Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 12

There are fewer than 50 players left in contention for the biggest Main Event prize ever going into Day 7 play and Joshua Payne has a big lead after six days of play. The last two women standing left the field on Day 6 with France’s Estelle Cohuet finishing in 68th for $130k. Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby also found the felt on Day 6 while Alec Torelli is in the top ten looking for his first bracelet. Elsewhere in the series, Josh Arieh bagged his 6th bracelet and cemented his eventual inclusion in the Hall of Fame while Samuel Bernabeu increased his biggest score ten-fold with his first bracelet.

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

The Main Event is getting down to the business end of the game now with just 49 players left in action after six days of play. Joshua Payne is the big stack going into Day 7 with almost 48 million in his bag. Spain’s Juan Maceiras Lapido is nipping at his heels with 40.5 million but they are the only two players to bag up more than 100 big blinds for when action restarts in Level 31 with blinds at 125k/250k/250k with the 3rd place stack of Daniel Weinman at just 24.375 million. Positions four through seven on the top ten have in the 20 million range.

One of the stacks in the 20-mil range for Day 7 belongs to the founder of Conscious Poker, Alec Torelli. Torelli is still looking for his first bracelet in five WSOP cashes, with his closest effort coming with a runner-up finish in the 2008 Heads-up Championship where he lost out to Kenny Tran. Daniel Scroggins. who claimed he was wearing a watch worth $150k, and Nicholas Gerrity were among the other names to grab a top ten stack after Day 6.

Daniel Vampan, Toby Lewis, Jose Aguilera, Jack O’Neill, Alexander Villa, Day 4 chip leader Ryan Tosoc, Circuit ring leader Maurice Hawkins, Raj Vohra, Japanese vlogger Masato Yokosawa, and Pavel Dyachenko are among the other players still alive in the final 48 players of the biggest Main Event ever.

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

Place	Player	Home	Chips	Big Blinds for Lvl 31
1	Joshua Payne	United States	47.95m	192
2	Juan Maceiras Lapido	Spain	40.5m	162
3	Daniel Weinman	United States	24.375m	98
4	Richard Ryder	United States	22.65m	91
5	Tim Van Loo	Austria	21.7m	87
6	Alec Torelli	United States	21.075m	84
7	Daniel Scroggins	United States	20.8m	83
8	Pierpaola Lamanna	Italy	18.875m	76
9	Nicholas Gerrity	United States	18.075m	72
10	Ryan Tamanini	United States	17.325m	69

Day 5 Leader Among Players to Fall on Day 6

Day 6 is when things start getting really serious in the Main Event. Players hit the six-figure payouts during Day 6 play this year, and as is often the case, a lot of big names fell by the wayside during the day. Perhaps the biggest fall from grace on Day 6 came from the start of day chip leader Zachary Hall. He came into the day with more than 4 million more than anyone else in his bag, but had a pretty brutal day, eventually falling to the new chip leader Joshua Payne before the end of Day 6 play.

Among the other players to fall on Wednesday was the last woman standing, Estelle Cohuet from France. She was actually joined by India’s Nikita Luther as the last two women left in the game and both managed to pocket top-100 scores. Luther, who picked up her only bracelet in 2018 in the Team Event, just slid into the two-digit finishes with 96th place for $78,900 while Cohuet managed 68th for $130,300 in what she said was her first Main Event.

Day 7 will be significantly quieter as well after Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby saw his Main Event run come to an end on Day 6 for the second time. It actually ended in a pretty standard race spot for him when he got his pocket jacks in against the big slick for Diego D’Aquilio. The classic flip looked to be going the way of the Diaper when he flopped a set of jacks, but it’s never easy in poker, and D’Aquilio flopped a gutshot to Broadway at the same time. Rigby survived the turn, but the Dirty Diaper was headed to the cage when the queen hit the river. Rigby pocketed $67,700 for 131st place this year.

Among the other players to hit the rail on Day 6 for a cashout were John Racener, Tony Dunst, John Duthie, Ludovic Geilich, Nate Silver, Karim Chatur, Patrick “Egption” Tardif, Christian Harder, Allen Shen, and Roman Hrabec.

Busted the Main Event but have my High Noons still… 👷🏻‍♂️ @highnoonsunsips @stoolpresidente #WSOPMainEvent pic.twitter.com/RgLIhRf7rg

— Rigby (@GTO_Diaper) July 13, 2023

Day 7 action gets underway at noon on Thursday with another five levels on the schedule. As always, PokerGO will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Main Event on all their media channels today.

Event #79: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em

Samuel Bernabeu took down his first bracelet in the $3.500 NLHE game, and in the process bagged his biggest score by far. Going into this event, he had just $11k in live cashes according to Hendon Mob, though he also had a slew of results from the 2021 online edition of WSOP on GGPoker. Prior to this win, his biggest previous live score was just over $4k for 111th place in the 2019 6-Handed (Event #31), but even compared to his GGPoker results on Hendon, the latest score is more than ten times his previous best according to the live poker tracker.

Bernabeu had to make his way through 2,068 original entries to secure the biggest share of the $4,601,300 prize pool. That share ended up at $682,432 while runner-up James Anderson, who fell just short of his second bracelet, made $421,761. Seth Davies, who led the counts after both Day 1 and Day 2, couldn’t keep up the momentum for the final day of play and had to settle for 4th place and $230,772. Among the other players to pocket cash from this one were Ramon Fernandez, Nick Palma, Galen Hall, Vincent Lam, Thomas Taylor, and Ben Keeline, as well as Irish poker author Dara O’Kearney and his fellow Irishman Marc Macdonnell.

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

Josh Arieh bagged his second bracelet of the year and his sixth overall after taking down the $25k HORSE game. He was up against 112 of the best players in the game and he bested them all to take down his $711,313 share of the $2,632,000 total prize pool. The money is no doubt great for Arieh, but it seems likely the real prize for him in this one was the coveted sixth Gold Bracelet, tying him with his friend and rival Shaun Deeb.

The two have such a friendly rivalry going that after Arieh won his first this year, and fifth overall, Deeb vowed to get his sixth before Arieh. Sure enough, a few days later Deeb was holding his sixth, one ahead of his buddy again. It is unclear if Deeb made a similar promise after this one, but players in the remaining events should be on notice that Deeb might well have extra incentive for another one now to stay ahead of his buddy.

Among the names that Arieh had to navigate through in this one were some of the best in the mixed-game world. Joao Vieira, Mike Matusow, John Hennigan, Johannes Becker, Scott Seiver, Hal Rotholz, Ray Dehkharghani, Michael Moncek, and Matt Grapenthien were among the big names to cash out in this one, but the win brings Arieh’s total earnings to more than $12 million now.

When asked about the Hall of Fame after the win, the ever-humble Arieh was thoughtful about it, suggesting that players like Brian Rast were far better positioned than he might be this year. “This year belongs to Rast, he’s an absolute crusher and he did what he had to do,” Arieh said after the win, but it seems a lock that Arieh is destined for the Hall eventually.

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

After more than 3.000 entries on Day 1a, the second starting flight of the Ultra Stack saw 4,116 entries for a total of 7,207 across both starting days. That put $3,675,570 into the prize pool but the details of how it will be split are yet to be published. It’s worth noting that this was a Day 1 cash event, so some of the total prize pool has already been paid out to players cashing late on one of the Day 1s.

Rassoul Malboubi is one of two players with more than 3 million chips to start Day 2 on Thursday with fellow American Leonard Clementi as the other. Six more players have at least 2 million in their bag to start the day with 555 players returning.

The action for Day 2 gets going at 10 am on Thursday and there are 17 levels on the schedule before they bag up for the final day of play on Friday.

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

Dustin Goldklang is the top dog in the 6-Handed PLO game after the second day of play. He was the only player with more than 4 million in his bag. but Connor Drinan bagged 3.275 million for second place. Matthew Parry and Brandon Shack-Harris are among the other players with a top-ten bag after two days of four-card poker.

There were 1,013 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 there are just 35 players left in the game for Day 3. Among the other players still alive on Day 3 are current PoY leader Ian Matakis and Kane Kalas, while some of the players to pocket cash on Day 2 were Mike Gorodinsky, Sammy Farha, Dylan Weisman, Joe Serock, Matt Vengrin, Daniel Negreanu, Noah Bronstein, Felipe Ramos, Ryan D’Angelo, and Chino Rheem.

Cards go in the air for Day 3 at 1 pm on Thursday and the expectation is to play down to a winner before they end the day.

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

There were 363 entries for the Short Deck game putting the total prizes at $484,605. A total of 55 players will take home some piece of that prize pool, but most of the spots are already spoken for with just nine players returning for Day 2 play. Among the players to pocket some cash from this one were Dario Sammartino, Anson Tsang, Patrick Leonard, Roland Israelashvili, Alex Epstein, Nick Marchington, and Martin Zamani.

David Prociak leads the way into Day 2 with just over 2 million in his bag while second-place Robert James of the UK has 1.622 million to start Day 2. Ryan Laplante is among the other players who will return to the felt for the final day at noon on Thursday.

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

There were 137 entries on Day 1 of the $50k game. That is significantly ahead of last year’s number and entries are still open in this one until the start of Day 2, so it looks certain to hit big numbers. Yang Wang from China is the chip leader after the opening day, but Fedor Holz isn’t too far behind him. Wang has just over 2 million to start the day while Holz couldn’t be closer to 2 million without hitting it. Stefan Schillhabel, Vlad Darie, Dylan Linde, Jake Schindler, and 2022 Main Event winner Espen Jorstad are just a few of the high-profile names still looking for glory in this nosebleed game.

There are still 44 players left alive for Day 2, plus however many new entries they get before cards go in the air at 1 pm on Thursday.

Upcoming Events on July 13

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – Day 7

• Start: 12 noon
• Entries: 10,043
• Prizes: $93,399,900
• Remaining: 49
• Next Prize: $188,400

Event #85: $1,500 SHOOTOUT No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 3 Levels (or Sellout)
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 0
• Note: 2,000 player max

Event #86: $1,979 Poker Hall of Fame Bounty No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 12 Noon
• Late Entry: 9 Levels
• Start Stack: 30,000
• Reentries: Unlimited

Event #87: $2,500 Mixed

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 35,000
• Reentries: 1
• Games: Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better