Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 9

They are just 10 players away from the money in the Main Event as Day 4 looms on Monday. 1,517 players return to fight for 1,507 paid spots, so early action will likely be crazy. Antonio Mallol Heredia leads the way, but Chance Kornuth, Jerry (Pei) Li, Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby, and Nicholas Lee will be breathing down their neck during Monday’s action. Meanwhile, Thomas Skaggs added a PLO Bracelet to his PLO Ring in Event #78, and all the Day 1 flights are complete for the Lucky 7’s game with Stepan Vinokurov leading 317 returning players and action expected to play deep into the money on Day 2.

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

It’s bubble time in the Main Event after three full days of poker action spread over seven calendar days as the record field of 10,043 has been whittled down to just 1,517 players left alive. With 1,507 paid places on the board, that means Day 4 will begin on the bubble with just 10 players to go before they are all in the money.

There will be ten players who go home unhappy in the early hours of Day 4, but after that, everyone who survives the opening orbits of Monday’s action will be guaranteed at least $15,000 for the first 250 or so exits at the bottom of the list. Antonio Mallol Heredia is the player with the biggest bag at the end of Day 3 with 1.899 million in his bag. Triple bracelet winner Chance Kornuth is sitting second in chips after the third day of play, about 10k behind the leader. Canada’s Jerry “Pei” Li is looking to add a second bracelet to his jewelry collection with the 4th place stack after Day 3.

Among the other players to bag a top ten stack for Day 4 was Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby, who was the player who sent 17-time bracelet and US/Intl Main winner Phil Hellmuth to the rail on Day 2d, though it wasn’t with his signature trey-deuce offsuit. However, one of the other top ten stacks, Canada’s Nicholas Lee, served the diaper right back to Rigby during Day 3 play for a nice pot for the Canadian. Lee bagged up the 8th place stack after Day 3, while Rigby sits at #5 on the list.

Place	Player	Home	Stack	Big Blinds
1	Antonio Mallol Heredia	United States	1.899m	237
2	Chance Kornuth	United States	1.887m	236
3	Liran Betito	Israel	1.775m	222
4	Jerry (Pei) Li	Canada	1.742m	218
5	Nicholas Rigby	United States	1.719m	215
6	Pavel Dyachenko	Canada	1.706m	213
7	Michael Duek	United States	1.678m	210
8	Nicholas Lee	Canada	1.639m	205
9	Mason Vieth	United States	1.602m	200
10	Michael Monroig	United States	1.552m	194

Big Bags and Busts

Day 3 of the Main Event is where a lot of dreams end up dead on the river of a bad runout, and high-stakes cash crusher Tom Dwan was one such player. He had around 200k on the feature table during Day 3 play and was mixing it up quite a bit. He took a couple of decent pots in signature Dwan style but ultimately ran into it when he turned a pair with the second-nut flush draw and check-shoved against Brian Atchison’s aces. Atchison almost beat him into the pot with the snap call, and the river bricked for Dwan to send him to the rail about halfway through Day 3.

Among the players to bag chips for Day 4 were Christopher Brewer, Shota Nakanishi, Faraz Jaka, Andrew Baker, Senthuran Vijayaratnam, Yuri Dzivielevski, Maurice Hawkins, Nick Marchington, Jason Somerville, Gabi Livshitz, Maher Al Mouselly, 2003 Main winner and father of the poker boom Chris Moneymaker, Regan Duong, Nick Guagenti, Matthew Gillingham, and Alex Foxen. They all bagged stacks going into Day 4 while among the players to be felted before the end of Day 3 were Billy Baxter, Juha Helppi, Ryan Depaulo, Matt Stout, Sam Chartier, Martin Jacobson, Bruno Fitoussi, Hayley Hanna, and Tony Gregg.

Drama on Day 3

Day 3 had some excitement in it part way through the day when the clock was paused so staff could deal with a “medical emergency.” The pause was fairly short-lived as the emergency ended up being relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

As Cody Daniels was rushing back to their seat after a break, they began to collapse in the crowd. Another player was nearby and caught Daniels before they hit the ground, and staff was immediately alerted to the medical situation. Daniels is terminally ill, but enjoying some Main Event action this year, and it turned out they’d just over-exerted themselves trying to get back to their seat before the break ended. The situation ended up being fairly minor and Daniels recovered quickly and was able to resume play and finish out the day, bagging up 299k for Day 4, which should be plenty of chips to make a run into the money.

While Daniels medical incident provided a bit of drama off the felt, there was plenty of action on the felt as well. Among the big hands of the night was a big one between two Nicks. Nicholas Lee, who barely missed out on his first Circuit Ring in Calgary recently, was in a pot with Nicholas “Dirty Diaper” Rigby. Rigby opened to 10k from the middle and Lee defended his big blind. They both checked the jack-four-five flop and Lee check-called for 20k on the turned nine. The river deuce brought three hearts to the board and both players checked it to showdown, where Lee took down the pot with the trey-deuce offsuit, Rigby’s signature “Dirty Diaper” hand.

Day 4 of the Main Event kicks off on Monday at noon, and they’ll play five more levels on Day 4. Expect the bubble to burst pretty early in the day today with the field now only 10 players off the money spots but by the end of the day, the remaining players will all have cashed the biggest live poker game ever.

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

The Day 1 flights for the Lucky 7’s game are now in the books with 7,300 entries recorded over three starting days. That puts the prizes at this one at just shy of $5 million, but the prizes are still being confirmed by WSOP staff. Day 1c accounted for nearly half the total entries for this game with 3,444 on the third starting day alone.

Morgan Petro bagged the big stack on Day 1c with 3.1 million, but that was only the second biggest stack overall behind Day 1b leader Stepan Vinokurov with 3.315 million. Shawn Daniels, David Peters, and Charles La Boissonniere round out the top five stacks going into Monday’s Day 2. Among the other players who bagged big for Day 2 were Day 1a leader Thomas Blanton, Alex Livingston, Weston Pring, Eric Afriat, Ben Keeline, and Chad Eveslage (who bagged two Dealers Choice bracelets early in this series), all with top-100 stacks for Monday’s action.

Day 2 gets underway at 10 am on Monday with levels increasing to 40 minutes in length for the rest of the game.

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

Thomas Skaggs made his way through the 1,214 entries in Event #78: $1,500 BOUNTY Pot-Limit Omaha to pick up his first bracelet on Sunday, adding to the Ring he won at Horseshoe Indiana earlier this year. That ring was in a PLO format game as well, so it seems clear that Skaggs will be a force to be reckoned with in the four-card poker world. He pocketed $171,742 for the win, the biggest share of a $1,620,690 prize pool. Runner-up David Hu also pocketed a bit more than $100k for his finish.

Skaggs was pretty ecstatic about the win, though he was also about two hours away from a return flight home to Glendale, Kentucky. Skaggs had a goal of winning either a bracelet or a ring this year, and he was delighted to have managed to win one of each already. He also complimented Hu on a strong heads-up performance as Hu forced him to come back from a deficit several times before finally taking it down.

Noah Schwartz was among the other players to cash this one, and joining him at the cage were Ryan Coon, Jeff Madsen, Daniel Negreanu, Kevin MacPhee, and Nacho Barbero.

Upcoming Events on July 10

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – Day 4

• Start: 12 noon
• Entries: 10,043
• Prizes: $93,399,900
• Remaining: 1,517
• Paid: 1,507

Event #77: $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit Hold’em – Day 2

• Start: 10 am
• Entries: 7,300
• Remaining: 317
• Prizes: $1,005,127

Event #79: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 35,000
• Reentries: 1

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

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: Start of Day 2
• Start Stack: 150,000
• Reentries: 1