The 2025 World Series of Poker Has Kicked off in Las Vegas!
Daniel Negreanu hosted the $25k Fantasy Draft on a night where the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) kicked in
The 2025 World Series of Poker Has Kicked off in Las Vegas!
Daniel Negreanu hosted the $25k Fantasy Draft on a night where the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) kicked in Las Vegas. Kid Poker was on hand to see the record broken for a draft player’s single value, as Team DPMD spent $141 of their $200 fantasy budget on Jeremy Ausmus in the $25,000-entry event. In the two opening events of the WSOP, the Mystery Millions and Industry Employees events welcomed over 2,000 players to the felt.
Mystery Millions Welcomes Former World Champions
This year’s opening event was the $1,000-entry Mystery Millions. A total of 1,329 players took on the tournament with a million-dollar top prize and top bounty on Day 1a as only 70 survived the carnage. Several former world champions took part with 2013 Main Event winner Ryan Riess ‘The Beast’ and 1996 champion Huckleberry Seed were joined in the field by Jeff Madsen, John ‘Johnny World’ Hennigan, Sean Troha, Jeremy Ausmus, Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau, Daniel Zack, Adam Hendrix, and David ‘ODB’ Baker.
Players such as Cherish Andrews (182nd for $1,318), Kevin Theodore (128th for $1,384) and Max Pescatori (119th for $1,384), all made money, with Hennigan (110th for $1,441), Matt Affleck (94th for $1,526) and Brian Borst (71st for 2,001) all making the money places slightly higher up the leaderboard, albeit falling short of Day 2.
Here’s the top 10 players after Day 1a’s conclusion.
| WSOP Event #1 $1,000 Mystery Millions Day 1a Top 10 Chipcounts: | |||
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
| 1st | Konstantin Held | Germany | 2,485,000 |
| 2nd | Brian Yoon | United States | 2,410,000 |
| 3rd | Narcis Nedelcu | Romania | 2,335,000 |
| 4th | Zdenek Zizka | Czech Republic | 1,835,000 |
| 5th | Ryan Otto | New Zealand | 1,780,000 |
| 6th | Sohale Khalili | United States | 1,755,000 |
| 7th | Leo Lombardozzi | France | 1,740,000 |
| 8th | Daniel Pearlman | United States | 1,735,000 |
| 9th | Jeffrey Extor | United States | 1,655,000 |
| 10th | Joe Gardenhire | United States | 1,425,000 |
WSOP Fantasy Draft Sees Ausmus Attract Record Bid
The 2025 $25k Fantasy Draft was hosted by Daniel Negreanu inside the PokerGO Studio as 24 teams each chose eight poker players to form their teams. From the WSOP Events that qualify, those players will earn points and the winner of the $25k Fantasy Draft will likely take home a quarter of a million dollars. It’s for elite players, media know-hows and industry experts and poker fans love the sweat.
As the action played to thrilled fans on the PokerGO YouTube channel, the biggest bidding war ended with a record bid of $141 from a budget of $200 for six-time WSOP winner Jeremy Ausmus. Bought by former Fantasy Draft winners Team DPMD, their budget was blown but other big names went for triple figure bids too, with the 2024 WSOP Player of the Year Scott Seiver going for $125 to Team Frog Poison, Brazil’s Yuri Dzivielevski ($119 to Team Liaison) and Daniel Negreanu ($108 to Team Negreanu) all among the top five picks.
Poker legends such as Jesse Lonis ($103), Shaun Deeb ($99) and Phil Ivey ($95) were joined in the field by bargains such as Erik Seidel ($13), Cherish Andrews ($3) and Aram Zobian, who cost just $1 for his team. You can find out which players were bought by all the 2025 Fantasy Draft teams here.
Industry Employees Event Scrapes into Money Places
The former curtain-raiser, the $500-entry Industry Employees event is no longer limited to casino employees and has some very experienced players in the mix. With 914 entries, just 138 players were in seats at the close of play as the money bubble burst at the death.
With 139 players left, the midnight hour saw drama as Hergi Muci busted in a cruel fashion after his pocket jacks were outrun by Keegan Mccann’s king-deuce. A flop of 7-6-4 was followed by a jack on the turn but an eight on the river knocked out Muci and put the remaining hopefuls into the money.
Mccann made the top 10 as Shaun ‘The Dealer’ Colquhoun top scored as the former WSOP dealer turned semi-pro player looks to bag his first-ever bracelet.
| WSOP Event #2 $500 Industry Employees Day 1 Top 10 Chipcounts: | |||
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
| 1st | Shaun Colquhoun | United States | 895,000 |
| 2nd | Andrew Vodinh | United States | 686,000 |
| 3rd | John Vournas | United States | 593,000 |
| 4th | Rick Muniz | United States | 515,000 |
| 5th | Konstantin Polin | United States | 507,000 |
| 6th | Keegan Mccann | United States | 489,000 |
| 7th | Miguel Cardenas | United States | 460,000 |
| 8th | Keith Williams | United States | 394,000 |
| 9th | Angelo Perez | United States | 385,000 |
| 10th | Austin Hortaleza | United States | 365,000 |
With thanks to GGPoker and the WSOP for photographs.
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