidel in 6th.
Two other GB players were busted on Day 3, Ludovic Geilich in 23th and Lautaro Guerrain 17th, both for over $50K,
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 2 of 4, 968 entries
I mentioned yesterday that the 3 remaining GB players were all ones with compartively long names, well the chip leader today is the polar opposite as it is the Canadian Tu Dao.
She has just one WSOP cash, from back in 2005 which is one less than second placed Nancy Matson (although she has a WSOP Circuit ring to her name).
Day 1 chip leader Jennifer Lopez has progressed through to Day 2 together with two former bracelet winners in Jackie Glazier and Kathy Leibert, plus some who have had deep runs in this very event, Jill Pike, Lisa Fong and Deborah Worley-Roberts
Worley-Roberts is accompanied by another player with the Union Jack beside her name, Natalia Brevigliere, while third player I had listed in that category yesterday (Daiva Barauskaite) is now showing as Daiva Byrne from Lithuania
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 2 of 4, 996 entries
Just 26 players are left, with Baitai Le the chip leader for a second day running. Two more Americans come next (Michael Finstein and Ryan Olisar) before we come to a rare player from Uruguay (Pablo Melongo)
After that, the better known players appear with Josh Arieh 5th, Ari Engel 6th and in 7th place no other than Barny Boatman.
Robert Heidorn and Michael Stephenson make up a three-strong UK challenge, nicely split one on each of the 3 tables, and all guarenteed at least $12244 with the eventual winner picking up $427K.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 1 of 4, 100 entries
9% of the runners have made Day 3, and despite losing Benny Glaser as the last elimination of the Day there is still a chance of a British winner with Luke Schwartz in second place.
He marginally trails just George Wolff, each of the top with more than 50% more chips than third placed Mark Gregorich.
Brian Hastings, Calvin Anderson, Daniel Ospina, Johannes Becker, Mike Gorodinsky & Yueqi Zhu make up the rest of a very talented final 9.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1A, 2428 entries
Two Brits in the top 6, with Conor Beresford holding the chiplead (almost half the Day 1A field moving on) and Dean Hutchison in 6th spot.
Iaron Lightbourne, Sunny Chattha, Usman Siddique, Simon Deadman and Adam Owen are also among about 30 British players who have made Day 2.
Amnon Filippi doesn't have a bracelet to his credit, but seems like he's been prominent for years with his best WSOP result being 4th in the Poker Players Championship in 2007 and lies second here with Mark Johnson third.
In fourth spot is Alisson Piekazewicz who I initially assumed was a) female and b) Polish. I was wrong on both counts, he's a young Brazilian male player.
Some other names through - Pierre Neuville, Matt Stout, Neil Blumenfield and Ali Imsirovic
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 1 of 3, 401 entries
It's Russia to the fore with Andrey Zaichenko the leader after the opening day of action, one of 128 players still in with a shout.
The American challenge starts at No. 2, with last year's Player of the Year Shaun Deeb trying to notch up points in a bid to retain that award, and Tom Schneider in third.
אלי אלעזרא (Eli Elezra) and Michael Mizrachi have already padded their bracelet totals this year and are still in this one too, and Phil Ivey was one of the latest of the late reggers and hasn't done much more than protect his opening stack yet while Phil Hellmuth similarly joined the show late on and has at least had one double up.
From these shores, it's a first shout-out of the 2019 WSOP for Stuart Rutter, plus Xunen Zheng, Philip Long, Ben Dobson and Aussie-in-residence Mel Judah bagging chips at close of play.
There son't be a repeat winner here as 2018 bracelet hero David Brookshire was one of the Day 1 casualties.
To start today
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, 4 Day Event
plus Day 1B of the Monster Stack
Loving your work Barny, amazing stamina, thank you.
What will happen is that I'm in London next weekend (Fri-Mon) for the Baseball game at the Olympic Stadium on Sunday afternoon, so updates over that four days may be patchy.