Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 5

High-stakes cash player Sam “ApesSonIMHO” Soverel took down the Hybrid bracelet on Wednesday and his second bracelet put his lifetime earnings over $22 million. Meanwhile, the Main Event is proving to be massive with every flight so far this year surpassing last year’s numbers. Wednesday’s third flight crushed 2022 with more than 3,000 entries compared to 1,800 last year and merely matching last year’s Day 1d will crush the 2006 record. In fact, this year’s series will be sniffing at the record if Day 1d gets 1,000 fewer entries than last year, so the prospects for a new record look very good heading into the final chance.

Online Event #13: $5,300 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Championship – Hybrid

Online event #13 was a unique combination of both online and live poker as most of the game was played out on the WSOP.com online client on Monday night before the final table reconvened in Las Vegas on the live felt on Wednesday afternoon. When the dust settled on Wednesday it was cash game specialist Sam “ApesSonIMHO” Soverel who was holding his second bracelet. There were 408 entries for this one on Monday with 60 players sharing in the $2,040,000 prize pool.

Soverel prefers live poker to online, and he was actually playing a live high-stakes cash game on Monday night while he was grinding Online Event #13. “I much prefer live,” he said after the win. “Live’s fun. It’s more social. It’s way better to me.”

He was chip-leading when they got to the final table on Wednesday, but he wouldn’t have an easy go. The final six was, unsurprisingly, a bit of a stacked affair with six bracelets at the table before this one was awarded. Ethan “Rampunts” Yau, also known on YouTube and Twitter as Rampage, made the final six but was the first out of the star-studded final. Aleksejs “APonakov” Ponakovs and Yuval “Larrybird84” Bronshtein were the other two bracelet holders at the table.

Soverel’s first bracelet came back in 2016 and since then he’s been frustratingly close to his second a few times, with a 2nd, two 3rds, and 4th, 5th, and 6th place finishes in recent years, it seemed just a matter of time before he found his second bracelet. When it finally came it pushed his WSOP earnings over $5.2 million and his total lifetime earnings to just north of $22 million.

Place	Player	Home	Payout
1	Sam “ApesSonIMHO” Soverel	United States	$393,516
2	Gergely “wildace_hun” Kulcsar	Hungary	$284,784
3	Yuval “Larrybird84” Bronshtein	Israel	$207,264
4	Aleksejs “APonakov” Ponakovs	Latvia	$150,144
5	Lingkun “CN_23” Lu	United States	$109,344
6	Ethan “Rampunts” Yau	United States	$80,784

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

Three of four starting days for the storied Main Event are now in the books, and Wednesday’s Flight C was the biggest one yet, and it wasn’t even close. More than 3.000 players crammed into Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas for the third flight bringing the three-day total for the event to more than 5,200 players so far with prizes cracking $50 million during Wednesday’s flight.

The record for the Main Event, and in fact for any live poker tournament to date, happened in 2006 when Jamie Gold came through 8,773 for a $12 million share of the $82,512,162 in total prizes. Last year, the 2022 Main came tantalizingly close to cracking that record, ending entries with about 100 players fewer than 2006. This year, going into the final flight, the field is only about 3,500 players away from the record, and with more than 3,000 in attendance for Wednesday’s 1c, 1d promises to be a huge one.

Last year, Day 1d saw an astonishing 4,481 entries to come ever-so-close to the record. What makes that most interesting in comparison to this year is that 2022’s Day 1c got a paltry 1,800 entries compared to 2023’s field of more than 3,000. While it is unclear if that increase can hold into Thursday’s final flight numbers, if this year’s 1d gets 1,000 FEWER players than last year’s, the event will still be in the record range while a field size equalling last year’s final flight will blow that record out of the water.

After five levels of play in the third starting flight, Christopher Brammer from the UK has the biggest stack with 386.1k. He is the only player from Day 1c with more than 300k, but he joins two Day 1a bags in the 300k range, coming in just behind the chip-leading bag of Yehuda Dayan with 389.9k. Michael Banducci from the US just missed the 300k mark with 292.6k for second place and Lawrence Chang, Roman Valerstein, and Michael Pinto round out the top five spots, all with more than 250k.

While Canadian-Romanian star Daniel Negreanu didn’t figure in the top stacks at the end of Day 1c, he’s still in the mix looking for his first Main Event bracelet in Vegas. Negreanu is one of the players that could equal Phil Hellmuth, if not in numbers then in the feat of winning both versions of the Main Event. “DNegs” famously won the 2013 International Main Event at the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific (APAC), and while he’ll have a lot of work to do on Friday’s Day 2abc, he still has a few chips to do the work with.

There are quite a few shots at a second Main Event bracelet after Wednesday’s flight as well. Former champs Joe McKeehen, Tom McEvoy, Scott Blumstein, Espen Jorstad, and Ryan Riess all found bags at the end of 1c, and will be joining Greg Raymer, Johnny Chan, Martin Jacobson, Damian Salas, and Jamie Gold with shots to bag a second Main Event bracelet. One former champion who hasn’t been seen in the mix yet is newly-minted 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. There is little chance of him missing the Big Show, however, and as always, he’s expected to put on a bit of a “Big Show” himself when he makes his entrance around 4 pm on Day 1d.

Spectacle! @WSOP Main Event entrance: tomorrow at 4 PM: 17 models (hopefully w Lion makeup), @junglemandan coming in as a lion, and me coming in as “The Greatest Showman!” We will drop Jungle at his table w 2 models, then go to my table #POSITIVITY #PHNiceLife pic.twitter.com/IdsfYRRN0Z

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) July 5, 2023

Thursday marks the final shot for players looking to advance in the biggest live poker game on the planet. The pace of entries for the 2023 Main Event is already well above the 2022 numbers after three opening flights and all three flights so far have smashed the 2022 numbers. The final flight promises to be a huge one with Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas bulging at the seams to fit them all in. It still remains to be seen, but 2023 is easily on pace to not just break 2006’s record, but crush it. Day 1d action gets underway at noon and it is the final shot at what could easily be the biggest live poker tournament ever seen.

Upcoming Events on July 5

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

• Start: 12 noon
• Late Entry: 7 Levels
• Start Stack: 60,000
• Reentries: 0

Online Event #14: $400 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo

• Start: 3:30 pm