On Friday, an organized chaos ruled. The World Series of Poker has a plan to accommodate several big tournaments at one time. It always does. But from the outside, it seemed that there was an awful lot happening.
The Main Event thinned its field from a thousand players to fewer than 300. The Little One for One Drop whittled its field down to little more than two dozen. The Stud-8 tournament found its champion. The Crazy Eights tournament began one of several flights, and it played into the money without having the full registration numbers. And Omaha-Hold’em mix started in the late afternoon.
Today won’t be much calmer, but they’ll manage. They always do.
Here’s a rundown of what happened on Friday.
Event 67: $10K WSOP Main Event
Everyone that opened a bag with any chips in it on Friday knew that they would cash out for at least $15K, a profit over their original $10K buy-in. But many players in this situation decide to use it or lose, to double-up or get paid out. That was how more than 700 players exited the Main Event on Friday.
Previous WSOP bracelet winners and well-known pros who exited later in the evening included Alex Livingston, Andre Akkari, Anton Wigg, Ayaz Mahmood, JJ Liu, Ben Yu, Renan Bruchi, Rami Boukai, Bertrand Grospellier, Young Phan, Ryan Eriquezzo, and David Prociak. And as the dust settled, Chris Moneymaker fell out of the top ten on the leaderboard as Qui Nguyen maintained, both of them representing the only previous Main Event winners in the event.
The day’s starting chipleader, Jessica Cai, busted halfway through the day, while Ramon Colillas soared to that spot. And if his name sounds familiar, it is because he won the inaugural PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) in the Bahamas in early 2019. He freerolled that $25K buy-in to win $5.1M, so he’s no stranger to pressure and stamina required to win a long tournament.
Event 67: Day 4
$10K buy-in
NLHE World Championship (Main Event)
Starting stack: 60K
Levels: 120 minutes
Total entries:
6,650
Registration still open?
no
Total prize pool:
$62,011,250
Players paid:
1,000
Minimum payout:
$15,000
Winner payout:
$8,000,000
Current payout:
$33,900
Day 4 chip leader:
Ramon Colillas
Total players remaining:
292
Day 5 start:
12pm Saturday
Top ten chip counts:
Ramon Colillas (Spain) 5,000,000
Demosthenes Kiriopoulos (Canada) 4,500,000
Stephen Song (USA) 4,417,000
Stephen Chidwick (UK) 4,376,000
Zachary Mcdiarmid (USA) 4,093,000
Jonathan Dwek (Canada) 3,955,000
Jason Osser (USA) 3,900,700
Dragana Lim (USA) 3,801,000
Fernando Rodriguez (USA) 3,442,000
Matthew Jewett (USA) 3,398,000
Event 68: $1,111 NLHE Little One for One Drop
While some were waiting to find out how much money the poker players raised for One Drop, players were focused on the prize pool. From a field of 229, there were only 26 bagging chips last night. Day 1C chipleader and GGPoker qualifier Oscar Alache is short-stacked but still in contention, and fellow qualifiers Gyuhoon Kang has a workable stack. Sorel Mizzi finished the day in the top ten, with former WSOP bracelet winners Scott Ball and David Jackson seeking their second pieces of WSOP gold.
The original 13 players who started the day consisted of some big poker names and former bracelet winners. But as the action moved forward, Perry Friedman exited in tenth and John Racener in eighth. The two women in that group exited one after the other, as Carol Fuchs took sixth place and Esther Taylor followed in fifth. John Monnette missed out on his fifth WSOP bracelet when he busted in fourth. Three-handed play took more than three hours, and heads-up play took another two. In the end, Jermaine Reid, who led the tournament after Day 1 and came back from a short stack on the final day, captured his first bracelet. The VP of Global Integration Systems in New York spoke to PokerNews about the win:
“It means a lot. It is something I set out to do this year. I really didn’t think I would accomplish it. It was just a stretch goal. So, I’m very, very surprised I actually got it. It feels amazing. The money is irrelevant; the bracelet is everything.”
This tournament finally got underway on Friday. WSOP staff cancelled the original Day 1A set for the day before because of the organized chaos mentioned above. But Day 1B got underway on Friday, though it is actually the first starting day and should be 1A.
Another confusing point of this event is the payout situation. This is not a completely unique method, but it is not common at the WSOP. Payouts are guaranteed each day. It doesn’t matter that they full field number and prize pool is unknown. The WSOP does some calculations and pays out the top finishers from each flight. That meant that the top 166 finishers yesterday made the money. They will now take a break while more players get into the action today and tomorrow.
Event 70: Day 1B of 6
$888 buy-in
NLHE Crazy Eights (1RE/flight)
Total entries:
1,014
Total entries in the money:
166
Day 1B min payout:
$1,425
Registration still open?
yes
Total prize pool:
TBD
Players paid:
TBD
Minimum payout:
TBD
Winner payout:
TBD
Chip leader:
Joseph Hebert
Day 1B players remaining:
50
Day 1B restart:
12pm Monday
Day 1C start:
12pm Saturday
Event 71: $1,500 PLO Bounty
With bounties as an extra incentive, Omaha players competed for this WSOP bracelet on Friday. Only 15 players made it through, though, and PartyPoker’s Jeff Gross is one of them. Day 1’s chipleader, Mourad Amokrane will start play on Saturday second in chips, fairly close to new chipleader Matt Mamiya. It appears that they tournament will play for the win today.
Event 71: Day 2 of 3
$1,500 buy-in
PLO Bounty (1RE)
Total entries:
860
Registration still open?
no
Total prize pool:
$718,100
Players paid:
129
Minimum payout:
$1,512
Winner payout:
$132,844
Chip leader:
Matt Mamiya
Players remaining:
15
Restart:
3pm Saturday
Event 72: $1,500 Mixed NLHE/PLO
The only new event on Friday was this player-favorite mix. Hundreds of people entered – and many reentered – to create a $1.1M prize pool. A Canadian woman named Nohad Teliani leads the pack into Day 2 of the tournament, with about twice as many chips as Paul Saso in second place on the leaderboard. Also in the top ten, Josh Arieh goes for another bracelet…yet again. And poker pro Kosei Ichinose is looking for his first.
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