Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 4 of 4, 278 entries The first British bracelet of the day goes to Stephen Chidwick. After so many near misses (13 Final Tables) the man from Kent finally got his hands on the jewellry (and a huge pile of cash - $1.6m worth).
It was Chidwick's first event of the WSOP, he arrived in Vegas just in time to late reg.
James Chen was aiming to get the first ever bracelet for Taiwan, but came up one position short as Chidwick won the heads-up match in just short of a hour. Chen also bagged a 7-figure payday to ease his pain of losing out.
Third place went to Matthew Gonzales and fourth to Robert Mizrachi.
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 3 of 4, 968 entries Tu Dao had a roller-coaster of a day, but in the end she finished it exactly where she started it, top of the chip listings.
Just six remain, with Jiyoung Kim of Korea in second place in what will be her first ever WSOP cash, and Nancy Matson is third. Nobody still in contention has a bracelet to their credit so it will be a brand new experience for someone.
Deborah Worley-Roberts went out in 21st spot ($4767) and Natalia Breviglieri 15th for $7311.
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 3 of 4, 996 entries Another player with heaps of WSOP experience has also broken his duck as Ari Engel took down Event 48.
Heads-up with Pablo Melogno didn't last long, the Uruguayan entering the final with about an 11:4 lead but a huge hand when Engle shoved in the flop aith AQ on a K-10-4 board (and a back door flush draw) while Melongo called with top pair. A Jack on the river won it for the American with nearly all the chips in play shifting his way, and one hand later it was all over.
William Hoffman was third on a FT that lasted just 68 hands.
Of the three British challengers, Barny Boatman did best (18th for a little over $15K) while both Robert Heidorn and Michael Stephenson busted on the previous payout level for $12K.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 3 of 4, 100 entries No need for a Day 4 as Luke Schwartz made it two bracelets on the day for the British contingent.
He seems to have grown up a lot since the days of "Sandwichgate" and numerous other petulant outbursts, and perhaps he will deservedly now be known for his poker exploits.
Three handed play went on for hours with the trio of Schwartz, George Wolff and Johannes Becker going back and forth until Becker finally dropped.
After that, Wolff still wouldn't go away but a battle between two 8-high hands saw the Londoner emerge victorious and cue huge celebrations on the rail.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1B, 6035 entries in total Over 3600 players played the second flight, with the fact this was a pure freezeout catching several players out who thought they'd be able to re-enter 1B after busting on 1A.
James Hundt, Kapila Garner and Rick Alvarado are the top three stacks but with nearly 1800 making it through from today's field to add to the 1A qualifiers, there's still a very long way to go.
Looking for British names, Ben Farrell is the highest place while I assume "Duthie John" with no location listed is British legend John Duthie. Martins Adeniya, Michael Kane, Katie Swift, Louis Salter, Jeff Kimber, James Rann are among those also making Day 2, along Natalia Breviglieri after busting the Ladies event.
The WSOP have helpfully picked out a few names to save me searching through a huge list, so I can say that Taylor Paur, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein and a couple of others from the ladies event Allyn Shulman and Jackie Glazier.
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 2 of 3, 401 entries A dozen left, Michael Thompson having the biggest stack of the 12 ahead of Daniel Ratigan and continuing a very good day for British players, Philip Long is 3rd.
Stuart Rutter bust out in 49th place, earning $3882, the only other British player in the money.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 1 of 4, 494 players so far The latest $10K Championship event has seen almost 500 players already entered, meaning a decent increase on last year's 476.
No fewer than 253 players were still standing at the end of Day 1, with the concise name of Yi Li at the top of the chip listings, immediately followed by Mohsin Virani and Timothy Batow.
2011 winner Ben Lamb is the first of the better known players, with Daniel Negreanu, David Benyamine, Robert Mizrachi, Eoghan O'Dea and fresh from losing heads up in Event xx, James Chen.
Brits? Yes of course. Jan Collado is inside the Top 20, and next is Armin Ghojevand whose only recorded cashes on Hendon Mob amount to less than £2000 all in Didsbury from 2014-15. Further down we can pick out Toby Lewis, Peter Costa, Fraser MacIntyre, Stuart Rutter and Barny Boatman.
To start today Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, 2 Day Event. $750K guaranteed prize pool Event 54 - $1500 Razz, 4 Day Event Event 55 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH double stack, 1 Day Event
After the double glory for British players yesterday, today was a little more low key.
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 4 of 4, 968 entries The ladies event is over and the last survivor of nearly 100 players was Korea's Jiyoung Kim making her first WSOP cash a mammoth one. She wins $167K, far surpassing her previous $22K from an event in the Philippines.
It was just the second ever Korean bracelet (Sean Yu won one two years ago)
Heads-up against Nancy Matson started with Kim having about a 3:2 chip lead, a lead she never relinquished and after about 40 hands the tournament was over.
Third place went to France's Sandrine Phan, while Day 2 & 3 chip leader Tu Dao went out in fourth.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 2 of 5, 6035 entries in total While 2052 players started the day after getting through the two Day 1s, three quarters of them had the long walk away from the tables after losing their last chips.
Of the 457 who did make Day 3, the player they're all chasing is Kainalu McCue-Unciano. Try saying that 10 times really fast. In second is another Las Vegas local, Andrew Moreno with Oklahoman Brady Bullard very close behind.
The bubble burst in the middle of the day and everyone still in will take at least $3534 with the winner collecting just over a million dollars.
You've got to look pretty hard to find too many well known names amongst the field, former ME winner Joe Cada perhaps the biggest name along with Pierre Neuville but the British challenge is still in decent in both quality and quantity - Juan Sanchez, Elliott Peterman, Iaron Lightbourne, Louis Salter, Sunny Chattha, Adam Daniel, Christopher Poulton, Andrew Fields, Robert Tinnion, John Duthie (correctly ordered today), Raul Martinez, Robert Sherwood, James Rann, Guy Taylor, Phillippe Souki, Graham Hiew, Kevin Wibberley, Dean Hutchison and Jeff Kimber being the players in question.
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 3 of 3, 401 entries A very late night, with Yuri Dzivielevksi and Michael Thompson agreeing to play an extra hour when they were heads-up at what would have normally been the end of Day 3.
The extra hour was barely scratched, a couple of hands was all that needed as Dzivielevski got a full house on the turn of an Omaha Hi-Lo hand with no low draw and Thmpson was drawing dead.
The big hand happened maybe half an hour earlier on a hand of Stud Hi-Lo Dzivielevski hit a K-Q high flush on seventh street while Thompson could only manage a K-9 flush. This saw Dzivielevski take a dominating lead after stacks had been pretty even beforehand.
Third and fourth places went to Russians (Stebkov & Zaichenko) while Philip Long had another deep run bowing out in 6th for $31K.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 2 of 4, 518 players so far Far and away the biggest of the $10K events outside the Main, with a record field for this event.
Both yesterday's British bracelet winners entered this at the last minute, with very different results. Stephen Chidwick lasted all of one hand (!) while Luke Schwartz was hot all day and ended Day 2 second in chips behind only Daniel Alaei. Another former bracelet winner, Shaun Deeb lies third.
Hand-for-hand play on the bubble lasted 9 hands before Ray Henson was the last to leave without at least a $15K min cash and from then to close of play we lost two British players, Jan Collado (for that min-cash) and Peter Costa ($16K). That leaves Schwartz, James Park (8th) and Matthew Perry (28th) to battle on towards possible future glory.
Shout out to David Halpern. Last heard of here I think back in Event 4 when he finished 4th, he is through to tomorrow's play in both this and the Monster Stack, and could frequently be seen running between the two events during the day.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 1 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries 440 players through to Day 2, with one of the bigger stacks belonging to the No. 1 ranked player in the Global Poker Index, Alex Foxen. He lies in seventh place in a list headed by Kenneth Johnson, Shmuel Hada and 2013 November Niner Amir Lehavot.
Lehavot finished third that year, but there are still 3 ME winners left here, as well as recent bracelet winner Asi Moshe.
From this country, Adrian State leads the way in 18th, ahead of Harry Lodge , Timothy Chung, Aaron Fisher and Simon Deadman all inside the Top 100 and there are plenty of others further down still in play.
Let's see if they can manage to play down from 440 to 1 inside one day's play.
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 1 of 4, 363 entries You'd think Eric Rodawig would be favoured in another variant of poker, he is from Omaha after all, but it's Razz in which he leads the Day 1 field.
Mr Burns is second, not Montgomery Burns but Stephen Burns from Michigan and Doug Lorgeree about whom I know nothing is third.
Adam Owen is one of a handful of Brits through along with Vamshi Vandanapu, Jason Gray and the micro-stacked Joe Brindle.
Loren Klein, fresh from his fourth bracelet in consecutive years bagged chips as did Ryan Reiss, Gavin Griffin, Jennifer Tilly and for the second time today Chris Ferguson.
55 will get paid a minimum of $2247 with the winner getting $119K.
Event 55 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH double stack, 1 Day Event, xxx entries Another online event so not much to write about, except to note that the winner Jason Gooch was the runner-up in an earlier on-line bracelet event and this time he went one better, he's also cashed in a couple of the live PLO events in Vegas.
Three Italians made the final table, Max Pescatori (9th), Gianluca Speranza (7th) and Dario Sammartino (4tH), with, for the record, Anthony Augostino 3rd and Brian Wood the runner-up#
To start today Event 56 - $1500 NLH Super Turbo Bounty, 1 Day Event Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, 4 Day Event Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), 5 Day Event
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 3 of 5, 6035 entries in total The field has been reduced to 49 and the overnight leader Vincent Chauve does indeed have a Monster Stack of 22m chips.
Bryan Kim is second before another Frenchman, Anthony Kazgandjian rounds out the top 3.
The long list of British players mentioned yesteday has been whittled down to three - Elliot Peterman, Juan Sanchez and Guy Taylor. Taylor has a good record in massive field WSOP events, cashing in the 2017 Colossus and Main Event and the 2018 Colossus and Goliath
Ryan Hughes is the only double bracelet winner left, while also through are Bart Hanson, Igor Yaroshevskyy and a player whose story would rival any the WSOP have brought us over the years.
Former poker pro Kevin Roster was diagnosed with a rare cancer called Sarcoma, unfortunately too late to treat it (he's already lost his left leg). He has a very little time left and has moved to California because of the "right to die" legislation existing in that state. Before he has to make that horrible decision, he came to Vegas for one last WSOP and to spread awareness of his condition and has made Day 4 earning at least $18K so far which we can only hope goes to make his last few days/weeks/months more comfortable.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 3 of 4, 518 entries Bubbling up nicely with a FT of 8 players ready to fight it out for the bracelet after 5-time bracelet winner (including winning this event) Daniel Alaei went out in 9th.
Dash Dudley leads fellow Mid-Westener Kyle Montgomery with back in third place Eoghan O'Dea. O'Dea has final tabled both this and the Main Event but has yet to get his hands on an elusive bracelet (to go with the one his father won in 1998)
O'Dea is not the only former November Niner still active, as Jeremy Ausmus is also a member of that club.
There is one British player among the 8 - James Park is nicely in the midle of the pack with 25BB so a playable stack for a Final Table.
Luke Schwartz's attempt on a second bracelet ended when he lost a set over set battle in 21st for $30K, while we'd earlier also lost Matthew Perry in 45th for almsot $20K.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 2 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries I thought it would be that most American of cliches, a "Big Ask" to get all the way from 440 players to a champion inside a day, and so it proved as an extra day will be needed to sort out the final 10.
No British representation though, with the two Europeans being the pleasingly alliterative Santaigo Soriano (Spain) and Daniele D'Angelo (Deutschland) in the top two places.
Third goes to the only former bracelet winner left, Amir Lehavot adding to what has been a good series for that country although he is now resident in California. If he doesn't count, Israel still has a representative in Ori Hasson.
The biggest GB cashes went to Nicholas Marchington (19th for $12.4K), Richard King (58th for $4.6K) and four players who each took $2853, Steve Jelinek, Min Ji, Florian Duta & Lewis Higham
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 2 of 4, 363 entries Another event where the British challenge has been dismissed, with Argentina showing at the top of the board in the shape of Andres Korn. There's a player from the Seychelles in second (Jean Said). Doesn't the Seychelles have one of the best national flags? In third place is the first of 8 Americans, Christopher Kusha.
Noah Bronstein, Jennifer Tilly & Scott Clements are among that American challenge, with the last British player bowing out in 21st (Adam Owen, $3325) and the only other on to cash being Vamshi Vandanapu (32nd for $2895)
Event 56 - $1500 NLH Super Turbo Bounty, 1 Day Event, 1867 entries With happenings in other events ending up out of schedule, it turned out that the only bracelet to be won was in an event that started and finished on the same day.
And it was so close to yet another British bracelet, with Robert Bickley coming up just one spot short against Jonas Lauck of Germany.
It took over 15 hours from start to finish meaning a long day for all concerned, but the heads-up match didn't contribute too much to that as it was all over within two hands. Bickley three-bet all in on a flop of 5-4-3 with pocket kings, Lauck had 10-6 and a flush draw and called with several million outs which missed on the turn but hit on the river. The heads-up difference was $100K as Lauck took $260K and Bickley $160K.
Another British player, Arron Woodcock made the FT finishing 7th for $35K, Idris Drief took $2819 and their were progressively smaller cashes for Tom Hall, Sean Rogozzini, James Clarke, Sam Razavi, Seun Oluwole, Brandon Sheils and Joel Isla
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 1 of 4, 976 entries 278 teams have progressed to Day 2 but with the WSOP only showing the team "leader" on the reports, who's left in is a little uncertain.
What is known is that the top team is that headed by Jared Jaffee with the team of Martijn Gerrits in 2nd and that of Michael Wang in 3rd.
Jaffee's team is made up by two brothers, Ralph and Aaros Massey. Gerrits has Preston Lee & Kane Kalas for company, while Wang can tag in recent bracelet winner Dan Zack and Ajay Chabra
Plenty of teams headed by British players left in, including that of Elliott Peterman, James George, Stefan Fabian, Dragos Trofimov, Calin Trif, Fraser MacIntyre, Gary Blackwood, Harry Lodge and Alex Whitenstall but there are doubtless other Brits hiding in those or other combos.
147 of the teams will cash for at least $1498 but the winners will split over $168K.
The team that attracted most of the attention before the event was the pairing of veteran Mike Sexton and recent star of the TV show "Jeopardy", James Holzhauer. In the end, Sexton played possibly all the hands as Holzhauer played (and eventually busted) the Super Turbo, but lost two flips in a row and the team were knocked out.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 1 of 5, 64 players so far The most prestigious event of the Series for the pros, we were so close to having all 64 players who entered day 1 making it through, but Mike Gorodinsky played a set strong on a PLO hand and lived to regret it when Josh Arieh hit his draw on the river.
That pushed Arieh to the top of the Day 1 chip listings ahead of Justin Bonomo and Joshn Esposito
Three 2019 bracelet winners have turned their starting stack of 300K chips into over 400K, Adam Friedman, John Hennigan and Stephen Chidwick while Eli Elezra has boosted his stack by just 10% and Luke Schwartz by under 1%
Some other British names entered include former winners Matthew Ashton and Elior Sion, plus Talal Shakerchi, Benny Glaser and Matthew Wood.
Three time winner Michael Mizrachi has made it to Day 2 with just over half his starting stack, which least is better than Daniel Negreanu has done, but Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Shaun Deed, Scott Siever and Isaac Haxton will all return for Day 2 with more chips than they were given to start with.
To start today Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, 3 Day Event, $500K guaranteed prize pool Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, 3 Day Event
Tikay has been appearing quite regularly in the chip counts on what has been a pretty thin day of updates on this event. Either a) he knows someone at Pokernews or b) he's slipped them a $20 everytime they report on him.
Anyway, starting stack is 25,000 and everytime his name is mentioned (e.g. in the last list I can see along with Maria Ho, Barny Boatman & Mike Matusow) he's trundling along just below the starting stack.
Tikay has been appearing quite regularly in the chip counts on what has been a pretty thin day of updates on this event. Either a) he knows someone at Pokernews or b) he's slipped them a $20 everytime they report on him.
Anyway, starting stack is 25,000 and everytime his name is mentioned (e.g. in the last list I can see along with Maria Ho, Barny Boatman & Mike Matusow) he's trundling along just below the starting stack.
You know me too well Barny.
One of the Pokernews reporters at the WSOP is Jen Mason, not only an ex Sky Poker TV Analyst, but a very dear friend of mine & updating colleague in a previous business, when we updated the WSOP on behalf of another site from 2004 onwards.
She came to see me for a chat in the O8 event just after it began today, after which my name kept appearing in the Updates for no good reason other than she knows me well.
I doubt it will appear again though, unless it's with "0 Chips" alongside my name.
Tikay has been appearing quite regularly in the chip counts on what has been a pretty thin day of updates on this event. Either a) he knows someone at Pokernews or b) he's slipped them a $20 everytime they report on him.
Anyway, starting stack is 25,000 and everytime his name is mentioned (e.g. in the last list I can see along with Maria Ho, Barny Boatman & Mike Matusow) he's trundling along just below the starting stack.
You know me too well Barny.
One of the Pokernews reporters at the WSOP is Jen Mason, not only an ex Sky Poker TV Analyst, but a very dear friend of mine & updating colleague in a previous business, when we updated the WSOP on behalf of another site from 2004 onwards.
She came to see me for a chat in the O8 event just after it began today, after which my name kept appearing in the Updates for no good reason other than she knows me well.
I doubt it will appear again though, unless it's with "0 Chips" alongside my name.
Had to split this into two as I seem to have exceeded the maximum size of forum post!
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 4 of 5, 6035 entries in total We're down to a FT of 6 with a new name at the top - Benjamin Ector. He's had a couple of 4 figure scores this summer, but this is going to dwarf that with a minimum of $195 already locked up.
In second place is Day 2 (I think) leader Kainaiu McCue-Unciano and Canadian Gregory Katayama is third.
Bart Hanson is a respected commentator and strategist but he to is going to be earning his biggest cash (at least in proper poker, he once won $200K on a video poker machine in Vegas), Day 3 leader Vincent Chauve is 5th and bringing up the rear is Ukranian Igor Yaroshevskyy who was runner-up in a bracelet event in 2015 brings up the rear.
I mentioned Kevin Roster yesterday, his dream ended lost a flip against British player Elliott Peterman to go out in 39th spot, but there's already been offers from, among others, Greg Merson to put him in the Main Event so hopefully we'll see Roster one more time at this WSOP.
Peterman lasted until they were down to 2 tables, busting 16th for $43K while the other two British players were also knocked out - Guy Taylor $27K for 30th and Juan Sanchez 11th for $69K.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 4 of 4, 518 entries Done and dusted due to Dash Dudley dominating heads-up play (sorry I ran out of D words) with British PLO specialist James Park. With chips almost exactly even when third placed Joel Feldman was eliminated, a couple of big hands in a row saw the American take a clear lead and a final hand where Dudley bet with an overpair to a J62 board, Park called with top pair and got no help.
Jeremy Ausmus finished 4th while Eoghan O'Dea, railed by father Donancha, went out in 6th.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 3 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries I've mentioned in passing alliteratively named players several times, and now after DD wins Event 52, Event 53 goes to SS in the form of Santiago Soriano.
Spanish pro Soriano, who made Day 5 of the Main last year took the lead with 10 players left, and while he was passed when play was 4-handed, he knocked out several of his opponents but by the time heads-up play was reached, it was more-or-less even with former Bracelet holder and November Niner Amir Lehavot.
That situation didn't last long. Soriano made a full house on the first hand two-handed, and all the chips went in on the flop on the second hand. The board was a rainbow 3-10-8, Soriano had J-10 for top pair and 3-bet shoved only to come up against a slowly played pair of black aces from Lehavot. A third ten on the flop cracked the aces and won Soriano the bracelet and $371K with the Israeli having to settle for $229K.
Earlier, Ben Underwood was the 3rd placed finisher, completing an impressive trilogy. There has been three live NLH events branded as "deepstacks" so far, Events 9, 37 & 53. Underwood has finished 4th, 5th & 3rd in them. Odds on a 4-peat in Event 59?
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 3 of 4, 363 entries No need for Day 4 here where the plaudits went to Kevin Gerhart who was playing his first WSOP Razz event.
Three countries seem to have been doing very well at this series, the UK, Israel and Brazil with players from the South American country having taken 2 bracelets and a record 10 FTs, with Sergio Braga adding to the latter figure here when finishing second. He put up a valiant effort, three times doubling up as the short stack before falling at the 4th time of asking.
Third went to Joseph Hoffman, while two 2019 bracelet winners Robert Campbell and Scott Clements saw their dreams of a second bracelet end in 7th & 6th spots respectively, while I mentioned yesterday there was a player from the Seychelles involved, well that was a WSOP coding error, Jean Said actually represents Senegal. Still a rare country to see at a FT (he finished 5th) but not such a good flag.
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 2 of 4, 976 entries 35 teams remain in contention for the Tag Team bracelet, three of which are captained by British players - James George and Elliott Peterman (Dragos Trofimov is also showing as UK but is a Moldovan resident in a village in Northern Ireland) but they're all chasing the Ohad Geiger/Daniel Dayan/Barak Wisbrod trio who top the chip listings.
2016 Main Event Final Tabler Kenny Hallert has secured his 50th WSOP cash as the leader of the second paced team, while the Day 1 leaders of Jared Jaffee and the Massey brothers squeaked into Day 3 as the short stack.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 2 of 5, 74 entries Ten more players ponied up the $50K at the start of Day 2 which means we have a record low field for the PPC, but two very big names were among them - Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan.
Ivey has cashed in this event three times and has put himself in a good position to do so again as he can be found at the very top of the overnight chip listings ahead of 2014 winner John Hannigan and Chris Vitch.
Dwan who hasn't been seem much (if at all) at the WSOP for the last 7 years isn't among the 38 survivors as he bust during the last level of the day.
One more former PPC winner, Liverpool's Matthew Ashton sits nicely in 7th spot, recent bracelet winner Luke Schwartz is 13th and high-roller specialist Talal Shakerchi will need some help from the cards to move up from 30th spot.
Only 12 players will cash, but the winner will get a payout slip for almost $1.1m
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 1 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries The WSOP have previously reserved the "Championship" tag for $10K events so it was a bit of a surprise to see it attached to a $600 tournament.
919 players successfully navigated the Day 1 play, with an end to proceedings called when the bubble burst so everyone left is guaranteed at least $875.
With such a huge number of players left in I can't do much more than scratch the surface of the players list, but 2004 ME winner Greg Raymer is one of those through as is Kathy Liebert, Humberto Brenes and Alex Foxen.
The best known of the GB challengers are problaly Chris Moorman, Jack Salter and Ben Dobson, but Mohammed Suhail had a great day and ended up in 4th place, with Waikiat Lee, Bradley Viner, Phillipe Souki, Katie Swift and Joshua Curry are all inside the top 300.
What am I missing? The actual chip leaders. Dan Matsuzuki who had a near miss in Event 42 a week or so, finishing as runner-up, is the Day 1 top dog ahead of China's Dianlei Zhang and Bobby Oboodi from New Jersey is third.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 3, 1117 entries This is where we wanted, nay expected, the name of Tony Kendall to appear prominently in this update, but alas it was not to be as despite being a regular in the updates of illustrious players on the PokerNews updates, our hero fell towards the end of the day.
More than 200 entries up on last year, which is undoubtedly a good sign with exactly 700 bustouts on the day, 417 move on.
The chip leader is Ray Medlin, with Richard Bai and Danny Woolard in the top 3 but the first of the big named players is Ari Engel in fourth. Engel already has a first and a second in the 2019 WSOP and is inside the top 10 on the Player of the Year table and more points here won't do him any harm at all.
Scott Clements also has a a win and a FT (earlier today in Event 54) and he too made Day 2 with a well above average stack and some other players in the top half include Jeremy Ausmus, James Obst, Ben Yu, Hall-of-Fame candidate Chris Bjorin, Frank Kassela, Mike Sexton and Joseph Cheong.
A very strong British challenge is headed by Patrick Leonard in 24th, not far ahead of Grant Sharp and Paul Sokoloff, with Jeffrey Duvall, Rishi Amin, Warren Colman, Paresh Doshi, David Barraclough, Tony Bloom, Peter Linton, Bjorn Verbakel and Lee Horton all inside the top 200.
To start today Event 61 - $400 Colossus, 3 Day event, 2 starting flights Wed/Thu Event 62 - $10K Razz, 4 Day Event
A little bit shorter than yesterday's report. But does contain reference to Venn Diagrams.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 5 of 5, 6035 entries in total All over, and it was a retun to the top for the Day 2 leader, Hawaiian Kainaiu McCue-Unciano. It's his first WSOP gold bracelet, and he also takes the small matter of $1,008,850, double the sum of his previous career recorded cashes.
It took three hours for him to finish off his heads up rival, Vincent Chauve, despite having a large lead at the start. The Frenchman won most of the bigger pots in the first half of the match and even took the lead briefly before McCue-Unciano came back and won the lot.
Third place went to Canadian Gregory Katayama.
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 2 of 4, 976 entries No need for a Day 4 here as it was done and dusted within 3 days of play.
I mentioned in passing yesterday that Israeli players were having a good series, make that a great series now as the trio of Barak Wisbrod, Ohad Geiger and Daniel Dayan won the event and a shared $168K.
Just a dozen hands of heads-up were necessary for the Israelis to beat another threesome, this time Jerod Smith, Matthew Moreno and Lawrence Chan with the John Hinds/Anthony Zinno pairing finishing 3rd.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 3 of 5, 74 entries As always, this event proceeds at a glacial pace with the result that we have taken three days to go from 74 players to 12.
For the second day running, Phil Ivey is in the chip leader's shoes, aiming for his 11th bracelet.
Play continued until the bubble burst, with at least four short stacks hanging on when there were 14 left (12 getting paid) as a min-cash was a very worthwhile $72K, but eventually Timofey Kuznetsov and Chris Klodnicki could manage their couple of BB any longer and were KO'd.
That leaves 12, with bracelet winners a-plenty still left, Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb and Bryce Yockey for instance in the second, third and fourth slots. In fact the 12 players have 22 bracelets between them.
One who doesn't have any (yet) is the only GB player left, Talal Shakerchi who sits in 9th spot out of the final dozen.
The intention is to play from 12 down to 6 and then play the FT on Friday. Perhaps calling it glacial pace is too kind.
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 2 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries 919 Day 2 qualifiers have become just 83 who move on to Day 3 to play for the bracelet with a 1-2-3 of Lang Lee, Will Givens and Steffen Logen.
Givens won a bracelet back in 2014, and there are two other former bracelet winners in the field, Dan Matsuzuki and Kathy Liebert.
Disappointingly there isn't a single GB player among the field, Andrei Moldovan in 94th, Philippe Souki in 121st and Jack Salter in 142nd were the last three survivors.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 1117 entries AKA the event which were were expecting to see Tikay win his bracelet.
58 remain, all having wrapped up at least $4000 with Matt O'Donnell the big stack.
James Chen was runner up in the PLO High Roller a few days ago, and is in that second position again after Day 2 of this one, and Michael Mizrachi (3rd), Ari Engel (8th) and Scott Clements (12th) have all gone one better than Chen already and are looking for their second win of the series.
Plenty of other well known names left including Erik Seidel, Mike Matusow, Chris Bjorin and Phil Laak, plus two British representatives in David Barraclough and Paul Johnson. Both will return with between 10 & 20 BB so aren't in immediate danger, but an early double-up would do wonders.
We lost a few other GB Names "in the money", Bjorn Verbakel, Grant Sharp, Paresh Doshi, Rishi Amin, Patrick Leonard, Lee Horton and Peter Linton all earned between $2200 & $2900.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 1A, 2 starting flights Wed/Thu, 5238 entrants 18 levels rather than the scheduled 16 were played to reduce the field to 786 players as the bubble bursts. Not all of them will return for Day, as qualifiers have the option to surrender their 1A stacks and play Day 1B to try and make the later stages with a better chance of winning.
The Day 1A leaders are Amador Trinidad, Joseph Torres and Marc Kornter, with the familiar figure of "Fossilman" Greg Raymer, the 2004 Main Event winner, inside the top 10.
Too may names to really trawl through them looking for prominent players, helpfully the WSOP have highlighted Ylon Schwartz and Loni Harwood, to which I can add Amir Lehavot, Bruno Politano and Tom Franklin.
Plenty of British qualifiers, even if few of them are among the most well-known names in the GB scene. Ronan Nally is 59th, Calin Trif 66th, and Andrew Christoforou 75th and they are the three highest places Britons.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 1 of 4, 96 entries so far Again themes of the series. The Venn diagram of alliteratively-named players and Brazilians contains Andre Akkari, and it is him who holds the Day 1 Razz lead.
42 players move on (with the possibility of a few more by way of late reg I suppose) and the top three is completed by David Bach & Marco Johnson.
Player of the Year leader Dan Zack is 6th and there's well known players and bracelet winners wherever you look. John Monnette, Daniel Negreanu, James Obst, Todd Brunson, Brian Hastings, Donnacha O'Dea and Ben Yu are there, together with just one man who satisfies both those conditions and one more, that he is British, and that is Benny Glaser.
To start today Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, 4 Day Event
For the next three days the update with be a) patchy and b) possibly late. Then on Monday I haven't got a clue how I'm going to do anything because I'm doing stuff from 4:30am to about 9:00pm or later
Anyway, here we go with Part 1 of today's report:
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 4 of 5, 74 entries With just two tables in operation and only 6 bustouts to occur before close of play, we lost in order
12. Andrew Brown 11. Talal Shakerchi - last Brit standing, picks up $72K 10. Chris Vitch 9. Dario Sammartino 8. Phil Ivey - the Day 3 chip leader found the cards against him on Day 4, losing almost every hand recorded in the PokerNews updates 7. David Oppenheim
This leaves a 6-handed final headed by Josh Arieh, ahead of Bryce Yockey, Phillip ****, John Esposito and Dan Cates. None of the final six have reached this stage of the PPC before.
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 3 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries An extra day will be needed as five players are still involved. The leader is Joe Foresman who moved to the top of the listings following a hand early on the FT when Linda Huard 5-bet shoved with Kings, Foresman called with Queens and hit a queen on the flop.
Will Givens is second in chips for the second day running, with Steffen Logen, Jeff Hakim and Gleb Kovtunov the other players who will return for Day 4.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 1117 entries Extra time needed here too, with 9 players this time still left at the end of the scheduled three days.
There are 5 reasonable stacks headed by Scott Abrams from Rodney Burt and Jordan Spurlin, and 4 stacks of 9BB or less which include 8-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel and Connor Drinan.
The last two British challengers both went out at the $6687 pay level, first Paul Johnson bust in 35th followed three places later by David Barraclough.
More later, including some good news on the Tikay front.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 1A, 2 starting flights Wed/Thu, total 13109 entries Another massive day of action in the Colossus, making the total number of entries well into 5 figures.
The top 6 from Day 1B all beat the best of the Day 1A stacks, with Romik Vartzar, John Goyette and Hien Tran making it an all-California top three.
Paul Nugent is top Brit in 35th spot and is accompanied by Kfir Ivgi, Sunil Mistri, Robert Bickley, Robert Ellesmore, Andrew Teng, Stuart Guthrie, Daniel Corbett and Thomas Ward all inside the top 250. Looking forward down there is a James Williams from Swindon listed, is that the same player who was Sky Poker sponsored at one point?
Some of the better known players through from 1B include Maurice Hawkins, Kathy Liebert and former ME winner Chris Moneymaker.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 2 of 4, 116 entries Twenty players registering on Day 2 took the field to 116, merely a smidgen down on last year's 119.
Another former ME winner (among other things) Chris Ferguson has the biggest of the 12 stacks moving on to Day 3, with 3-time winner (and Event 33 runner-up) David Bach in second with Andrey Zhigalov.
Many of the other 9 players are famous names, Dan Zack (adding more Player of the Year points), Scott Siever, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Gorodinsky etc.
No Brits cashed, Benny Glaser must have been eliminated at some point on Day 2.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 1 of 4, 717 entrants Look at the Day 2 starting table Miranda 619 1 Scott Eskenazi United States 46,300 2 Roland Israelashvili United States 9,800 3 Timothy Kennedy United States 28,000 4 Ziya Rahim United States 35,200 5 Anthony Kendall United Kingdom 18,900 6 Paul Sokoloff United Kingdom 48,200 7 Marc Perlman United States 39,300 Yep, our Tikay has made it through to Day 2 but has still quite a way to go to get a cash, of the 228 survivors, less than half will get a min-cash of $2249 with as near as makes no difference $200K up top.
He's not the only Brit through, in fact there is quite a cabal as other than Sokoloff on Tikay's table, we can find Nicholas Seager, Barny Boatman, John Kabbaj, Lee Horton, Patrick Leonard, Tony Bloom, Stuart Rutter, Nicholas Marchington and Paul Rigg. Some very nice company to be part of.
The overall chip leader Aaron Henderson ahead of John Evans and Anatoli Zyrin, with Leonard the best off the GB contingent in 7th.
Yet another ME winner has made it to Day 2 here, 2013 winner Ryan Riess, and also through are Jeffrey Lisandro, Barry Grenstein, Loren Klein, ELi Elezra and Barbara Enright.
Good luck Tikay.
To start today Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, 4 Day Event, 4 starting flights, Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event
FTR....I believe another sky reg is still in event 63. @pompeynic is still in. However, with all the new GDPR rules, I am unsure if I should say his real name. Good luck anyway...oh, and @Tikay10 I suppose
Apologies that today's update is so late and so brief
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 4 of 5, 74 entries Phil **** realised what he said has been "his dream" that he'd "rather thin than the Main Event" as he beat Josh Arieh heads-up. **** takes just under $1.1m, Arieh $679K and third placed John Esposito $466K.
The other three at the final table were 4. Bryce Yockey, 5. Shaun Deeb & 6. Dan Cates
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 4 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries Joe Forseman earned not only his first WSOP bracelet, but his fiest ever cash. In fact, he hasn't played a WSOP event since it used to be held at Binion's
Will Givens briefly held the lead but basically everybody played second fiddle to Forseman all day.
Germany's Steffen Logen finished third.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 4 of 3, 1117 entries It's a second bracelet for Anthony Zinno in an event that not just needed some extra time to sort it out, but almost a full extra day.
With 9 players left, most of the short stacks went out early, but as the day went on, the time between eliminations got longer ang longer.
Eventually Germany took another third place in the shape of Thomas Schropfer and second went to Canadian Rodney Burt.
Zinno has already a second and a third this series so perhaps he was due.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 2 of 3, total 13109 entries The chip lead is in the hands of Chicago Cubs fan William Davila with almost 18m chips in his bag in the end of the night, nearly four million more than his nearest challangers, Neil Ho and Alex Miles.
In all, 107 players are left in with Robert Sherwood having had a good Day 2 leaving him 5th, with Andrew Teng, Daniel Corbett & Tiansheng Qi making up a 4-strong UK challenge.
A lot of lesser-known names, but I can at least recognise Jeremy Ausmus, Tom McEvoy and Eddy Sabat.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 3 of 4, 116 entries Day 3 has seen the 12 contenders narrowed down to just two, both previous bracelet winners. Two-time jewellry winner Scott Siever has two to his name and just under 4m chips, single bracelet wearer Andrey Zhigalov just over 3m with over $115 difference between the first and second prizes.
The final table was pretty stacked, and I'm sure a lot of those watching were quite pleased to see Chris Ferguson knocked out in 3rd. Dan Zack, Daniel Negreanu, Andre Akkari and David Bach all finished in the top 7 highlighting the quality of the field.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 2 of 4, 717 entrants First the bad news. There's no Tikay making Day 3, nor no Pompeynic either. Both were eliminated before the bubble burst so they won't even be bringing back any winnings with them, just hopefully a million stories.
There are three GB players left, and a formidable trio they are too. Patrick Leonard, Tony Bloom and Stuart Rutter are part of a 38-man (and I do believe they are all men left) field who will try to make the final six who will move on to Day 4.
The best placed player at the moment is Blake Schwartzbach with Joe Tehan and Sean Yu considerably easier to spell in second and third.
Former ME winner Ryan Riess is still in along with Phil Laak and the short-stacked pair of Bart Hanson and Barry Greenstein.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 1A, 4 starting flights Actually I misread the schedule for this and they're playing two flights a day so the opening day is spread out over 2 days, not 4.
Very early days and of course loads of players through, so just it was going to be a resume of the Top 3 in each flight and some of the Brits near the top of the leaderboards.
1A was lead by Arsenii Karmatckii with the unusual double i at the end of both names, from Aleksa Paviceic and Dennis Brand
What made me stop a take a little more time over the 1B list was the fact that we have a name well known to Sky Poker at the top - Michael Kane from Scotland. He has a decent lead over Dara Teherpour and Emile Schiff.
Brits from 1A - Alexander Clark is in the top 5, followed by Aleem Kanji, Atanas Pavlov, Alex Jennings, Stephen Leigh and Ben Dobson
Other than Kane, 1B saw Andrew Wilson finish 7th, with Joshua Bolton, Alan Gold, Arron Woodcock, James Dempsey, Henry Strudwick, Joshua Curry all bag chips at close of play.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 175 entries so far $10K events coming thick and fast (there's one more on Tuesday before the Main Starts on Wednesday) with 115 players making it through to Day 2.
Michael McKenna is the chip leader, with Randy Ohel and Kate Hoang second and third. Hoang is perhaps better known for her, let's say distracting dress sense at the table, but from the photos on the WSOP site she looks to have been a little more conservative today.
You don't have to look too far down to find the top Brit, Robert Cowen and he's accompanied by Timothy Flanders and Talal Shakerchi through to Day 2.
Scott Clements and Michael Mizrachi are having another go to get that second bracelet of the year, and along with them moving on we have Joe Hachem, John Racener, Jason Mercier, Dan Zack and fresh from his success earlier Anthony Zinno.
For the second day running apologies that today's update is so late and so brief. And tomorrow's could be even worse. Back to normal on Tuesday.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 3 of 3, total 13109 entries An extra day will be needed (that seems to have been a familiar refrain as 8 players still had chips at the end of the night.
The leader is Greek player Georgios Kaplas, the only player with over 100m chips. In second place is the only previous bracelet winner, Andrew Barber and third is Maksim Kalman
Robert Sherwood so nearly made it a British prescence at the FT, departing in 10th for $32K (not bad for a $400 entry fee), Daniel Corbett went out in 38th, Andrew Teng 53rd and Tiansheng Qi was an early Day 3 casualty in 101st.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 3 of 4, 116 entries Scott Siever has won his third bracelet and $301K. His presence in so many high rollers and the biggest cash games mean this is only his 17th biggest tournament score, but the bracelet will make it mean so much more.
It took about one full level on the 4th day for Siever to dispose of Andrey Zhigalov in a real roller-coaster of a battle, both players had a 20:1 chip lead at one point.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 3 of 4, 717 entrants If I said someone had made the FT of the same event three years in a row, you'd assume I meant something like one of the $10K events in a niche game with about 100 starters, wouldn't you?
But no. It's in this event which attracts over 700 entries, and what's more it's the only three years this event has run. Yueqi Zhu was 6th in 2017, won the bracelet in 2018 and has made the final 4 this time around.
He is second to Anatolii Zyrin, with Mesbah Guerfi and James Van Alstyne the only others standing between Zhu and a succesful defence of the bracelet.
The first of the three British challengers bounced in 30th, Tony Bloom taking just under $5K. Stu Rutter was 24th for nearly $6K while the last British survivor was Patrick Leonard who just missed the top 10 taking $12K for 11th spot.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 1C/D, 4 starting flights And I was wrong in this for the second day in a row. Flights A & B were on the same day but C & D were not so it's only 1C I'm concerned with here. I must learn to read WSOP schedules better.
2830 started and 333 survived and for the second flight running we have a British player, no stranger to Sky Poker, at the top and that is Ian Simpson who I'm sure was a guest a couple of times on the old Sky Poker TV.
The Geordie leads France's Alexander Fradin in second and there's another Brit in third, Adam Daniel, and yet another in 5th Sam Razavi.
Florian Duta, Pablo Fernandez Campo, Frank Bastow, Scott Franklin, Peter Akery, Klas Lofberg and Dragos Trofimov are all listed as "GB" in the listings but I think about half of those are merely GB resident.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 4, 193 entries 43 players move on to Day 3 with only 29 of them getting paid, and it is Chris Vitch who leads overnight.
Timothy Flanders is the only UK player remaining, amongst names such as Joe Hachem, Nick Schulman, Brian Hastings, Leif Force, Michael Mizrachi and Chris Ferguson.
Event 66 - $1500 Limit Hold'em, Day 1 of 3, 541 entries It's Limit Hold'em. No one in Britain really plays that do they? So we shouldn't expect to find too many GB names in the 184 survivors. Except Benny Glaser seems to be able to turn his hand to anything, and Max Silver has made it through with 3BB.
Shirley Rosario is the chip leader, ahead of the strangley named "Z Stein" and Timothy Su.
Kevin Roster (the Cancer sufferer I mentioned a few days back) is in this and has made it through Day 1 with a decent stack, and other survivors (in a difference sense) are Joe McKeehen, Rep Porter, Chip Jett, David ODB Baker, Daniel Negreanu, Anthony Zinno. Pleaseingly a number of female players also join Rosario in the Day 2 field.
To start today Event 67 - S10K Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event Event 68 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH Championship, 1 Day Event
OK, so I let you all down yesterday. I knew it was going to be a problem, but in the end I bailed. I'm sorry. It won't happen again (unless I go back for another day at Wimbledon!)
Anyway, there's now a lot to cram in
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 4 of 3, total 13109 entries The extra day needed to separate the final 8 players turned out to be 5 hands and 125 hands before Sejiin Park won the second bracelet for Korea at this year's WSOP (after Jiyoung Kim had won the ladies event)
Park, who is a cash game regular in Macau and plays very few tournaments, easily beat his previous best recorded cash when claiming the first prize of over $450K.
Greece's Georgios Kapalas was second and the top American player Ryan Depaulo was third.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 4 of 4, 717 entrants I mentioned before about Yueqi Zhu's record in this event, well he went so close to recording back-to-back wins in the event, making it all the way to heads up before falling to Russian Anatolii Zyrin.
Zyrin himself lost a heads-up match in the final of the Shootout event a few weeks ago despite holding a large lead at one point, and needed to hit a one-outer on day 1, almost going out on Day 2 when he asked the dealer to show his cards for a photo of a bustout hand and then realising he'd won the high part to keep him alive, and was dead last on the FT at one point with under 1 Big Bet left. Call him King of the Comebacks.
Zyrin wins just under $200K, Zhu $123K and third place James van Alstyne $84K.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 2 of 4, 10185 entries I'm just going to pick this up at the end of Day 2 except to mention that the Day 1D chip leader was Luis Pinho of Portugal with the top Brit being Timothy Chung in 58th.
Day 2 started with 1223 players and they were thinned out so fast that only 670 of them were left at the first break, and less than 100 made Day 3.
Three players each have over 11m chips, Natalia Panchekno, Scott Davies and Ryan Leng with the latter two both being previous bracelet winners.
You would think that with still 91 players left, we'd have at least a handful of strong British challengers, well we don't. Not one. The last Union Jack disappeared off the board when Joshua Curry bust out in 101st place for $6957, the same cash for Ben Dobson in 107th with Peter Avery, Martins Adeniya and Michael Kane going out at the $5938 pay level.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Days 3 and 4 of 4, 193 entries Nick Schulman has seen action on a lot of final tables over the last couple of years. Unfortunately for him, it's been as a commentator on the PokerGo service than as a player, but he's now put that right by winning his third WSOP bracelet event, his first in seven years and also collected $463K.
Four of the final seven were bracelet holders, plus there was also last year's runner-up in the corresponding event, Michael McKenna but he didn't last long, one hand in fact as former ME winner Joe Hachem forced a double elimination of both McKenna and Corey Hochman. Two hands later it was down to 4-handed as Chris Vitch also went out, and shortly thereafter Denis Strebkov fell too.
When Hachem also went out before the first break, we were left with a deep heads-up match between Schulman and Brian Hastings (aiming for his fifth braclet) and it took several hours to split them despite Schulman having the lead for the majority of the time. Eventually he wore Hastings down and claimed his prize.
Event 66 - $1500 Limit Hold'em, Days 2 & 3 of 3, 541 entries Three days haven't been enough and we still have 6 players fighting it out with the chip lead (100BB) held by David "ODB" Baker, Japan's Ruiko Mamiya is third with 62BB and Brian Kim third with 44BB. One of the other three players at the FT is Chris Ferguson.
No British players cashed (it is Limit Hold'em after all).
Another mention for Kevin Roster, he cashed again in 24th spot for $4360.
Event 67 - S10K Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Days 1 & 2 of 4, 151 entries The bubble was burst late on Day 2 as 23 players were in the money, but there was still time for 7 of them to go to pick up their min-cash of just over $15K leaving 16 players through to Day 3.
A host of names very familiar to readers of these reports fill the top of the leader board. Recent bracelet winner (his 4th) Eli Elezra is the big stack, another 4-timer Mike Matusow is 2nd, third placer is also the player who finished third in the 10K Razz a few days ago (Andrey Zhigalov) and Anthony Zinno who won his second bracelet in the $1500 PLO Hi-Lo last week is fourth.
For the second event in a row, no Brits cashed.
Event 68 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH Championship, 1 Day Event, 1750 entries Nicholas Baris has won his first bracelet event and over $303K in the $1000 online tournament. For a long time, Tara Cain looked like she was going to win this for the first open event win by a female player this year, holding half the chips in play at the start of the FT and almost a 3:1 lead when starting the heads-up match, but after a double up and a few more small hands, it was ironically the ladies which led to the downfall of Cain as Baris' Pocket Queens held up against her Pocket Nines.
Third place went to William Harding, while Chris Ferguson was multi-tabling this online event with the physical event 66, doing very well in both finishing 7th here.
At least we did have a Brit cash in this one, Jack Maskill finishing 6th for $51K.
Event 69 - $1000 Mini Main Event, Day 1 of 2, 5521 players The chip lead in this fast and furious event is held by Lula Taylor ahead by Liran Betito with a second female player Heidi Alexander third. Perhaps the ladies are coming good towards the end of the WSOP?
You've got to look down to 84th spot to find the first British player, Daniel Samson just ahead of James Dempsey in 87th. Also through are Joel Isla, Jonathan Somekh, William Young, Georgios Karakousis, Sunny Chatha, Nill Murray, Robert Sherwood, Jose Gonzalez, Barrie Gotch, Simon Bailey, Graham Wheldon, Nicos Ioannou and Alex Jennings.
546 players are scheduled to become just one today, with this structure it could well happen but don't be too surprised if there's still half a dozen left but I think they'll do all they can to finish this event off.
Event 70 - $5K NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 4, 751 entries so far 212 of the field won their way through to Day 2, and they may well be joined by a few more as late reg is still open until the first hand of Day 2.
The chip leader is Barry Hutter, ahead of Eder Murata and Faisal Shihabi, and there's a ton of bracelet winners (along with Hutter) who have made Day 2 - such as ME winners Greg Merson and Joe Cada, Brian Yoon, Brock Parker, Taylor Paur & Upeshka Da Silva. Include Niall Farrell in that list too, but he's below halfway and there's a load of Brits better off including three in the top 11 Tamer Kame, Alberton Morales and Roberto Romanello.
Add to that quartet Jamie O'Connor, Craig McCorkell, Jules Dickerson, Brandon Shiels, Jiushuang Wang, Nicholas Marchington, Javier Fernandes, Arron Woodcock, Richard Sheils, Robert Heidorn, Ben Heath, Adrien Dalmas, Tony Bloom and Chris Brammer so it's a good GB challenge in both terms of numbers and experience.
To start today Event 71 - $500 Salute to Warriors NLH, 3 Day Event Event 72 - $10K Limit Hold'em Championship, 3 Day Event
Comments
I'll repeat that - DOUBLE BRITISH BRACELET ALERT!
Event 45 - $25K PLO High Roller, Day 4 of 4, 278 entries
The first British bracelet of the day goes to Stephen Chidwick. After so many near misses (13 Final Tables) the man from Kent finally got his hands on the jewellry (and a huge pile of cash - $1.6m worth).
It was Chidwick's first event of the WSOP, he arrived in Vegas just in time to late reg.
James Chen was aiming to get the first ever bracelet for Taiwan, but came up one position short as Chidwick won the heads-up match in just short of a hour. Chen also bagged a 7-figure payday to ease his pain of losing out.
Third place went to Matthew Gonzales and fourth to Robert Mizrachi.
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 3 of 4, 968 entries
Tu Dao had a roller-coaster of a day, but in the end she finished it exactly where she started it, top of the chip listings.
Just six remain, with Jiyoung Kim of Korea in second place in what will be her first ever WSOP cash, and Nancy Matson is third. Nobody still in contention has a bracelet to their credit so it will be a brand new experience for someone.
Deborah Worley-Roberts went out in 21st spot ($4767) and Natalia Breviglieri 15th for $7311.
Event 48 - $2500 NLH, Day 3 of 4, 996 entries
Another player with heaps of WSOP experience has also broken his duck as Ari Engel took down Event 48.
Heads-up with Pablo Melogno didn't last long, the Uruguayan entering the final with about an 11:4 lead but a huge hand when Engle shoved in the flop aith AQ on a K-10-4 board (and a back door flush draw) while Melongo called with top pair. A Jack on the river won it for the American with nearly all the chips in play shifting his way, and one hand later it was all over.
William Hoffman was third on a FT that lasted just 68 hands.
Of the three British challengers, Barny Boatman did best (18th for a little over $15K) while both Robert Heidorn and Michael Stephenson busted on the previous payout level for $12K.
Event 49 - $10K Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw, Day 3 of 4, 100 entries
No need for a Day 4 as Luke Schwartz made it two bracelets on the day for the British contingent.
He seems to have grown up a lot since the days of "Sandwichgate" and numerous other petulant outbursts, and perhaps he will deservedly now be known for his poker exploits.
Three handed play went on for hours with the trio of Schwartz, George Wolff and Johannes Becker going back and forth until Becker finally dropped.
After that, Wolff still wouldn't go away but a battle between two 8-high hands saw the Londoner emerge victorious and cue huge celebrations on the rail.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 1B, 6035 entries in total
Over 3600 players played the second flight, with the fact this was a pure freezeout catching several players out who thought they'd be able to re-enter 1B after busting on 1A.
James Hundt, Kapila Garner and Rick Alvarado are the top three stacks but with nearly 1800 making it through from today's field to add to the 1A qualifiers, there's still a very long way to go.
Looking for British names, Ben Farrell is the highest place while I assume "Duthie John" with no location listed is British legend John Duthie. Martins Adeniya, Michael Kane, Katie Swift, Louis Salter, Jeff Kimber, James Rann are among those also making Day 2, along Natalia Breviglieri after busting the Ladies event.
The WSOP have helpfully picked out a few names to save me searching through a huge list, so I can say that Taylor Paur, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein and a couple of others from the ladies event Allyn Shulman and Jackie Glazier.
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 2 of 3, 401 entries
A dozen left, Michael Thompson having the biggest stack of the 12 ahead of Daniel Ratigan and continuing a very good day for British players, Philip Long is 3rd.
Stuart Rutter bust out in 49th place, earning $3882, the only other British player in the money.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 1 of 4, 494 players so far
The latest $10K Championship event has seen almost 500 players already entered, meaning a decent increase on last year's 476.
No fewer than 253 players were still standing at the end of Day 1, with the concise name of Yi Li at the top of the chip listings, immediately followed by Mohsin Virani and Timothy Batow.
2011 winner Ben Lamb is the first of the better known players, with Daniel Negreanu, David Benyamine, Robert Mizrachi, Eoghan O'Dea and fresh from losing heads up in Event xx, James Chen.
Brits? Yes of course. Jan Collado is inside the Top 20, and next is Armin Ghojevand whose only recorded cashes on Hendon Mob amount to less than £2000 all in Didsbury from 2014-15. Further down we can pick out Toby Lewis, Peter Costa, Fraser MacIntyre, Stuart Rutter and Barny Boatman.
To start today
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, 2 Day Event. $750K guaranteed prize pool
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, 4 Day Event
Event 55 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH double stack, 1 Day Event
Event 47 - $1000/$10K Ladies NLH, Day 4 of 4, 968 entries
The ladies event is over and the last survivor of nearly 100 players was Korea's Jiyoung Kim making her first WSOP cash a mammoth one. She wins $167K, far surpassing her previous $22K from an event in the Philippines.
It was just the second ever Korean bracelet (Sean Yu won one two years ago)
Heads-up against Nancy Matson started with Kim having about a 3:2 chip lead, a lead she never relinquished and after about 40 hands the tournament was over.
Third place went to France's Sandrine Phan, while Day 2 & 3 chip leader Tu Dao went out in fourth.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 2 of 5, 6035 entries in total
While 2052 players started the day after getting through the two Day 1s, three quarters of them had the long walk away from the tables after losing their last chips.
Of the 457 who did make Day 3, the player they're all chasing is Kainalu McCue-Unciano. Try saying that 10 times really fast. In second is another Las Vegas local, Andrew Moreno with Oklahoman Brady Bullard very close behind.
The bubble burst in the middle of the day and everyone still in will take at least $3534 with the winner collecting just over a million dollars.
You've got to look pretty hard to find too many well known names amongst the field, former ME winner Joe Cada perhaps the biggest name along with Pierre Neuville but the British challenge is still in decent in both quality and quantity - Juan Sanchez, Elliott Peterman, Iaron Lightbourne, Louis Salter, Sunny Chattha, Adam Daniel, Christopher Poulton, Andrew Fields, Robert Tinnion, John Duthie (correctly ordered today), Raul Martinez, Robert Sherwood,
James Rann, Guy Taylor, Phillippe Souki, Graham Hiew, Kevin Wibberley, Dean Hutchison and Jeff Kimber being the players in question.
Event 51 - $2500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo/Stud Hi-Lo, Day 3 of 3, 401 entries
A very late night, with Yuri Dzivielevksi and Michael Thompson agreeing to play an extra hour when they were heads-up at what would have normally been the end of Day 3.
The extra hour was barely scratched, a couple of hands was all that needed as Dzivielevski got a full house on the turn of an Omaha Hi-Lo hand with no low draw and Thmpson was drawing dead.
The big hand happened maybe half an hour earlier on a hand of Stud Hi-Lo Dzivielevski hit a K-Q high flush on seventh street while Thompson could only manage a K-9 flush. This saw Dzivielevski take a dominating lead after stacks had been pretty even beforehand.
Third and fourth places went to Russians (Stebkov & Zaichenko) while Philip Long had another deep run bowing out in 6th for $31K.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 2 of 4, 518 players so far
Far and away the biggest of the $10K events outside the Main, with a record field for this event.
Both yesterday's British bracelet winners entered this at the last minute, with very different results. Stephen Chidwick lasted all of one hand (!) while Luke Schwartz was hot all day and ended Day 2 second in chips behind only Daniel Alaei. Another former bracelet winner, Shaun Deeb lies third.
Hand-for-hand play on the bubble lasted 9 hands before Ray Henson was the last to leave without at least a $15K min cash and from then to close of play we lost two British players, Jan Collado (for that min-cash) and Peter Costa ($16K). That leaves Schwartz, James Park (8th) and Matthew Perry (28th) to battle on towards possible future glory.
Shout out to David Halpern. Last heard of here I think back in Event 4 when he finished 4th, he is through to tomorrow's play in both this and the Monster Stack, and could frequently be seen running between the two events during the day.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 1 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries
440 players through to Day 2, with one of the bigger stacks belonging to the No. 1 ranked player in the Global Poker Index, Alex Foxen. He lies in seventh place in a list headed by Kenneth Johnson, Shmuel Hada and 2013 November Niner Amir Lehavot.
Lehavot finished third that year, but there are still 3 ME winners left here, as well as recent bracelet winner Asi Moshe.
From this country, Adrian State leads the way in 18th, ahead of Harry Lodge , Timothy Chung, Aaron Fisher and Simon Deadman all inside the Top 100 and there are plenty of others further down still in play.
Let's see if they can manage to play down from 440 to 1 inside one day's play.
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 1 of 4, 363 entries
You'd think Eric Rodawig would be favoured in another variant of poker, he is from Omaha after all, but it's Razz in which he leads the Day 1 field.
Mr Burns is second, not Montgomery Burns but Stephen Burns from Michigan and Doug Lorgeree about whom I know nothing is third.
Adam Owen is one of a handful of Brits through along with Vamshi Vandanapu, Jason Gray and the micro-stacked Joe Brindle.
Loren Klein, fresh from his fourth bracelet in consecutive years bagged chips as did Ryan Reiss, Gavin Griffin, Jennifer Tilly and for the second time today Chris Ferguson.
55 will get paid a minimum of $2247 with the winner getting $119K.
Event 55 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH double stack, 1 Day Event, xxx entries
Another online event so not much to write about, except to note that the winner Jason Gooch was the runner-up in an earlier on-line bracelet event and this time he went one better, he's also cashed in a couple of the live PLO events in Vegas.
Three Italians made the final table, Max Pescatori (9th), Gianluca Speranza (7th) and Dario Sammartino (4tH), with, for the record, Anthony Augostino 3rd and Brian Wood the runner-up#
To start today
Event 56 - $1500 NLH Super Turbo Bounty, 1 Day Event
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, 4 Day Event
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), 5 Day Event
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 3 of 5, 6035 entries in total
The field has been reduced to 49 and the overnight leader Vincent Chauve does indeed have a Monster Stack of 22m chips.
Bryan Kim is second before another Frenchman, Anthony Kazgandjian rounds out the top 3.
The long list of British players mentioned yesteday has been whittled down to three - Elliot Peterman, Juan Sanchez and Guy Taylor. Taylor has a good record in massive field WSOP events, cashing in the 2017 Colossus and Main Event and the 2018 Colossus and Goliath
Ryan Hughes is the only double bracelet winner left, while also through are Bart Hanson, Igor Yaroshevskyy and a player whose story would rival any the WSOP have brought us over the years.
Former poker pro Kevin Roster was diagnosed with a rare cancer called Sarcoma, unfortunately too late to treat it (he's already lost his left leg). He has a very little time left and has moved to California because of the "right to die" legislation existing in that state. Before he has to make that horrible decision, he came to Vegas for one last WSOP and to spread awareness of his condition and has made Day 4 earning at least $18K so far which we can only hope goes to make his last few days/weeks/months more comfortable.
I don't know if links to external sites are permitted (and I'm not going to make a habit of it), so mods if necessary please remove it, but I'm going to link this one anyway https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/06/kevin-roster-sarcoma-awareness-34408.htm
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 3 of 4, 518 entries
Bubbling up nicely with a FT of 8 players ready to fight it out for the bracelet after 5-time bracelet winner (including winning this event) Daniel Alaei went out in 9th.
Dash Dudley leads fellow Mid-Westener Kyle Montgomery with back in third place Eoghan O'Dea. O'Dea has final tabled both this and the Main Event but has yet to get his hands on an elusive bracelet (to go with the one his father won in 1998)
O'Dea is not the only former November Niner still active, as Jeremy Ausmus is also a member of that club.
There is one British player among the 8 - James Park is nicely in the midle of the pack with 25BB so a playable stack for a Final Table.
Luke Schwartz's attempt on a second bracelet ended when he lost a set over set battle in 21st for $30K, while we'd earlier also lost Matthew Perry in 45th for almsot $20K.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 2 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries
I thought it would be that most American of cliches, a "Big Ask" to get all the way from 440 players to a champion inside a day, and so it proved as an extra day will be needed to sort out the final 10.
No British representation though, with the two Europeans being the pleasingly alliterative Santaigo Soriano (Spain) and Daniele D'Angelo (Deutschland) in the top two places.
Third goes to the only former bracelet winner left, Amir Lehavot adding to what has been a good series for that country although he is now resident in California. If he doesn't count, Israel still has a representative in Ori Hasson.
The biggest GB cashes went to Nicholas Marchington (19th for $12.4K), Richard King (58th for $4.6K) and four players who each took $2853, Steve Jelinek, Min Ji, Florian Duta & Lewis Higham
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 2 of 4, 363 entries
Another event where the British challenge has been dismissed, with Argentina showing at the top of the board in the shape of Andres Korn. There's a player from the Seychelles in second (Jean Said). Doesn't the Seychelles have one of the best national flags? In third place is the first of 8 Americans, Christopher Kusha.
Noah Bronstein, Jennifer Tilly & Scott Clements are among that American challenge, with the last British player bowing out in 21st (Adam Owen, $3325) and the only other on to cash being Vamshi Vandanapu (32nd for $2895)
Event 56 - $1500 NLH Super Turbo Bounty, 1 Day Event, 1867 entries
With happenings in other events ending up out of schedule, it turned out that the only bracelet to be won was in an event that started and finished on the same day.
And it was so close to yet another British bracelet, with Robert Bickley coming up just one spot short against Jonas Lauck of Germany.
It took over 15 hours from start to finish meaning a long day for all concerned, but the heads-up match didn't contribute too much to that as it was all over within two hands. Bickley three-bet all in on a flop of 5-4-3 with pocket kings, Lauck had 10-6 and a flush draw and called with several million outs which missed on the turn but hit on the river. The heads-up difference was $100K as Lauck took $260K and Bickley $160K.
Another British player, Arron Woodcock made the FT finishing 7th for $35K, Idris Drief took $2819 and their were progressively smaller cashes for Tom Hall, Sean Rogozzini, James Clarke, Sam Razavi, Seun Oluwole, Brandon Sheils and Joel Isla
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 1 of 4, 976 entries
278 teams have progressed to Day 2 but with the WSOP only showing the team "leader" on the reports, who's left in is a little uncertain.
What is known is that the top team is that headed by Jared Jaffee with the team of Martijn Gerrits in 2nd and that of Michael Wang in 3rd.
Jaffee's team is made up by two brothers, Ralph and Aaros Massey. Gerrits has Preston Lee & Kane Kalas for company, while Wang can tag in recent bracelet winner Dan Zack and Ajay Chabra
Plenty of teams headed by British players left in, including that of Elliott Peterman, James George, Stefan Fabian, Dragos Trofimov, Calin Trif, Fraser MacIntyre, Gary Blackwood, Harry Lodge and Alex Whitenstall but there are doubtless other Brits hiding in those or other combos.
147 of the teams will cash for at least $1498 but the winners will split over $168K.
The team that attracted most of the attention before the event was the pairing of veteran Mike Sexton and recent star of the TV show "Jeopardy", James Holzhauer. In the end, Sexton played possibly all the hands as Holzhauer played (and eventually busted) the Super Turbo, but lost two flips in a row and the team were knocked out.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 1 of 5, 64 players so far
The most prestigious event of the Series for the pros, we were so close to having all 64 players who entered day 1 making it through, but Mike Gorodinsky played a set strong on a PLO hand and lived to regret it when Josh Arieh hit his draw on the river.
That pushed Arieh to the top of the Day 1 chip listings ahead of Justin Bonomo and Joshn Esposito
Three 2019 bracelet winners have turned their starting stack of 300K chips into over 400K, Adam Friedman, John Hennigan and Stephen Chidwick while Eli Elezra has boosted his stack by just 10% and Luke Schwartz by under 1%
Some other British names entered include former winners Matthew Ashton and Elior Sion, plus Talal Shakerchi, Benny Glaser and Matthew Wood.
Three time winner Michael Mizrachi has made it to Day 2 with just over half his starting stack, which least is better than Daniel Negreanu has done, but Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Shaun Deed, Scott Siever and Isaac Haxton will all return for Day 2 with more chips than they were given to start with.
To start today
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, 3 Day Event, $500K guaranteed prize pool
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, 3 Day Event
Hopefully, you will have a lot to report on Event 60 tomorrow. Some really good players are in it (and Tikay)
Event 60
Tikay has been appearing quite regularly in the chip counts on what has been a pretty thin day of updates on this event. Either a) he knows someone at Pokernews or b) he's slipped them a $20 everytime they report on him.
Anyway, starting stack is 25,000 and everytime his name is mentioned (e.g. in the last list I can see along with Maria Ho, Barny Boatman & Mike Matusow) he's trundling along just below the starting stack.
One of the Pokernews reporters at the WSOP is Jen Mason, not only an ex Sky Poker TV Analyst, but a very dear friend of mine & updating colleague in a previous business, when we updated the WSOP on behalf of another site from 2004 onwards.
She came to see me for a chat in the O8 event just after it began today, after which my name kept appearing in the Updates for no good reason other than she knows me well.
I doubt it will appear again though, unless it's with "0 Chips" alongside my name.
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 4 of 5, 6035 entries in total
We're down to a FT of 6 with a new name at the top - Benjamin Ector. He's had a couple of 4 figure scores this summer, but this is going to dwarf that with a minimum of $195 already locked up.
In second place is Day 2 (I think) leader Kainaiu McCue-Unciano and Canadian Gregory Katayama is third.
Bart Hanson is a respected commentator and strategist but he to is going to be earning his biggest cash (at least in proper poker, he once won $200K on a video poker machine in Vegas), Day 3 leader Vincent Chauve is 5th and bringing up the rear is Ukranian Igor Yaroshevskyy who was runner-up in a bracelet event in 2015 brings up the rear.
I mentioned Kevin Roster yesterday, his dream ended lost a flip against British player Elliott Peterman to go out in 39th spot, but there's already been offers from, among others, Greg Merson to put him in the Main Event so hopefully we'll see Roster one more time at this WSOP.
Peterman lasted until they were down to 2 tables, busting 16th for $43K while the other two British players were also knocked out - Guy Taylor $27K for 30th and Juan Sanchez 11th for $69K.
Event 52 - $10K PLO 8-max, Day 4 of 4, 518 entries
Done and dusted due to Dash Dudley dominating heads-up play (sorry I ran out of D words) with British PLO specialist James Park. With chips almost exactly even when third placed Joel Feldman was eliminated, a couple of big hands in a row saw the American take a clear lead and a final hand where Dudley bet with an overpair to a J62 board, Park called with top pair and got no help.
Jeremy Ausmus finished 4th while Eoghan O'Dea, railed by father Donancha, went out in 6th.
Event 53 - $800 NLH Deepstack 8-max, Day 3 of 2, $750K guaranteed prize pool, 3759 entries
I've mentioned in passing alliteratively named players several times, and now after DD wins Event 52, Event 53 goes to SS in the form of Santiago Soriano.
Spanish pro Soriano, who made Day 5 of the Main last year took the lead with 10 players left, and while he was passed when play was 4-handed, he knocked out several of his opponents but by the time heads-up play was reached, it was more-or-less even with former Bracelet holder and November Niner Amir Lehavot.
That situation didn't last long. Soriano made a full house on the first hand two-handed, and all the chips went in on the flop on the second hand. The board was a rainbow 3-10-8, Soriano had J-10 for top pair and 3-bet shoved only to come up against a slowly played pair of black aces from Lehavot. A third ten on the flop cracked the aces and won Soriano the bracelet and $371K with the Israeli having to settle for $229K.
Earlier, Ben Underwood was the 3rd placed finisher, completing an impressive trilogy. There has been three live NLH events branded as "deepstacks" so far, Events 9, 37 & 53. Underwood has finished 4th, 5th & 3rd in them. Odds on a 4-peat in Event 59?
Event 54 - $1500 Razz, Day 3 of 4, 363 entries
No need for Day 4 here where the plaudits went to Kevin Gerhart who was playing his first WSOP Razz event.
Three countries seem to have been doing very well at this series, the UK, Israel and Brazil with players from the South American country having taken 2 bracelets and a record 10 FTs, with Sergio Braga adding to the latter figure here when finishing second. He put up a valiant effort, three times doubling up as the short stack before falling at the 4th time of asking.
Third went to Joseph Hoffman, while two 2019 bracelet winners Robert Campbell and Scott Clements saw their dreams of a second bracelet end in 7th & 6th spots respectively, while I mentioned yesterday there was a player from the Seychelles involved, well that was a WSOP coding error, Jean Said actually represents Senegal. Still a rare country to see at a FT (he finished 5th) but not such a good flag.
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 2 of 4, 976 entries
35 teams remain in contention for the Tag Team bracelet, three of which are captained by British players - James George and Elliott Peterman (Dragos Trofimov is also showing as UK but is a Moldovan resident in a village in Northern Ireland) but they're all chasing the Ohad Geiger/Daniel Dayan/Barak Wisbrod trio who top the chip listings.
2016 Main Event Final Tabler Kenny Hallert has secured his 50th WSOP cash as the leader of the second paced team, while the Day 1 leaders of Jared Jaffee and the Massey brothers squeaked into Day 3 as the short stack.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 2 of 5, 74 entries
Ten more players ponied up the $50K at the start of Day 2 which means we have a record low field for the PPC, but two very big names were among them - Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan.
Ivey has cashed in this event three times and has put himself in a good position to do so again as he can be found at the very top of the overnight chip listings ahead of 2014 winner John Hannigan and Chris Vitch.
Dwan who hasn't been seem much (if at all) at the WSOP for the last 7 years isn't among the 38 survivors as he bust during the last level of the day.
One more former PPC winner, Liverpool's Matthew Ashton sits nicely in 7th spot, recent bracelet winner Luke Schwartz is 13th and high-roller specialist Talal Shakerchi will need some help from the cards to move up from 30th spot.
Only 12 players will cash, but the winner will get a payout slip for almost $1.1m
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 1 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries
The WSOP have previously reserved the "Championship" tag for $10K events so it was a bit of a surprise to see it attached to a $600 tournament.
919 players successfully navigated the Day 1 play, with an end to proceedings called when the bubble burst so everyone left is guaranteed at least $875.
With such a huge number of players left in I can't do much more than scratch the surface of the players list, but 2004 ME winner Greg Raymer is one of those through as is Kathy Liebert, Humberto Brenes and Alex Foxen.
The best known of the GB challengers are problaly Chris Moorman, Jack Salter and Ben Dobson, but Mohammed Suhail had a great day and ended up in 4th place, with Waikiat Lee, Bradley Viner, Phillipe Souki, Katie Swift and Joshua Curry are all inside the top 300.
What am I missing? The actual chip leaders. Dan Matsuzuki who had a near miss in Event 42 a week or so, finishing as runner-up, is the Day 1 top dog ahead of China's Dianlei Zhang and Bobby Oboodi from New Jersey is third.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 3, 1117 entries
This is where we wanted, nay expected, the name of Tony Kendall to appear prominently in this update, but alas it was not to be as despite being a regular in the updates of illustrious players on the PokerNews updates, our hero fell towards the end of the day.
More than 200 entries up on last year, which is undoubtedly a good sign with exactly 700 bustouts on the day, 417 move on.
The chip leader is Ray Medlin, with Richard Bai and Danny Woolard in the top 3 but the first of the big named players is Ari Engel in fourth. Engel already has a first and a second in the 2019 WSOP and is inside the top 10 on the Player of the Year table and more points here won't do him any harm at all.
Scott Clements also has a a win and a FT (earlier today in Event 54) and he too made Day 2 with a well above average stack and some other players in the top half include Jeremy Ausmus, James Obst, Ben Yu, Hall-of-Fame candidate Chris Bjorin, Frank Kassela, Mike Sexton and Joseph Cheong.
A very strong British challenge is headed by Patrick Leonard in 24th, not far ahead of Grant Sharp and Paul Sokoloff, with Jeffrey Duvall, Rishi Amin, Warren Colman, Paresh Doshi, David Barraclough, Tony Bloom, Peter Linton, Bjorn Verbakel and Lee Horton all inside the top 200.
To start today
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, 3 Day event, 2 starting flights Wed/Thu
Event 62 - $10K Razz, 4 Day Event
with now just a week to the Main Event
Great updates btw
Event 50 - $1500 Monster Stack NLH, 5 Day Event, Day 5 of 5, 6035 entries in total
All over, and it was a retun to the top for the Day 2 leader, Hawaiian Kainaiu McCue-Unciano. It's his first WSOP gold bracelet, and he also takes the small matter of $1,008,850, double the sum of his previous career recorded cashes.
It took three hours for him to finish off his heads up rival, Vincent Chauve, despite having a large lead at the start. The Frenchman won most of the bigger pots in the first half of the match and even took the lead briefly before McCue-Unciano came back and won the lot.
Third place went to Canadian Gregory Katayama.
Event 57 - $1000 NLH Tag Team, Day 2 of 4, 976 entries
No need for a Day 4 here as it was done and dusted within 3 days of play.
I mentioned in passing yesterday that Israeli players were having a good series, make that a great series now as the trio of Barak Wisbrod, Ohad Geiger and Daniel Dayan won the event and a shared $168K.
Just a dozen hands of heads-up were necessary for the Israelis to beat another threesome, this time Jerod Smith, Matthew Moreno and Lawrence Chan with the John Hinds/Anthony Zinno pairing finishing 3rd.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 3 of 5, 74 entries
As always, this event proceeds at a glacial pace with the result that we have taken three days to go from 74 players to 12.
For the second day running, Phil Ivey is in the chip leader's shoes, aiming for his 11th bracelet.
Play continued until the bubble burst, with at least four short stacks hanging on when there were 14 left (12 getting paid) as a min-cash was a very worthwhile $72K, but eventually Timofey Kuznetsov and Chris Klodnicki could manage their couple of BB any longer and were KO'd.
That leaves 12, with bracelet winners a-plenty still left, Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb and Bryce Yockey for instance in the second, third and fourth slots. In fact the 12 players have 22 bracelets between them.
One who doesn't have any (yet) is the only GB player left, Talal Shakerchi who sits in 9th spot out of the final dozen.
The intention is to play from 12 down to 6 and then play the FT on Friday. Perhaps calling it glacial pace is too kind.
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 2 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries
919 Day 2 qualifiers have become just 83 who move on to Day 3 to play for the bracelet with a 1-2-3 of Lang Lee, Will Givens and Steffen Logen.
Givens won a bracelet back in 2014, and there are two other former bracelet winners in the field, Dan Matsuzuki and Kathy Liebert.
Disappointingly there isn't a single GB player among the field, Andrei Moldovan in 94th, Philippe Souki in 121st and Jack Salter in 142nd were the last three survivors.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 1117 entries
AKA the event which were were expecting to see Tikay win his bracelet.
58 remain, all having wrapped up at least $4000 with Matt O'Donnell the big stack.
James Chen was runner up in the PLO High Roller a few days ago, and is in that second position again after Day 2 of this one, and Michael Mizrachi (3rd), Ari Engel (8th) and Scott Clements (12th) have all gone one better than Chen already and are looking for their second win of the series.
Plenty of other well known names left including Erik Seidel, Mike Matusow, Chris Bjorin and Phil Laak, plus two British representatives in David Barraclough and Paul Johnson. Both will return with between 10 & 20 BB so aren't in immediate danger, but an early double-up would do wonders.
We lost a few other GB Names "in the money", Bjorn Verbakel, Grant Sharp, Paresh Doshi, Rishi Amin, Patrick Leonard, Lee Horton and Peter Linton all earned between $2200 & $2900.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 1A, 2 starting flights Wed/Thu, 5238 entrants
18 levels rather than the scheduled 16 were played to reduce the field to 786 players as the bubble bursts. Not all of them will return for Day, as qualifiers have the option to surrender their 1A stacks and play Day 1B to try and make the later stages with a better chance of winning.
The Day 1A leaders are Amador Trinidad, Joseph Torres and Marc Kornter, with the familiar figure of "Fossilman" Greg Raymer, the 2004 Main Event winner, inside the top 10.
Too may names to really trawl through them looking for prominent players, helpfully the WSOP have highlighted Ylon Schwartz and Loni Harwood, to which I can add Amir Lehavot, Bruno Politano and Tom Franklin.
Plenty of British qualifiers, even if few of them are among the most well-known names in the GB scene. Ronan Nally is 59th, Calin Trif 66th, and Andrew Christoforou 75th and they are the three highest places Britons.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 1 of 4, 96 entries so far
Again themes of the series. The Venn diagram of alliteratively-named players and Brazilians contains Andre Akkari, and it is him who holds the Day 1 Razz lead.
42 players move on (with the possibility of a few more by way of late reg I suppose) and the top three is completed by David Bach & Marco Johnson.
Player of the Year leader Dan Zack is 6th and there's well known players and bracelet winners wherever you look. John Monnette, Daniel Negreanu, James Obst, Todd Brunson, Brian Hastings, Donnacha O'Dea and Ben Yu are there, together with just one man who satisfies both those conditions and one more, that he is British, and that is Benny Glaser.
To start today
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, 4 Day Event
Plus Day 1B of the Colossus.
^^^^^
Mention above of the $1,500 PLO8 & "David Barraclough", who is "Doooobs" on Sky Poker.
That's him on the left as we look, with Stu Rutter in the middle & Phil Heald (Phil the Tower from Grosvenor) wearing the natty hat.
Anyway, here we go with Part 1 of today's report:
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 4 of 5, 74 entries
With just two tables in operation and only 6 bustouts to occur before close of play, we lost in order
12. Andrew Brown
11. Talal Shakerchi - last Brit standing, picks up $72K
10. Chris Vitch
9. Dario Sammartino
8. Phil Ivey - the Day 3 chip leader found the cards against him on Day 4, losing almost every hand recorded in the PokerNews updates
7. David Oppenheim
This leaves a 6-handed final headed by Josh Arieh, ahead of Bryce Yockey, Phillip ****, John Esposito and Dan Cates. None of the final six have reached this stage of the PPC before.
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 3 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries
An extra day will be needed as five players are still involved. The leader is Joe Foresman who moved to the top of the listings following a hand early on the FT when Linda Huard 5-bet shoved with Kings, Foresman called with Queens and hit a queen on the flop.
Will Givens is second in chips for the second day running, with Steffen Logen, Jeff Hakim and Gleb Kovtunov the other players who will return for Day 4.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 3, 1117 entries
Extra time needed here too, with 9 players this time still left at the end of the scheduled three days.
There are 5 reasonable stacks headed by Scott Abrams from Rodney Burt and Jordan Spurlin, and 4 stacks of 9BB or less which include 8-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel and Connor Drinan.
The last two British challengers both went out at the $6687 pay level, first Paul Johnson bust in 35th followed three places later by David Barraclough.
More later, including some good news on the Tikay front.
Another massive day of action in the Colossus, making the total number of entries well into 5 figures.
The top 6 from Day 1B all beat the best of the Day 1A stacks, with Romik Vartzar, John Goyette and Hien Tran making it an all-California top three.
Paul Nugent is top Brit in 35th spot and is accompanied by Kfir Ivgi, Sunil Mistri, Robert Bickley, Robert Ellesmore, Andrew Teng, Stuart Guthrie, Daniel Corbett and Thomas Ward all inside the top 250. Looking forward down there is a James Williams from Swindon listed, is that the same player who was Sky Poker sponsored at one point?
Some of the better known players through from 1B include Maurice Hawkins, Kathy Liebert and former ME winner Chris Moneymaker.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 2 of 4, 116 entries
Twenty players registering on Day 2 took the field to 116, merely a smidgen down on last year's 119.
Another former ME winner (among other things) Chris Ferguson has the biggest of the 12 stacks moving on to Day 3, with 3-time winner (and Event 33 runner-up) David Bach in second with Andrey Zhigalov.
Many of the other 9 players are famous names, Dan Zack (adding more Player of the Year points), Scott Siever, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Gorodinsky etc.
No Brits cashed, Benny Glaser must have been eliminated at some point on Day 2.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 1 of 4, 717 entrants
Look at the Day 2 starting table Miranda 619
1 Scott Eskenazi United States 46,300
2 Roland Israelashvili United States 9,800
3 Timothy Kennedy United States 28,000
4 Ziya Rahim United States 35,200
5 Anthony Kendall United Kingdom 18,900
6 Paul Sokoloff United Kingdom 48,200
7 Marc Perlman United States 39,300
Yep, our Tikay has made it through to Day 2 but has still quite a way to go to get a cash, of the 228 survivors, less than half will get a min-cash of $2249 with as near as makes no difference $200K up top.
He's not the only Brit through, in fact there is quite a cabal as other than Sokoloff on Tikay's table, we can find Nicholas Seager, Barny Boatman, John Kabbaj, Lee Horton, Patrick Leonard, Tony Bloom, Stuart Rutter, Nicholas Marchington and Paul Rigg. Some very nice company to be part of.
The overall chip leader Aaron Henderson ahead of John Evans and Anatoli Zyrin, with Leonard the best off the GB contingent in 7th.
Yet another ME winner has made it to Day 2 here, 2013 winner Ryan Riess, and also through are Jeffrey Lisandro, Barry Grenstein, Loren Klein, ELi Elezra and Barbara Enright.
Good luck Tikay.
To start today
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, 4 Day Event, 4 starting flights, Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event
Yes, @pompeynic made it to day 2, too, but only lasted 2 hours or so.
"Only"?
Well it was an hour & three quarters longer than I lasted.
My Day 2 consisted of folding the first 3 hands & going busto on the 4th, which took exactly 14 minutes.
Event 58 - $50K Poker Players Championship (mixed games), Day 4 of 5, 74 entries
Phil **** realised what he said has been "his dream" that he'd "rather thin than the Main Event" as he beat Josh Arieh heads-up. **** takes just under $1.1m, Arieh $679K and third placed John Esposito $466K.
The other three at the final table were 4. Bryce Yockey, 5. Shaun Deeb & 6. Dan Cates
Event 59 - $600 NLH Deepstack Championship, Day 4 of 3, $500K guaranteed prize pool, 6140 entries
Joe Forseman earned not only his first WSOP bracelet, but his fiest ever cash. In fact, he hasn't played a WSOP event since it used to be held at Binion's
Will Givens briefly held the lead but basically everybody played second fiddle to Forseman all day.
Germany's Steffen Logen finished third.
Event 60 - $1500 PLO High/Lo 8 or better, Day 4 of 3, 1117 entries
It's a second bracelet for Anthony Zinno in an event that not just needed some extra time to sort it out, but almost a full extra day.
With 9 players left, most of the short stacks went out early, but as the day went on, the time between eliminations got longer ang longer.
Eventually Germany took another third place in the shape of Thomas Schropfer and second went to Canadian Rodney Burt.
Zinno has already a second and a third this series so perhaps he was due.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 2 of 3, total 13109 entries
The chip lead is in the hands of Chicago Cubs fan William Davila with almost 18m chips in his bag in the end of the night, nearly four million more than his nearest challangers, Neil Ho and Alex Miles.
In all, 107 players are left in with Robert Sherwood having had a good Day 2 leaving him 5th, with Andrew Teng, Daniel Corbett & Tiansheng Qi making up a 4-strong UK challenge.
A lot of lesser-known names, but I can at least recognise Jeremy Ausmus, Tom McEvoy and Eddy Sabat.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 3 of 4, 116 entries
Day 3 has seen the 12 contenders narrowed down to just two, both previous bracelet winners. Two-time jewellry winner Scott Siever has two to his name and just under 4m chips, single bracelet wearer Andrey Zhigalov just over 3m with over $115 difference between the first and second prizes.
The final table was pretty stacked, and I'm sure a lot of those watching were quite pleased to see Chris Ferguson knocked out in 3rd. Dan Zack, Daniel Negreanu, Andre Akkari and David Bach all finished in the top 7 highlighting the quality of the field.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 2 of 4, 717 entrants
First the bad news. There's no Tikay making Day 3, nor no Pompeynic either. Both were eliminated before the bubble burst so they won't even be bringing back any winnings with them, just hopefully a million stories.
There are three GB players left, and a formidable trio they are too. Patrick Leonard, Tony Bloom and Stuart Rutter are part of a 38-man (and I do believe they are all men left) field who will try to make the final six who will move on to Day 4.
The best placed player at the moment is Blake Schwartzbach with Joe Tehan and Sean Yu considerably easier to spell in second and third.
Former ME winner Ryan Riess is still in along with Phil Laak and the short-stacked pair of Bart Hanson and Barry Greenstein.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 1A, 4 starting flights
Actually I misread the schedule for this and they're playing two flights a day so the opening day is spread out over 2 days, not 4.
Very early days and of course loads of players through, so just it was going to be a resume of the Top 3 in each flight and some of the Brits near the top of the leaderboards.
1A was lead by Arsenii Karmatckii with the unusual double i at the end of both names, from Aleksa Paviceic and Dennis Brand
What made me stop a take a little more time over the 1B list was the fact that we have a name well known to Sky Poker at the top - Michael Kane from Scotland. He has a decent lead over Dara Teherpour and Emile Schiff.
Brits from 1A - Alexander Clark is in the top 5, followed by Aleem Kanji, Atanas Pavlov, Alex Jennings, Stephen Leigh and Ben Dobson
Other than Kane, 1B saw Andrew Wilson finish 7th, with Joshua Bolton, Alan Gold, Arron Woodcock, James Dempsey, Henry Strudwick, Joshua Curry all bag chips at close of play.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 1 of 4, 175 entries so far
$10K events coming thick and fast (there's one more on Tuesday before the Main Starts on Wednesday) with 115 players making it through to Day 2.
Michael McKenna is the chip leader, with Randy Ohel and Kate Hoang second and third. Hoang is perhaps better known for her, let's say distracting dress sense at the table, but from the photos on the WSOP site she looks to have been a little more conservative today.
You don't have to look too far down to find the top Brit, Robert Cowen and he's accompanied by Timothy Flanders and Talal Shakerchi through to Day 2.
Scott Clements and Michael Mizrachi are having another go to get that second bracelet of the year, and along with them moving on we have Joe Hachem, John Racener, Jason Mercier, Dan Zack and fresh from his success earlier Anthony Zinno.
To start today
Event 66 - $1500 NLH, 3 Day Event
Plus flights C & D of the Crazy Eights.
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 3 of 3, total 13109 entries
An extra day will be needed (that seems to have been a familiar refrain as 8 players still had chips at the end of the night.
The leader is Greek player Georgios Kaplas, the only player with over 100m chips. In second place is the only previous bracelet winner, Andrew Barber and third is Maksim Kalman
Robert Sherwood so nearly made it a British prescence at the FT, departing in 10th for $32K (not bad for a $400 entry fee), Daniel Corbett went out in 38th, Andrew Teng 53rd and Tiansheng Qi was an early Day 3 casualty in 101st.
Event 62 - $10K Razz, Day 3 of 4, 116 entries
Scott Siever has won his third bracelet and $301K. His presence in so many high rollers and the biggest cash games mean this is only his 17th biggest tournament score, but the bracelet will make it mean so much more.
It took about one full level on the 4th day for Siever to dispose of Andrey Zhigalov in a real roller-coaster of a battle, both players had a 20:1 chip lead at one point.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 3 of 4, 717 entrants
If I said someone had made the FT of the same event three years in a row, you'd assume I meant something like one of the $10K events in a niche game with about 100 starters, wouldn't you?
But no. It's in this event which attracts over 700 entries, and what's more it's the only three years this event has run. Yueqi Zhu was 6th in 2017, won the bracelet in 2018 and has made the final 4 this time around.
He is second to Anatolii Zyrin, with Mesbah Guerfi and James Van Alstyne the only others standing between Zhu and a succesful defence of the bracelet.
The first of the three British challengers bounced in 30th, Tony Bloom taking just under $5K. Stu Rutter was 24th for nearly $6K while the last British survivor was Patrick Leonard who just missed the top 10 taking $12K for 11th spot.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 1C/D, 4 starting flights
And I was wrong in this for the second day in a row. Flights A & B were on the same day but C & D were not so it's only 1C I'm concerned with here. I must learn to read WSOP schedules better.
2830 started and 333 survived and for the second flight running we have a British player, no stranger to Sky Poker, at the top and that is Ian Simpson who I'm sure was a guest a couple of times on the old Sky Poker TV.
The Geordie leads France's Alexander Fradin in second and there's another Brit in third, Adam Daniel, and yet another in 5th Sam Razavi.
Florian Duta, Pablo Fernandez Campo, Frank Bastow, Scott Franklin, Peter Akery, Klas Lofberg and Dragos Trofimov are all listed as "GB" in the listings but I think about half of those are merely GB resident.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Day 2 of 4, 193 entries
43 players move on to Day 3 with only 29 of them getting paid, and it is Chris Vitch who leads overnight.
Timothy Flanders is the only UK player remaining, amongst names such as Joe Hachem, Nick Schulman, Brian Hastings, Leif Force, Michael Mizrachi and Chris Ferguson.
Event 66 - $1500 Limit Hold'em, Day 1 of 3, 541 entries
It's Limit Hold'em. No one in Britain really plays that do they? So we shouldn't expect to find too many GB names in the 184 survivors. Except Benny Glaser seems to be able to turn his hand to anything, and Max Silver has made it through with 3BB.
Shirley Rosario is the chip leader, ahead of the strangley named "Z Stein" and Timothy Su.
Kevin Roster (the Cancer sufferer I mentioned a few days back) is in this and has made it through Day 1 with a decent stack, and other survivors (in a difference sense) are Joe McKeehen, Rep Porter, Chip Jett, David ODB Baker, Daniel Negreanu, Anthony Zinno. Pleaseingly a number of female players also join Rosario in the Day 2 field.
To start today
Event 67 - S10K Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, 4 Day Event
Event 68 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH Championship, 1 Day Event
Plus flight D of the Crazy Eights.
Anyway, there's now a lot to cram in
Event 61 - $400 Colossus, Day 4 of 3, total 13109 entries
The extra day needed to separate the final 8 players turned out to be 5 hands and 125 hands before Sejiin Park won the second bracelet for Korea at this year's WSOP (after Jiyoung Kim had won the ladies event)
Park, who is a cash game regular in Macau and plays very few tournaments, easily beat his previous best recorded cash when claiming the first prize of over $450K.
Greece's Georgios Kapalas was second and the top American player Ryan Depaulo was third.
Event 63 - $1500 Omaha Mix, Day 4 of 4, 717 entrants
I mentioned before about Yueqi Zhu's record in this event, well he went so close to recording back-to-back wins in the event, making it all the way to heads up before falling to Russian Anatolii Zyrin.
Zyrin himself lost a heads-up match in the final of the Shootout event a few weeks ago despite holding a large lead at one point, and needed to hit a one-outer on day 1, almost going out on Day 2 when he asked the dealer to show his cards for a photo of a bustout hand and then realising he'd won the high part to keep him alive, and was dead last on the FT at one point with under 1 Big Bet left. Call him King of the Comebacks.
Zyrin wins just under $200K, Zhu $123K and third place James van Alstyne $84K.
Event 64 - $888 Crazy Eights NLH, Day 2 of 4, 10185 entries
I'm just going to pick this up at the end of Day 2 except to mention that the Day 1D chip leader was Luis Pinho of Portugal with the top Brit being Timothy Chung in 58th.
Day 2 started with 1223 players and they were thinned out so fast that only 670 of them were left at the first break, and less than 100 made Day 3.
Three players each have over 11m chips, Natalia Panchekno, Scott Davies and Ryan Leng with the latter two both being previous bracelet winners.
You would think that with still 91 players left, we'd have at least a handful of strong British challengers, well we don't. Not one. The last Union Jack disappeared off the board when Joshua Curry bust out in 101st place for $6957, the same cash for Ben Dobson in 107th with Peter Avery, Martins Adeniya and Michael Kane going out at the $5938 pay level.
Event 65 - $10K PLO Hi/Lo 8 or better, Days 3 and 4 of 4, 193 entries
Nick Schulman has seen action on a lot of final tables over the last couple of years. Unfortunately for him, it's been as a commentator on the PokerGo service than as a player, but he's now put that right by winning his third WSOP bracelet event, his first in seven years and also collected $463K.
Four of the final seven were bracelet holders, plus there was also last year's runner-up in the corresponding event, Michael McKenna but he didn't last long, one hand in fact as former ME winner Joe Hachem forced a double elimination of both McKenna and Corey Hochman. Two hands later it was down to 4-handed as Chris Vitch also went out, and shortly thereafter Denis Strebkov fell too.
When Hachem also went out before the first break, we were left with a deep heads-up match between Schulman and Brian Hastings (aiming for his fifth braclet) and it took several hours to split them despite Schulman having the lead for the majority of the time. Eventually he wore Hastings down and claimed his prize.
Event 66 - $1500 Limit Hold'em, Days 2 & 3 of 3, 541 entries
Three days haven't been enough and we still have 6 players fighting it out with the chip lead (100BB) held by David "ODB" Baker, Japan's Ruiko Mamiya is third with 62BB and Brian Kim third with 44BB. One of the other three players at the FT is Chris Ferguson.
No British players cashed (it is Limit Hold'em after all).
Another mention for Kevin Roster, he cashed again in 24th spot for $4360.
Event 67 - S10K Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better, Days 1 & 2 of 4, 151 entries
The bubble was burst late on Day 2 as 23 players were in the money, but there was still time for 7 of them to go to pick up their min-cash of just over $15K leaving 16 players through to Day 3.
A host of names very familiar to readers of these reports fill the top of the leader board. Recent bracelet winner (his 4th) Eli Elezra is the big stack, another 4-timer Mike Matusow is 2nd, third placer is also the player who finished third in the 10K Razz a few days ago (Andrey Zhigalov) and Anthony Zinno who won his second bracelet in the $1500 PLO Hi-Lo last week is fourth.
For the second event in a row, no Brits cashed.
Event 68 - $1000 WSOP.com Online NLH Championship, 1 Day Event, 1750 entries
Nicholas Baris has won his first bracelet event and over $303K in the $1000 online tournament. For a long time, Tara Cain looked like she was going to win this for the first open event win by a female player this year, holding half the chips in play at the start of the FT and almost a 3:1 lead when starting the heads-up match, but after a double up and a few more small hands, it was ironically the ladies which led to the downfall of Cain as Baris' Pocket Queens held up against her Pocket Nines.
Third place went to William Harding, while Chris Ferguson was multi-tabling this online event with the physical event 66, doing very well in both finishing 7th here.
At least we did have a Brit cash in this one, Jack Maskill finishing 6th for $51K.
Event 69 - $1000 Mini Main Event, Day 1 of 2, 5521 players
The chip lead in this fast and furious event is held by Lula Taylor ahead by Liran Betito with a second female player Heidi Alexander third. Perhaps the ladies are coming good towards the end of the WSOP?
You've got to look down to 84th spot to find the first British player, Daniel Samson just ahead of James Dempsey in 87th. Also through are Joel Isla, Jonathan Somekh, William Young, Georgios Karakousis, Sunny Chatha, Nill Murray, Robert Sherwood, Jose Gonzalez, Barrie Gotch, Simon Bailey, Graham Wheldon, Nicos Ioannou and Alex Jennings.
546 players are scheduled to become just one today, with this structure it could well happen but don't be too surprised if there's still half a dozen left but I think they'll do all they can to finish this event off.
Event 70 - $5K NLH 6-max, Day 1 of 4, 751 entries so far
212 of the field won their way through to Day 2, and they may well be joined by a few more as late reg is still open until the first hand of Day 2.
The chip leader is Barry Hutter, ahead of Eder Murata and Faisal Shihabi, and there's a ton of bracelet winners (along with Hutter) who have made Day 2 - such as ME winners Greg Merson and Joe Cada, Brian Yoon, Brock Parker, Taylor Paur & Upeshka Da Silva. Include Niall Farrell in that list too, but he's below halfway and there's a load of Brits better off including three in the top 11 Tamer Kame, Alberton Morales and Roberto Romanello.
Add to that quartet Jamie O'Connor, Craig McCorkell, Jules Dickerson, Brandon Shiels, Jiushuang Wang, Nicholas Marchington, Javier Fernandes, Arron Woodcock, Richard Sheils, Robert Heidorn, Ben Heath, Adrien Dalmas, Tony Bloom and Chris Brammer so it's a good GB challenge in both terms of numbers and experience.
To start today
Event 71 - $500 Salute to Warriors NLH, 3 Day Event
Event 72 - $10K Limit Hold'em Championship, 3 Day Event
And you know what's coming tomorrow...