Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 8

This was officially the biggest prize pool ever in live poker as of Day 2abc, but Day 2d blew the doors off the record. Around 500 new entries were recorded on 2d bringing the final total in the Main Event this year to more than 10k entries for almost $94 million in prizes. All the Day 2s are now complete and the remaining field combines for the first time on Sunday for the beginning of the long slog to the money and final table. Maurice Hawkins and Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby have the top two stacks for Day 3, while the leader from Day 2abc comes in third with the biggest stack of less than 900k. Meanwhile, Day 1b of the Lucky 7’s added more than 2,300 entries to the total in that one with one more starting flight to play and the PLO Bounty game is down to the final 15 players with Satar Al-Sadoun leading.

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – Flight 2d

The Day 2 flights for the Main Event are now complete, and the record-smashing field is now set. There were 10,043 entries by the time entries closed on Day 2d, putting the final number some 1,200 players above the previous field-size record set in 2006. The final prize total for the massive game came in at $93,399,900 with a top prize of $12.1 million. That’s $100k more than Jamie Gold’s previous record win worth $12 million, despite an extra $13 million in the prize pool with the difference down to changes in payout structures since 2006.

No one was quite able to manage to bag up a million chips in the Main Event yet, but two players from Day 2d came very close. Chip leader Maurice Hawkins and second-stack Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby are the only players in the 900k range with four other players coming back to Day 3 with between 800k and 900k, including the Day 2abc leader Christopher Brammer with 879k. Julio Belluscio and Nick Marchington are among the other players with top ten stacks for Day 3, and joining them with slightly smaller stacks are players like Jason Mercier, Ebony Kenney, Patrik Antonius, Ronnie Bardah, Shota Nakanishi, Kathy Liebert, Billy Baxter (who was heads-up in the seniors event), Doug Polk, EPY founder John Duthie, Regan Duong, Christine Do, Giuseppe “Joseph” Galluzzo, Victor Ramdin, Alex Foxen, David Vedral, Faraz Jaka, and 10-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan.

According to the WSOP website, the remaining players coming back for Day 3 will be 3,538, so there are still more than 2,000 players to get through before money starts being awarded.

Place	Player	Chips	Big Blinds (Lvl 11)
1	Maurice Hawkins	941k	376
2	Nicholas Rigby	921.5k	369
3	Christopher Brammer	879k	352
4	Jeffrey Shapiro	878k	351
5	Julio Belluscio	825.5k	330
6	Beqir Salihu	801k	320
7	John Sofillas	780k	312
8	Nick Marchington	716k	286
9	Heitor Saraiva	665.5k	266
10	Jacob Mitich	660k	264

Biggest Prize Pool Ever

MAIN EVENT PAYOUTS:

Players: 10,043 (New WSOP Main Event Record!)
Prize pool: $93,399,900
Places paid: 1,507

1st: $12,100,000
2nd: $6,500,000
3rd: $4,000,000
4th: $3,000,000
5th: $2,400,000
6th: $1,850,000
7th: $1,425,000
8th: $1,125,000
9th: $900,000

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 9, 2023

Everyone knew by late on the day Friday that this was going to be the biggest live poker game ever with more than 9,500 entries by the time things shut down on Day 2abc. There was some talk of possibly cracking 10,000 with new entries on Day 2d, but the truth is most observers thought that was a bit optimistic and that the numbers would settle in just below the five-figure mark.

When the dust finally settled on entries for Day 2d, however, and the Herculean task of counting all the money was complete, the 2023 Main Event blew all expectations out of the water with 10,043 entries and prizes of nearly $94 million.

Big Names in Action for Day 2d

There are still a lot of legends left in the game competing for the record prizes. Previous Main Event winners who advanced from Day 2abc, Jamie Gold, Damian Salas, Joe McKeehen, Martin Jacobson, Ryan Riess, Joe Cada, and Tom McEvoy, will be joining players like 2018 Champ John Cynn in the Day 3 action.

There are a lot of other big names still left in the game including Jason Mercier, who picked up his sixth bracelet earlier this series in the single-draw deuce game. While Ebony Kenney is still looking for her first WSOP hardware, she is one of the players who could break out at any time and will be playing a bit more than 150k on Day 3. Maria Konnikova, Kathy Liebert, and Canada’s Christine Do are among the other women with Day 3 bags.

Day 3 action kicks off on Sunday at noon with the full remaining field combining for the first time, but there is still a lot of poker left to play before a Main Event Champion is crowned in this record-smashing year.

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

There are now more than 3,800 entries in the Lucky 7’s game after two starting flights, with the third and final Day 1 set to run on Sunday starting at 10 am. Day 1b saw 2,386 entries for a bit more than $1.6 million for 2b alone, putting the total field so far at 3,856 with almost $2.64 million in prizes.

Stepan Vinokurov has the chip lead after Day 2b as the only player with more than 3 million chips, but David Peters isn’t too far behind at 2.775 million for second place. Two Canadians, Charles La Boissonniere (3rd) and Alex Livingston (5th) and a Greek, Alexandros Dranovitsas (4th), round out the top five stacks from the second starting day. The final starting flight for the Lucky 7’s will likely be the biggest yet, and could easily see the field push to 6k entries.

Event #78: $1,500 BOUNTY Pot-Limit Omaha

There are just 15 players left in the PLO Bounty game with action going into Day 3. Satar Al-Sadoun has the big stack by quite a margin with 4.8 million in his bag compared to just 3.53 million for second-place Thomas Skaggs. David Hu also has a bit more than 3 million for third place to start Day 3.

Other notables with stacks for what should be the final day of play include Noah Schwartz (1.1m), Jeff Madsen (945k), and Ryan Coon (2.035m), while a few of the players to hit the cage for cash during Saturday’s action were Daniel Negreanu, Amnon Filippi, David “ODB” Baker and Farid Jattin. Day 3 should play down to a winner starting at 2 pm on Sunday.

Upcoming Events on July 9

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – Day 3

• Start: 12 noon
• Entries: 10,043
• Prizes: $93,399,900
• Remaining: 3,538

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

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 40,000
• Reentries: Unlimited

Online Event #16: $600 Online Deepstack Championship

• Start: 4:30 pm