Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 16

There are just three players left in the biggest Big Show ever with Steven Jones leading the way into what should be the final day of play on Monday. Action will be streamed on PokerGO starting at 3 pm with cards-up coverage. Canada also scored its fifth bracelet of the series after Bradley Smith took down the Mixed split pot game, while Pierre Shen bagged his first bracelet in his first EVER poker tournament.

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship Day 9

They are down to just three players left in the biggest Big Show in history after the ninth day of play on Sunday. Steven Jones has the lead to start Day 10, which looks likely to be the final day of play for this year’s Main Event, after bagging up 238 million at the end of the night. Daniel Weinman is just shy of the 200 million mark while Adam Walton will be playing 165.5 million on Day 10.

Day 9 action kicked off with nine players still in contention for the $12.1 million top prize, not to mention the bracelet attached to the biggest Main Event ever, but one by one, six of those players hit the cage for a payout before the night concluded. Five of the six pocketed seven-figure payouts, but the ninth-place finisher Daniel Holzner had to settle for just $900k for his nine days of work at the felt.

Day 9 played a bit more than 100 hands to decide the final three players but it took a while before Holzner and start-of-day leader Juan Maceiras ended their runs in ninth and eighth places within a few hands of each other. That happened almost halfway through the day. Toby Lewis, Dean Hutchison, Ruslan Prydryk, and Jan-Peter Jachtmann were the other players to hit the rail on Day 9.

Day 9 Cashouts from the Main Event

Place	Player	Home	Prize
1			$12,100,000
2			$6,500,000
3			$4,000,000
4	Jan-Peter Jachtmann	Germany	$3,000,000
5	Ruslan Prydryk	Ukraine	$2,400,000
6	Dean Hutchison	Scotland	$1,850,000
7	Toby Lewis	England	$1,425,000
8	Juan Maceiras	Spain	$1,125,000
9	Daniel Holzner	Italy	$900,000

Final Three Stacks for Day 10 of the Main Event

Seat	Player	Home	Stack	Big Blinds (2m)
1	Steven Jones	United States	238m	119
4	Adam Walton	United States	165.5m	83
5	Daniel Weinman	United States	199m	100

Event #87: $2,500 Mixed

Canada is now tied with China again for second place in the national bracelet standings after Bradley Smith won his nation’s fifth bracelet this series in the Mixed split pot game. Most impressive, Smith entered the final day of play last in chips by a fairly significant margin.

Smith started the day with just 2.655 million with big stacks Nick Pupillo (6.045m) and Nghia Le (7.4m) towering above him. But that didn’t faze the Canadian who hails from Thornhill, one of the satellite communities around Toronto, Ontario. That stack was already good enough to equal Smith’s best WSOP finish, third in the 2019 $1,500 HORSE, but he was hungry for more and said after the game that, although a bit of a newcomer to the mixed games, he loves them a lot.

He said he didn’t start playing mixed games until 2017, but they quickly grew on him and the 2019 finish showed he was a contender. “Omaha-8 and Stud-8 are my two favorite games,” he said, adding “I was super focused for every single second … I think I played every single hand in this tournament to the best of my ability.”

It was the second-place stack of Pupillo that would be the first to exit from the final day after he was unable to get anything going. Smith and Le then battled heads-up for some three hours. Smith jumped into the lead quickly, but Le powered back and had 70% of the chips in play at one stage. Smith stay focused though, doubling after a scoop in O8, and took the lead shortly after. While it wouldn’t end quickly, Smith stayed in the lead for the rest of the game, but it was about 40 minutes later before he finally had Le on the felt.

This was Smith’s first bracelet and biggest score ever, and brings his lifetime earnings to just shy of $625k.

Event #88: $1,500 The Closer

There are always stories in the poker world of players who enter their first poker tournament and end up booking a win, but it’s much rarer for that first-ever game to be a bracelet event at the WSOP. Yet, that’s what Pierre Shen did in the Closer on Sunday night for a prize of $606,810.

Shem’s life was on the line late in heads-up when he got into a massive race against runner-up Peter Nigh. Nigh had ace-eight for overs to the pocket fours of Shem, but the eventual winner flopped a set and turned quads to double into the lead. It was only about 20 minutes later when Nigh got the rest of his money in good with ace-eight again, this time against a suited queen-deuce, but Shem was on the run of his life and smashed the flop with two queens to end it all.

He had to make it through 3,531 entries to claim his big share of the $4,713,885, and among them was Chris Moorman, who bagged a 15th-place score in this one. Among the other players to get some cash out of the closer were Oliver Biles, Benson Tang, Erwann Pecheux, and Jason Wheeler who all cashed for $10,760 or more.

Event #90: $10,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship

There are just four players left from the 550 original entries in the final $10k Championship game of the series. There is $5.115 million to play for in this one with the winner expected to pocket $1,057,663 on Monday. Alexandre Reard of France has a huge lead going into the unplanned Day 4 action after bagging up 18.45m.

That is more than the other three players bring to the table combined, so he is well-positioned for his second bracelet. That said, the other three players on Day 4 are certainly no slouches at the game of poker, with Stephen Chidwick sitting on just shy of 7 million, AJ Kelsall playing 4.5 million, and Justin Liberto bringing 3.1 million to the final day. While Reard has all the chips to start the day, it can’t be comforting to look at those names on the list.

This event was full of big names, as is always the case for Championship games, but among the players who hit the cage for money were Eric Baldwin, Fabrice Bigot, Phill Hellmuth, Felipe Ramos, and Taylor Paur, all with $40k or more. The final day of this one rolls at 1 pm on Monday with action beginning in Level 31.

Event #91: $3,000 H.O.R.S.E.

They are down to 18 players in the $3k HORSE race now with Leonard August leading the way with just under 2 million. He leads a star-studded top-ten that includes Nick Guagenti, Calvin Anderson, Todd Brunson, Barbara Enright, and Chad Eveslage. The top five players all have 1 million or more, but the 10th place stack coming back has just 10 big bets, so the game will be pretty short on Day 3.

Andre Akkari bagged the big stack from the opening day of play, which saw 331 entries for a prize pool of $883,770, and he is still alive, but with one of the shorter stacks going into the final day. They are all eyeing the $208,460 up top for the winner on Monday, however, and the home stretch from the $3k HORSE gets going at 1 pm.

Event #92: $1,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em

Ian Steinman is the chip leader after the opening day of Event #92. As the series draws to a close, the numbers are still strong with 1,710 entries for this one making a prize pool of $1,521,900 split 257 ways. With just 124 players left alive for Day 2 of this game, a good chunk of those payouts have already been claimed. Among the players to cash out of this one were Jeff Madsen, Nick Marchington, Kenny Hallaert, and Kathy Liebert.

Steinman leads a top-ten list that includes Dylan Wilkerson in second and John Riordan in fifth, and they all have players like Kane Kalas, Vanessa Kade, Levi Berger, Tony Gregg, Naoki Matsumoto, and Mustapha Kanit sniffing at their heels with shorter stacks for Day 2. Phil Laak is another name to watch out for in the ranks when action gets underway on Monday at 10 am.

Event #93: $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold’em

Ivan Ermin of Russia leads the way after the opening day of the $10k Short Deck game. Entries are still open in this one, but Day 1 saw 84 entries with 31 players advancing to Day 2. Among the players with big stacks for Day 2 are two Japanese stars, Nobuaki Sasaki and Shota Nakanishi, and Eric Wasserson, John Juanda Dong Chen, Dario Sammartino, and Chris Brewer all have top-ten stacks as well.

Farther down the list of stacks for this star-studded game are players like Danny Tang, Sam Soverel, Mikita Badziakouski, Patrick Leonard, Brian Rast, and Felipe Ramos, so there will be very few easy spots in the game on Day 2. Cards go in the air for Day 2 at 1 pm Monday, and the field will be set at that time with new entries allowed right up until the start.

Upcoming Events on July 17

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

• Start: 1 pm (streamed on delay on PokerGO starting at 3 pm)
• Entries: 10,043
• Remaining: 3
• Total Prizes: $93,399,900
• Guaranteed: $4,000,000

Event #94: $5,000 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: Noon
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 50,000
• Reentries: 1