Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 9 of 10, 8569 entries Just three players remain with a chance in winning the 2019 Main Event. No surprise that Day 8 chip leader Hossein Ensan is one of them, but the other massive stack at the start of the day, Garry Gates, is out.
Dario Sammartino started the day as the short stack, but doubled up on the third hand of the day (against Ensan) to move a little bit closer to his rivals.
After that, Ensan began to use his big stack, winning two hands each against Gates and Alex Livingston to extend his lead before the level ended and blinds were raised to 800K/1.6m.
In the early stages of the new level, it was more of the same as Ensan took the biggest hand of the day so far against Gates, despite each player only having one pair, over 20 million chips moved from Gates' stack to Ensan's.
Gates dropped below 100m as he snap-folded a Livingston river shove, and Ensan had three times as many chips as his nearest challenger.
Gates did win three small pots, none of them amounting to much in the bigger scheme of things, before losing all his gains and more when folding to a 4-best shove from Kevin Maahs.
After a break, Sammartino made a move, taking chips off both Ensan and Gates to bring him over the 50m chip mark before Ensan was at it again, increasing his stack by 30m over an eight-hand spell.
Hand 101 of the FT was a big one. Gates played his hand strong, with an almost pot-sized bet of 16m on the river (board was 745-8-A) and after a time thinking about it, Livingston called with a pair of aces which was plenty as Gates showed a King High bluff. That took the Canadian over 100m and into second place, dropping Gates down to 4th.
Time for another level, this time 1m/2m and it didn't take long for the increased blinds to have an effect. Essan min-raised, and Maahs (who again had been inactive, and very slow and deliberate even when he was "active") shoved with what was now 15BB. Ensan had plenty of chips to call with, and a good hand in a pair of nines and in the chips went. Maahs' A10 suited got only potential backdoor outs from the flop, no help on the turn or the river and he was gone in 5th spot for $2.2m)
Four handed play didn't last long, Gates was leaking chips left right and centre and Ensan was picking them up from all three of his opponents.
Gates' demise came in hand 120 when he shoved 29m chips with pocket sixes from the small blind, but unfortunately for him Livingson in the Big Blind had pocket Queens. Again he only got some help for possible backdoor outs on the flop (5-2-7) and a 10 on the turn was useless to him so only a 6 on the river would keep his ME alive, but a second 10 on the river saw play end for the night with just 3 players still in with a shout.
Chip stacks going in to the final showdown Hossein Ensan 326.8m Alex Livingston 120.4m Dario Sammartino 67.6m
It looks like there is repeated coverage (presumably either Day 8 or a recap of earlier days) from Midnight tonight with live coverage following that from 2am.
Event 84 - $1500 The Closer NLH, Day 2 of 2, 2800 entries in total It's only the fourth ever bracelet for India, as Abhinav Iyer got a big stack midway through Day 2 and held it all the way through to the conclusion.
He held more than a 2:1 chip lead heads-up against Sammy Lafleur, and with a vociferious Indian rail behind him it took just 23 hands to gather all the chips in play in his stack.
Third went Sergio Aguilar, with the best known player at the FT, Shaun Deeb, ending 7th.
The top three took cash prizes of $565K, $349K and $256K respectively, while the biggest GB cashes went to Usman Siddique (13rd, $29K), Ian Simpson (45th, $12K) and Waikiat Lee (75th, $6K)
Event 85 - $3K PLO 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 835 entries I mentioned yesterday how the final 6 were split between 2 big stacks, 2 medium stacks and 2 small stacks, well it was the two middle stacks who ended up fighting for the win.
Evangelos Kokkalis moved up early on when he knocked out both Joseph Cheong and Ka Kwan Lau simultaneously, while Alan Sternberg moved up more slowly but consistently. By the time heads-up started, the Greek had a 3:1 lead, but two hours later the positions had been reversed and the 33 year old local pro took his first bracelet (to add to two WSOP circuit rings) and $448K.
Event 86 - $10K NLH 6-max, Day 3 of 4, 272 entries It seems an age ago that Ben Heath won Event 5, the first British bracelet of the series. He's in with a chance of almost bookending the series as he has made the final table in Event 86. If he makes the heads-up match, he will make the top 10 on the England all-time money list according to the Hendon Mob statistics.
He's got a lot of poker to play before we get there, with 5 others standing in his way led by 2018 bracelet winner (also in 6-max NLH) Gal Yifrach.
Anuj Agarwal lies second, Dong Chen is third and both Kahle Burns and Leonard Maue also have more chips than Heath, who is the shortie with 14BB.
Simon Deadman was the other GB player to make Day 2, he was knocked out in 16th for $28K.
Event 87 - $3K HORSE, Day 2 of 3, 301 entries Konstantin Puchkov is a veteran of the European poker tournament scene, with cashes dating back over the last 15 years but has only one Bracelet to his name, from a HORSE event in 2010. He's back on form in that variant (or variants) with the chip lead going in the final day and the last two tables.
Paul Tedeschi is second and four-time bracelet holder Brian Hastings is third.
Tom Koral is still within a chance of winning a second event within a week, as he lies somewhere in the middle of the pack along with the sole British survivor, Patrick Leonard.
Event 89 - $5K NLH, Day 1 of 2, 608 entries The last hurrah for a Las Vegas bracelet, with the field of over 600 (including re-entries) reduced to 44 who have already guaranteed doubling their original $5K outlay.
A few very familiar names survive, with the biggest of them being the defending champion in the $5K, Phil Hellmuth. He doesn't really seem to have shone this summer, but it is his 12th cash of the series so he must have been doing something right. He was multi-tasking throughout part of the day, being part of the ESPN coverage of the Main Event FT.
Hellmuth collected $485K for his win last year, this time around an increased field means the winner will collect over $600K.
The Day 1 chip leader is Liran Twito, with Lars Kamphues in second and Kristen Bicknell in third.
Of the 2019 Bracelet winners who played this, David "ODB" Baker appears to be the only one who made Day 2, along with Joe Cada, the two MMs Mike Matusow and Michael Mizrachi, and just one British player, Carl Shaw.
To start today None. That's your lot. If you want a bracelet, your next opportunity will be in mid-October for the WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic.
So, we bid farewell to the 50th World Series of Poker, with the oldest ME winner in 20 years.
Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 10 of 10, 8569 entries I'll do a fuller update at some point, but Alex Livingston was the first to bust on Day 10 when he shoved 40m chips with AJ and got quickly called by Hossein Ensan in the small blind with AQ. Both players got a pair on the flop (6JQ) but the turn and the river were no help to the Candaian and he was gone in third for $4m.
The heads up match between Ensan and Dario Sammartino was a bit of a grind. I saw the first 70 or so hands before I had to leave for work and while it was intresting, it wasn't really riveting TV. Sammartino did get marginally in front at one point, but Ensan took the lead back and then just seemed to run slightly better (and possibly play slightly better, I'm not really qualified to judge play at this level and with $4m at stake), gradually eroding the Italian's stack.
Eventually after about 100 heads-up hands, Sammartino check-shoved on the turn into Ensan's Kings with just a flush draw and a gutshot, and after Ensan called, the river was a brick and that was that.
Ensan became the second German to win (after Pius Heinz) and added a WSOP bracelet to an EPT title he already held. Just a WPT for the triple crown?
Sammartino for the second time came close to a huge WSOP bracelet, he finished third in the $100K One Drop High Roller in 2017 and the wait for an Italian ME champion goes on.
Event 86 - $10K NLH 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 272 entries Ben Heath has had a very good series, of course highlighted by that bracelet way back in Event 5, but going in to the final day of Event 86 with the short stack he was unable to work any magic and went out within 8 hands to finish 6th.
Kahle Burns and Anuj Agarwal were the final two, with the latter having almost a 3:1 lead which never looked like getting overturned. It took 28 hands, but Agarwal finished the job when he jammed with AK and Burns called his last 12BB or so with K8. He needed lots of help, but it was Agarwal who got the better of the Ace-high flop and the rest of the board was just a formality.
Event 87 - $3K HORSE, Day 3 of 3, 301 entries Denis Strebkov has been one of the biggest breakthough names of the last 12 months. An amazing run of online success in 2018 has been followed by three FTs here at the WSOP, and now at the fourth time of asking, he has converted that FT to a bracelet.
One of three Russians among the final table, he saw his two countrymen (Konstantin Puchkov and Andrey Zaichekno) depart in 6th & 5th before reigning event champion Brian Hastings got completely card dead at the wrong time and ended up 4th.
Nick Guagenti held the chip lead after busting Hastings, but he fell short in third leaving Strebkov and Paul Tedeschi battling for the bracelet against the noise of the rails on the Main Event featured table.
The heads-up match started more or less even, but a sequence of hands across Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz and Stud established the Russian as the favourite. They got it all in in a Stud Hi-Lo hand where Tedeschi managed to double up, but in the next hand in Hold'em Strebkov turned a flush and it was all over. He won $206K for his first bracelet.
Event 89 - $5K NLH, Day 2 of 2, 608 entries The last event to start (though the Main Event was the last to finish), time for one more deep British run? Of course there was, so:
BRITISH BRACELET ALERT
Carl Shaw from Telford made it a glorious 4th UK bracelet in the 2019 WSOP after he outlasted Tony Dunst in a short-stacked heads-up match that went on longer than anyone expected. The big hand came when Dunst had the advantage, but Shaw doubled up by hitting top pair one the flop.
Phil Hellmuth put in a very good effort into retaining his title, adding to his record number of Final Tables before bowing out in 6th and heading to the ESPN commentary area for the Main Event FT broadcast.
Shaw takes the bracelet and $606K, and who was the person who he wanted prominently in his winner's photo? His mum who was on her first ever visit to America.
So that's just about it from me, thanks to everyone for reading all the babble and for the nice comments posted over the last couple of months. Maybe see you again for a far less detailed rundown when the WSOP gets to Rozvadov in a couple of months. Maybe.
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Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 9 of 10, 8569 entries
Just three players remain with a chance in winning the 2019 Main Event. No surprise that Day 8 chip leader Hossein Ensan is one of them, but the other massive stack at the start of the day, Garry Gates, is out.
Dario Sammartino started the day as the short stack, but doubled up on the third hand of the day (against Ensan) to move a little bit closer to his rivals.
After that, Ensan began to use his big stack, winning two hands each against Gates and Alex Livingston to extend his lead before the level ended and blinds were raised to 800K/1.6m.
In the early stages of the new level, it was more of the same as Ensan took the biggest hand of the day so far against Gates, despite each player only having one pair, over 20 million chips moved from Gates' stack to Ensan's.
Gates dropped below 100m as he snap-folded a Livingston river shove, and Ensan had three times as many chips as his nearest challenger.
Gates did win three small pots, none of them amounting to much in the bigger scheme of things, before losing all his gains and more when folding to a 4-best shove from Kevin Maahs.
After a break, Sammartino made a move, taking chips off both Ensan and Gates to bring him over the 50m chip mark before Ensan was at it again, increasing his stack by 30m over an eight-hand spell.
Hand 101 of the FT was a big one. Gates played his hand strong, with an almost pot-sized bet of 16m on the river (board was 745-8-A) and after a time thinking about it, Livingston called with a pair of aces which was plenty as Gates showed a King High bluff. That took the Canadian over 100m and into second place, dropping Gates down to 4th.
Time for another level, this time 1m/2m and it didn't take long for the increased blinds to have an effect. Essan min-raised, and Maahs (who again had been inactive, and very slow and deliberate even when he was "active") shoved with what was now 15BB. Ensan had plenty of chips to call with, and a good hand in a pair of nines and in the chips went. Maahs' A10 suited got only potential backdoor outs from the flop, no help on the turn or the river and he was gone in 5th spot for $2.2m)
Four handed play didn't last long, Gates was leaking chips left right and centre and Ensan was picking them up from all three of his opponents.
Gates' demise came in hand 120 when he shoved 29m chips with pocket sixes from the small blind, but unfortunately for him Livingson in the Big Blind had pocket Queens. Again he only got some help for possible backdoor outs on the flop (5-2-7) and a 10 on the turn was useless to him so only a 6 on the river would keep his ME alive, but a second 10 on the river saw play end for the night with just 3 players still in with a shout.
Chip stacks going in to the final showdown
Hossein Ensan 326.8m
Alex Livingston 120.4m
Dario Sammartino 67.6m
It looks like there is repeated coverage (presumably either Day 8 or a recap of earlier days) from Midnight tonight with live coverage following that from 2am.
Event 84 - $1500 The Closer NLH, Day 2 of 2, 2800 entries in total
It's only the fourth ever bracelet for India, as Abhinav Iyer got a big stack midway through Day 2 and held it all the way through to the conclusion.
He held more than a 2:1 chip lead heads-up against Sammy Lafleur, and with a vociferious Indian rail behind him it took just 23 hands to gather all the chips in play in his stack.
Third went Sergio Aguilar, with the best known player at the FT, Shaun Deeb, ending 7th.
The top three took cash prizes of $565K, $349K and $256K respectively, while the biggest GB cashes went to Usman Siddique (13rd, $29K), Ian Simpson (45th, $12K) and Waikiat Lee (75th, $6K)
Event 85 - $3K PLO 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 835 entries
I mentioned yesterday how the final 6 were split between 2 big stacks, 2 medium stacks and 2 small stacks, well it was the two middle stacks who ended up fighting for the win.
Evangelos Kokkalis moved up early on when he knocked out both Joseph Cheong and Ka Kwan Lau simultaneously, while Alan Sternberg moved up more slowly but consistently. By the time heads-up started, the Greek had a 3:1 lead, but two hours later the positions had been reversed and the 33 year old local pro took his first bracelet (to add to two WSOP circuit rings) and $448K.
Event 86 - $10K NLH 6-max, Day 3 of 4, 272 entries
It seems an age ago that Ben Heath won Event 5, the first British bracelet of the series. He's in with a chance of almost bookending the series as he has made the final table in Event 86. If he makes the heads-up match, he will make the top 10 on the England all-time money list according to the Hendon Mob statistics.
He's got a lot of poker to play before we get there, with 5 others standing in his way led by 2018 bracelet winner (also in 6-max NLH) Gal Yifrach.
Anuj Agarwal lies second, Dong Chen is third and both Kahle Burns and Leonard Maue also have more chips than Heath, who is the shortie with 14BB.
Simon Deadman was the other GB player to make Day 2, he was knocked out in 16th for $28K.
Event 87 - $3K HORSE, Day 2 of 3, 301 entries
Konstantin Puchkov is a veteran of the European poker tournament scene, with cashes dating back over the last 15 years but has only one Bracelet to his name, from a HORSE event in 2010. He's back on form in that variant (or variants) with the chip lead going in the final day and the last two tables.
Paul Tedeschi is second and four-time bracelet holder Brian Hastings is third.
Tom Koral is still within a chance of winning a second event within a week, as he lies somewhere in the middle of the pack along with the sole British survivor, Patrick Leonard.
Event 89 - $5K NLH, Day 1 of 2, 608 entries
The last hurrah for a Las Vegas bracelet, with the field of over 600 (including re-entries) reduced to 44 who have already guaranteed doubling their original $5K outlay.
A few very familiar names survive, with the biggest of them being the defending champion in the $5K, Phil Hellmuth. He doesn't really seem to have shone this summer, but it is his 12th cash of the series so he must have been doing something right. He was multi-tasking throughout part of the day, being part of the ESPN coverage of the Main Event FT.
Hellmuth collected $485K for his win last year, this time around an increased field means the winner will collect over $600K.
The Day 1 chip leader is Liran Twito, with Lars Kamphues in second and Kristen Bicknell in third.
Of the 2019 Bracelet winners who played this, David "ODB" Baker appears to be the only one who made Day 2, along with Joe Cada, the two MMs Mike Matusow and Michael Mizrachi, and just one British player, Carl Shaw.
To start today
None. That's your lot. If you want a bracelet, your next opportunity will be in mid-October for the WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, Czech Republic.
Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 10 of 10, 8569 entries
I'll do a fuller update at some point, but Alex Livingston was the first to bust on Day 10 when he shoved 40m chips with AJ and got quickly called by Hossein Ensan in the small blind with AQ. Both players got a pair on the flop (6JQ) but the turn and the river were no help to the Candaian and he was gone in third for $4m.
The heads up match between Ensan and Dario Sammartino was a bit of a grind. I saw the first 70 or so hands before I had to leave for work and while it was intresting, it wasn't really riveting TV. Sammartino did get marginally in front at one point, but Ensan took the lead back and then just seemed to run slightly better (and possibly play slightly better, I'm not really qualified to judge play at this level and with $4m at stake), gradually eroding the Italian's stack.
Eventually after about 100 heads-up hands, Sammartino check-shoved on the turn into Ensan's Kings with just a flush draw and a gutshot, and after Ensan called, the river was a brick and that was that.
1. Hossein Ensan $10m
2. Dario Sammartino $6m
3. Alex Livingston $4m
Ensan became the second German to win (after Pius Heinz) and added a WSOP bracelet to an EPT title he already held. Just a WPT for the triple crown?
Sammartino for the second time came close to a huge WSOP bracelet, he finished third in the $100K One Drop High Roller in 2017 and the wait for an Italian ME champion goes on.
Event 86 - $10K NLH 6-max, Day 4 of 4, 272 entries
Ben Heath has had a very good series, of course highlighted by that bracelet way back in Event 5, but going in to the final day of Event 86 with the short stack he was unable to work any magic and went out within 8 hands to finish 6th.
Kahle Burns and Anuj Agarwal were the final two, with the latter having almost a 3:1 lead which never looked like getting overturned. It took 28 hands, but Agarwal finished the job when he jammed with AK and Burns called his last 12BB or so with K8. He needed lots of help, but it was Agarwal who got the better of the Ace-high flop and the rest of the board was just a formality.
Event 87 - $3K HORSE, Day 3 of 3, 301 entries
Denis Strebkov has been one of the biggest breakthough names of the last 12 months. An amazing run of online success in 2018 has been followed by three FTs here at the WSOP, and now at the fourth time of asking, he has converted that FT to a bracelet.
One of three Russians among the final table, he saw his two countrymen (Konstantin Puchkov and Andrey Zaichekno) depart in 6th & 5th before reigning event champion Brian Hastings got completely card dead at the wrong time and ended up 4th.
Nick Guagenti held the chip lead after busting Hastings, but he fell short in third leaving Strebkov and Paul Tedeschi battling for the bracelet against the noise of the rails on the Main Event featured table.
The heads-up match started more or less even, but a sequence of hands across Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz and Stud established the Russian as the favourite. They got it all in in a Stud Hi-Lo hand where Tedeschi managed to double up, but in the next hand in Hold'em Strebkov turned a flush and it was all over. He won $206K for his first bracelet.
Event 89 - $5K NLH, Day 2 of 2, 608 entries
The last event to start (though the Main Event was the last to finish), time for one more deep British run? Of course there was, so:
BRITISH BRACELET ALERT
Carl Shaw from Telford made it a glorious 4th UK bracelet in the 2019 WSOP after he outlasted Tony Dunst in a short-stacked heads-up match that went on longer than anyone expected. The big hand came when Dunst had the advantage, but Shaw doubled up by hitting top pair one the flop.
Phil Hellmuth put in a very good effort into retaining his title, adding to his record number of Final Tables before bowing out in 6th and heading to the ESPN commentary area for the Main Event FT broadcast.
Shaw takes the bracelet and $606K, and who was the person who he wanted prominently in his winner's photo? His mum who was on her first ever visit to America.
So that's just about it from me, thanks to everyone for reading all the babble and for the nice comments posted over the last couple of months. Maybe see you again for a far less detailed rundown when the WSOP gets to Rozvadov in a couple of months. Maybe.