2019 WSOP Day 7: Big 50 Makes History

Written by Jennifer Newell

Last updated on June 5th, 2019

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The numbers have been revealed. The Big 50 did, in fact, make history. It had the most total number of tournament entries at 28,371. It had 17,970 unique entries, setting a new WSOP record by beating the 2017 Colossus by 17%. It had the largest prize pool ever for a $500 buy-in tournament at $13,509,435. It had the most places paid for said tournament at 4,258. The Big 50 also exceeded the average percentage of women in a typical poker tournament. The average is typically between 3% and 5% of a tournament field, but the Big 50 showed 7.02% female in the total number of entries, with 7.3% from the total number of unique buy-ins. Other interesting numbers: Total number of player entries:

--One entry:  11,555 --Two entries:  3,969 --Three entries:  1,473 --Four entries:  599 --Five entries:  244 --Six entries:  92 --Seven entries:  28 --Eight Entries:  10

Average age of entrants:  44 years old Oldest entrant:  91 Number of countries reflected in buy-ins:  89 Number of dealers required:  1,208 Number of card decks used:  4,912 https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1136004538945511424 Now, back to the basics. On Tuesday, June 4, this is what happened.

Event 3:  $500 Big 50 NLHE – Day 2D

Entries:  28,371 (17,970 unique players) Prize pool:  $13,509,435 Players paid:  4,258 Minimum payout:  $750 Winner payout:  $1,150,500 (estimated) Players remaining:  1,597 Day 2A chip leader:  Mikhail Vilkov (Russian Federation) – 3,475,000 chips Day 2B chip leader:  Jerald Willilamson (USA) – 4,105,000 chips Day 2C chip leader:  Saya Ono (USA) – 3,810,000 chips Day 2D chip leader:  Zachary Ackley (USA) – 2,925,000 chips Day 3 starting time:  11am today

Event 8:  $10K Short Deck NLHE – Final

Total entries:  114 Prize pool:  $1,071,600 Players paid:  18 Final table payouts: 1^st place:  Alex Epstein (USA) - $296,227 2^nd place:  Thai Ha (USA) - $183,081 3^rd place:  Anson Tsang (Hong Kong) - $130,482 4^th place:  Chance Kornuth (USA) - $93,593 5^th place:  Rene van Krevelen (Netherlands) - $67,566 6^th place:  Yong Wang (China) - $49,095

Event 9:  $600 NLHE Deep Stack – Day 2 of 3

Total entries: 6,151 Prize pool:  $3,229,275 Players paid:  923 Minimum payout:  $874 Winner payout:  $398,281 Day 2 players remaining: 9 Final table chip counts: Paul Jain (USA) – 41.7 million Jeremy Pekarek (USA) – 21.8 million David Elet (USA) – 21.3 million Noomis Jones (USA) – 21.1 million Juan Magana (Mexico) – 19.5 million Tan Nguyen (USA) – 18.4 million Benjamin Underwood (Canada) – 17.6 million Dan Kuntzman (USA) – 11.6 million John Skrovan (USA) – 11.6 million Day 3 starting time:  3pm

Event 10:  $1,500 Dealer’s Choice 6-Handed – Day 2 of 3

Total entries:  470 Prize pool:  $634,500 Players paid:  71 Minimum payout:  $2,250 Winner payout:  $144,957 Day 2 players remaining:  21 Chip leader:  Benny Glaser (UK) – 489,500 chips Day 3 starting time:  2pm

Event 11:  $5K NLHE – Day 2 of 4

Total entries:  400 Prize pool:  $1,860,000 Players paid:  60 Minimum payout:  $7,476 Winner payout:  $442,385 Day 2 players remaining: 27 Chip leader:  Pauli Ayras (Finland) – 1 million chips Day 3 starting time:  2pm

Event 12:  $1K NLHE Super Turbo Bounty – Final

https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1135966636651847680

Total entries:  2,452 Prize pool:  $1,471,200 Players paid:  368 Minimum payout:  $1,000 Final table payouts: 1^st place:  Daniel Park (USA) - $226,243 2^nd place:  Erik Cajelais (Canada) - $139,731 3^rd place:  Jennifer Dennis (USA) - $102,010 4^th place:  Emil Tiller (USA) - $75,149 5^th place:  Marcelo Giordano Mendes (Brazil) - $55,869 6th place:  John Yelaney (USA) - $41,920 7^th place:  Travis Sargent (USA) - $31,748 8^th place:  Lian Liu (USA) - $24,271 9^th place:  Ferit Bulutoglu (USA) - $18,731

Event 13:  $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw – Day 1 of 3

https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1136028432226107392

Total entries:  296 Prize pool:  $399,600 Players paid:  45 Minimum payout:  $2,242 Winner payout:  $96,278 Day 1 players remaining:  63 Chip leader:  Steven Tabb (USA) – 185,400 chips Day 2 starting time:  2pm

Notable Information

Alex Epstein won his first WSOP bracelet in the inaugural Short Deck tournament. He had been honing his short deck skills of late, refocusing his time from PLO. His decision to play Event 8 was to go with a higher variance event than his PLO cash games, and his plan worked. “Walking to the Rio today, I was thinking that I just wanted to enjoy the experience,” he told PokerNews. “I knew that the other good players at the final table were short stacks, so I had a very good chance if things broke my way.” https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1136117490340077568 Daniel Park also took down his first WSOP event, something he called a dream. “I can’t believe it right now,” he said. “It’s so unreal.” He played only one day to capture the title in a turbo structure, and the native of South Korea will now take some of the profit and play the Main Event later in the series. https://twitter.com/WSOP/status/1136230990127308802