Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 11

There are fewer than 150 players left in contention for the biggest Main Event prize ever going into Day 6 play and Zachary Hall has a big lead on Bryan Obregon. There are no more former champions left in the field now, meaning this Main bracelet will go onto a new wrist for sure when its finally decided. Elsewhere in the series, Shawn Daniels had an emotional bracelet win in the Lucky 7’s game while Seth Davies bagged the lead for the second day in a row in Event #79 and the big HORSE race rounds the final bend into the winner’s stretch with Joao Vieira in the pole position.

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship

There are just 149 players left alive in the Main Event after five days of poker action and Zachary Hall is the player with the biggest bag at the end of Day 5. He bagged up 16.31 million, about 4 million ahead of second-place Bryan Obregon with 12,295 million. Liran Betito and Andrew Hulme will both play stacks in the 11 million range to start Day 6 while Joshua Payne rounds out the top five with just shy of 10 million.

Tony Dunst and Jack O’Neill are also in the top-ten to start Day 6 while Raj Vohra, Day 4 chip leader Ryan Tosoc, Gabi Livshitz, Ludovic Geilich, Alec Torelli, Nate Silver, Patrick “Egption” Tardif, John Duthie, Roman Hrabec, and Karim Chatur were among the players to bag smaller stacks after five days of poker. Among the players to cash out for a prize on Day 5 were Day 3 top-tenners Jerry “Pei” Li and Nicholas Lee, Matt Salsberg, Davidi Kitai, Michael Duek, Nick Marchington, Chris Hak, Jesse Lonis, Faraz Jaka, Kyle Cartwright, Jeff Gross, Jessica Vierling, Jason Somerville, Chance Kornuth, Amanda Botfeld, Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, Dario Sammartino, and Jason Koon.

It turns out that chip leader Hall has a history with a big name in the game right now. While Hall was grinding away in the Main, Ethan “Rampage” Yau took to Twitter to talk about how Hall was the one to take a young Yau under his wing to show him the ropes in $1/$3 cash games.

Top Ten Stacks After Five Days of Play in the 2023 Main Event

Place	Player	Home	Chips	Big Blinds
1	Zachary Hall	United States	16.31m	204
2	Bryan Obregon	United States	12.295m	154
3	Liran Betito	Israel	11.14m	139
4	Andrew Hulme	United Kingdom	11.065m	138
5	Joshua Payne	United States	9.85m	123
6	Anirban Das	India	9.23m	115
7	Tony Dunst	United States	8.285m	104
8	Glenn Fishbein	United States	8.265m	103
9	Jonathan Therme	France	7.9m	99
10	Jack O’Neill	United Kingdom	7.735m	97

Big Cashes but No Repeat Winner

Day 5 action is always fascinating as players are already deep into the money of this biggest-ever Main Event, but because of the way MTT payout structures work, the payouts are still relatively small compared to the monster prizes at the end of the game. Players who survived Day 5 are now guaranteed at least $67,700, while players who hit the cage during Day 5 earned between $37,500 and $67,700 when they collected their money.

One of the big developments on Day 5 was the elimination of the final few former Main Event champions, meaning the winner of this record-setting game will be a fresh face for WSOP Main glory. Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem were the final two Main Event champs left in the field this year, but they both met their end on Day 5. The accountant-turned-Champion Moneymaker, whose 2003 ME win was a big part of lighting the fuse on the poker boom of the early 2000s, ran into kings to end his run this year while Hachem, the Australian winner from 2005, hit the rail to a rivered flush.

Jason Koon and Chris Brewer were also among the big names to hit the rail on Day 5, both of whom ended the day early in the opening level of play. Brewer was flipped out the Main by big slick over jacks while Koon was in good with kings over tens, but lost out when his opponent went to Broadway on the river.

This is the most ridiculous hand you will see this @WSOP, and it's not even close.

Pour one out for Bill Klein and Stuart Taylor after this ridiculous runout. pic.twitter.com/EK17VoMXp1

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 11, 2023

There were a few monster hands that caused players to hit the cage for a payout. Bill Klein and Stuart Taylor will be having nightmares about this runout as Broadway was a popular river destination during Day 5. Ryan Brown was the player with tickets to a big show in this hand but it was a rollercoaster to get there. With Taylor and Klein all in and Taylor’s aces and Klein’s kings crushing the ace-queen squeeze from Brown, Klein spiked his two outer on the flop only to watch Brown go running to Broadway for the whole pot. Taylor could only watch in stunned horror as his aces went down in flames, while Klein may need some heart conditioning after the shock of spiking his king only to see it drowned on the river.

In another fascinating spot from the feature table, Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby set a trap for Chance Kornuth that the triple-bracelet winner stepped right into. Rigby four-bet shoved about 100 big blinds over a three-bet from Kornuth, and given Rigby’s reputation and range, Kornuth put in the call with big slick. In this case however, Rigby was using his reputation to his advantage, tabling the pocket rockets to have Kornuth crushed and there were no Broadway tickets for Kornuth on this one and he hit the cage for $44,700 in 302nd place.

The other fun story from this Main so far comes from the Botfeld family. Poker writer Amanda Botfeld famously came 3rd in the 2021 team event with her father David, and both players cashed in this year’s record-breaking Main Event. The elder Botfeld cashed out on Day 4 for a second-tier min-cash of $17,500 while Amanda took 341st place on Day 5 for $44,700.

Day 6 action kicks off at noon on Wednesday, and as always this week, PokerGO has wall-to-wall coverage of the Main on its various media channels.

Event #77: $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit Hold’em

Shawn Daniels had an emotional win after making it through 7,300 runners to take down the Lucky 7s bracelet. This was his first bracelet and biggest win on the live felt, with the $777,777 top prize a bit bigger than his previous lifetime earnings from the beautiful game, but his victory was somewhat bittersweet. “I recently lost my fiancé so it’s been a tough summer,” he confessed. “I just wish she was here to celebrate it also. But it is what it is, it’s nice to get it done.”

The emotional toll on Daniels was easy to see after the event as he crouched down, head in hands, taking in the moment consumed with what were no doubt deeply conflicted emotions. He admitted to running well, something that nearly every poker winner has to acknowledge, as he rivered a few three-outers through the event to stay alive or build his stack and with only about 100 big blinds in play for the final day, the impact of a few spots is magnified and Daniels was able to come through for the win.

Prior to this win, he had just over $700k in recorded cashes from live poker, so along with his first bracelet, he basically doubled his earnings in a few days here. The $777,777 was the biggest share of a prize pool that ended up just shy of $5 million and Daniels defeated Julien Montois from France for the title, sending Montois home with the $400,777 consolation prize.

Event #79: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em

There are just 24 players left in the game for the start of Day 3 of the $2,500 NLHE bracelet event and for the second day in a row, Seth Davies has the most chips to start the day. Davies bagged up a lead of 1.113 million after Day 1, and after Day 2 he increased that chip-leading bag to 9.425 million. Not only is he the only player with 9 million or more, second-place Justin Kindred is almost 3.5 million back with 6 million even to start Day 3. Rui Ferreira is also among the top ten stacks after two days of play while Galen Hall also managed to find a bag at the end of the night.

There were 2,068 entries for this one, putting the prizes at $4,601,300. Most of the 311 paid spots have already been claimed for this one, with names like David Peters, Brian Yoon, Koray Aldemir, Calvin Anderson, Barbara Enright, and Lara Eisenberg all being sent to the cage during Day 2 play.

Day 3 for this one kicks off at 11 am with action in Level 28. This should be the final day of play for this one, but many of the events this year have required an extra day to finish them out, so don’t be surprised to see a Day 4 in this one with 3-5 players returning tomorrow.

Event #80: $25,000 High Roller H.O.R.S.E.

There are 15 players left in the big HORSE race now after two days of play, and Portugal’s Joao Vieira is on the lead mount rounding the final bend and heading for the finish line. He bagged up 2.595 million after two days of play, with Yingui Li and Day 2 chip leader Josh Arieh rounding out the top three stacks of more than 2 million. “Johnny World” Hennigan and Hal Rotholz sit fourth and fith respectively, but they are all amongst some of the best mixed game players on the planet with players like Matt Grapenthien, Brian Hastings, Johannes Becker, Michael Moncek, Ray Dehkharghani, and Scott Seiver all still alive and looking to overtake the leader in the final stretch.

Day 3 action resumes at 2 pm with play in Level 21. The game is expected to crown a champion by the end of the day, but an extra day may well be required.

Event #81: $600 Ultra Stack – No-limit Hold’em – Flight A

There were more than 3,000 entries for the opening flight of the Ultra Stack and Matthew Land was the biggest of three players to bag more than 2 million. Jiawei Mao and Christina Gollins are the other double millionaires to emerge from Day 1a. There is still one more starting flight for this one, but at the moment, the prizes are already at $1,576,410 from the Day 1a entries, so with 1b expected to be bigger, this one could easily see $4 million or more in prizes before the dust settles.

Day 2 of this game is scheduled for Thursday with Day 1b running Wednesday starting at 10 am.

Event #82: $3,000 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha

There were just over 1,000 entries for the $3k 6-handed PLO game putting the prizes at $2,704,710. The winner can expect to pocket $480,122 as one of 152 paid players, and Tyler Gaston is the player with the best shot at that top prize after the first day. He was the only player with more than 500k in his bag to end the day but Ian Matakis, who is having a stellar summer with some 18 cashes already in the series for the Player of the Year lead, just missed with 500k mark with 490.5k for second place. Dylan Weisman also bagged a top ten stack in this one, while Tamon Nakamura, Brandon Shack-Harris, Shaun Deeb, Joe Serock, Chino Rheem, Ryan D’Angelo, Mike Gorodinsky, Michael Duek, and Thomas Taylor all bagged top 100 stacks after the opening day.

There are still 238 players in action chasing the 152 paid spots with Day 2 action starting at 1 pm. There are ten levels on the schedule for Day 2 with Thursday’s Day 3 set to be the final day of play.

Upcoming Events on July 12

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – Day 6

• Start: 12 noon
• Entries: 10,043
• Prizes: $93,399,900
• Remaining: 149
• Next Prize: $67,700

Event #81: $600 Ultra Stack – No-limit Hold’em – Flight B

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 60,000
• Reentries: 2 per Flight

Event #83: $1,500 Short Deck No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 12 Noon
• Late Entry: 9 Levels
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 2

Event #84: $50,000 HIGH ROLLER No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: Start of Day 2
• Start Stack: 300,000
• Reentries: 1