Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 11

Canada bagged it’s second bracelet on the weekend, becoming the only country other than the US to win more than one so far this series, after Stephen Nahm won the $1k Pot Limit Omaha. Josh Arieh also picked up his fifth bracelet while denying America’s northern neighbor a 3rd bracelet. and David “ODB” Baker secured his third bracelet and cemented his mixed-game legacy with the Razz win.

Event #20: $1,500 Badugi

The first-ever Badugi bracelet has now been won and, at least for this year, Portugal can claim the best live Badugi player in the world with winner Michael Rodrigues. It took Rodrigues an extra day to win this one as Day 3 of the event played slower than expected requiring an unscheduled Day 4 to finish it out.

In the end, this was a massive event. While it was hard to gauge the size of this one in advance given that WSOP had never run a Badugi game before, the final numbers likely had to be a pleasant surprise for the operators with 516 entries by the time registration closed. In comparison to other non-Hold’em events, anything that cracks 500 runners and isn’t hold’em or Omaha is worth a mention as a big field.

This was Rodrigues’ first bracelet and 22nd cash at the WSOP including Circuit and International games and basically doubled his previous WSOP earnings. It brings his overall earnings on the live felt up to just shy of $500k and represents his third live win after a win in a Daily Deepstacks game in 2022 and one on the Winmax Poker Tour in 2017 and it almost doubled be previous best score of about $75k.

Event #18: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-limit Hold’em

The bodies of fallen Gladiators are strewn around the arena after Day 2 of the Gladiator played down to the final 14 players. This massive game drew more than 23,000 runners for a final prize pool of $5,679,648. nearly doubling the $3 million guarantee. That means the winner of this $300 buy-in will walk away with $499,852 at the end of Day 3 and five players will bag six-figure scores.

There were 3,173 players in the money in this one but a good chunk of those players got paid out Day 1 cash. Just 827 players returned to the felt for Day 2 and after 17 levels of play they are down to 14 players left now with American Eric Trexler leading the way with almost 100 million chips. Ciao Sobral also has more than 90 million, and pretty much all the remaining stacks are big enough to require building permits. However, with blinds on Day 3 starting at 1m/2m/2m, even the big stack is coming back with less than 50 bigs, while the short stack of Willie Smith doesn’t even have five bigs with 9.5m to start Day 3.

Among the cashers in this one was six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu. He looks to be bracelet hunting again this year, and he made a pretty solid run at this one, finally falling in 72nd place from the truly massive field. Other deep runs in this one included Melanie Weisner (62nd for $8,410), Brian Topp (50th for $10,199), Justin Ouimette (32nd for $15,229), Weston Pring (27th for $15,229), Dominick French (25th for $18,779), and Anatoly Zharnitsky in 17th for $23,298.

The final day of the massive Gladiator, the biggest field to date in this series by far, kicks off at noon on Monday and will be streamed on PokerGo starting at 3 pm with all times in local Vegas time.

Event #21: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed

Canada is now the first country other than the USA to bag more than a single bracelet so far this year after Stephen Nahm emerged victorious in the $1k PLO game. Nahm doesn’t have a lot of experience in the tournament area with just over $300k in live cashes including this win of $267k, but he’s hardly a stranger to four-card poker as Nahm is regularly seen at the Omaha cash tables around Vancouver, British Columbia and his rail included a lot of faces that will be familiar to Canadian poker fans.

There were 2,017 entries for this PLO game, putting the prize pool just shy of $1.8 million and leading to a top prize of $267,991 for Nahm. That represented nearly 10% more than the field from 2022, so it continues a trend this year of year-over-year growth for repeat events. Among the other players to bag big money on the final day were bracelet winner Dan Matsuzuki. Ronald Keijzer, who is on a high right now after a couple of recent wins for almost $200k coming into this one, Zachary Peay, who recorded his biggest-ever cash, and Thomas Taylor, who was identified in the reporting on WSOP as “one to watch this summer”. Taylor has been within sight of a bracelet a few times in recent years, with final table performances in 2022 that included the $1,500 Stud game, and he is certainly on almost everyone’s list for “Best Canadian without a bracelet”. While Taylor is no slouch with two cards, he tends to prefer games other than hold’em at the WSOP, so expect to see his name deep in mixed games this summer.

Event #22: $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship

It took a fourth day of play, but Josh Arieh picked up his fifth bracelet in the $10k Limit Hold’em Championship over the weekend after a two-hour heads-up battle against Canada’s Daniel Idema. Idema started the day as the big stack of the final three returning players, while Arieh was the shortest.

They played for about 3 hours on the unscheduled Day 4 with Japan’s Nozomu Shimizu bowing out in 3rd place fairly early in the day. That set up the battle of the 49th parallel between the Canadian and the American with Arieh reversing the start-of-day standings and taking a 2:1 lead into the final phase of the game.

It wouldn’t be easy to defeat Idema though, who has more than $2.2 million in live cashes and three bracelets to his name already, including one in this very event back in 2011. The Canadian managed to double up a few times and even take the lead but in the end, Arieh would prove too tough an opponent.

Arieh was talking openly after the win about the Hall of Fame, and rightly so. While he was humble in talking about all the other worthy candidates on the list for the coveted Hall, Arieh certainly has a solid claim on a spot. With almost $11 million in earnings and four bracelets going into this win, Arieh’s claim was already strong, but this fifth bracelet almost certainly makes him a lock for a spot in future years.

Event #23: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em

When entries closed at the start of Day 2 of the $50k High Roller game, 124 entries had created a prize pool of $5,921,000 and after about eight hours of play on Day 3, Leon Sturm was the recipient of Germany’s first bracelet of 2023. It was Sturm’s first bracelet as well after 39 previous cashes at WSOP for prizes of just under $200k. This was Sturm’s biggest win to date, and gives him a bit more than $2 million in total earnings from tournament poker.

Five players came back to the final day of play and they were all names that are likely familiar to poker fans. Business mogul turned high-roller Bill Klein bagged second place while Jans Arends, Alex Foxen, and Seth Davies rounded out the final day’s stellar field.

While Sturm is well known on the live poker circuit, he is perhaps better known as an online crusher, as evidenced by the fact that he bagged another $1.5 million score earlier this month on GGPoker after taking down the Super MILLION$, and the final day of play was something of a live vs online battle. Sturm and fellow European Arends are known for their prowess on the virtual felt, while Americans Klein, Davies, and Foxen are familiar faces from the live felt but, given the legal situation for online poker in the US, are almost certainly less experienced on the virtual felt.

That battle between physical and virtual continued right to the end and even turned into an old-school vs new-school battle with the old-school live player Klein facing off against the young internet whizkid Sturm. This time it was the new-school virtual grinders who held the day, but that debate is far from settled here at the WSOP.

Event #24: $1,500 Razz

David “ODB” Baker is no slouch when it comes to live mixed games. He regularly features in the endgame of the less popular versions of poker with his two previous bracelets coming in Limit Hold’em and 8-Game. He also has a second from this very event in 2017, plus third-place finishes in seven card stud, the $10k Razz, the Poker Player’s Championship, and Triple Draw Deuce. Suffice to say, “ODB” knows his mixed games and he has now added a razz bracelet to his collection after taking down the $1,500 Razz event this year.

It was another record-breaking field for this one with more than 550 entries, making it the biggest $1,500 Razz game in WSOP history. The “original” Baker (so named as he has a namesake in David “Bakes” Baker) had to facedown Justin Liberto for the title, and in an interesting twist, it was almost a full reversal of his runner-up finish in this event in 2017. That year, he had a huge chip lead heads up against Jason Gola but couldn’t manage to finish it out. This year, he came into heads up at a disadvantage, but he was the one to come from behind for the win.

“ODB” has almost $7 million in total live wins now after this recent bracelet with more than $3.5 million of that coming from WSOP events of various kinds. This was his 119th cash in WSOP games including five international cashes and 14 Circuit cashes.

Event #25: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship

Erik Seidel is among the chip leaders with 21 players to go in the $10k O8 Championship. Seidel is one of four players with a million or more to start Day 3, and he sits behind Mexico’s Jose Luis Velador and American Jay Kerbel. There were 212 total entries for this one, putting the prizes at just under $2 million with $492,795 up top for the winner.

Place	Prize
1	$492,795
2	$304,571
3	$211,715
4	$150,445
5	$109,340
6	$81,317
7	$61,919
8	$48,300
9	$38,620

Among the other players returning for what should be the final day of play are Johannes Becker, James Chen, Kyle Cartwright, Ben Lamb, and John “Johnny World” Hennigan who all survived the Day 2 run from 128 players down to the final 21.

Event #26: $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack

Romania’s Cosmin Joldis leads the way after the opening day of play in Event #26. They ended the entry period with 4,747 entries and a prize pool of $3,341,888. That puts just over $400k up top for the winner of this one.

Thomas Boivin is also among the top ten stacks at the end of the first day and joining him on Day 2 will be Nate Silver (290,000), Ryan Riess (1,025,000), Loni Harwood (370,000), and Bryn Kenney (575,000). Just 339 players are returning for action on Day 2, and all of them can expect a payday. The money started getting paid out at 713th place on Day 1, and Day 2 players are guaranteed at least $1,728.

Event #27: $1,500 Eight Game Mix 6-Handed

There were 789 entries for Event #27 and 218 of them will be returning to play for Day 2. Perennial PoY candidate Shaun Deeb is leading the way with more than 300k, and he is the only player with three centuries in front of him while there are 10 players with two centuries or more.

Among the double-century stacks is David “Bakes” Baker, trying to ensure the rival “ODB” Baker doesn’t get all the press today. “Bakes” bagged 238k for 6th place going into the second day of play. David Bach, Anthony Zinno, Benjamin Scholl, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Daniel Strelitz, Jennifer Harman, and Nick Kost are all among the bags with 100k or more. Daniel Negreanu also bagged a shorty in this one, but as long as he has chips he is dangerous.

Online Event #5: $400 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max

• Entries: 1,488
• Winner: Gary “SaquonNYG26” Belyalovsky
• 1^st Place Prize: $121,854
• Total Prizes: $882,360

Upcoming Events on June 7

Event #18: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-limit Hold’em – Final Day

• Start: 12 Noon
• First Place: $499,852
• Remaining: 14

Event #28: $1,500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 0

Event #29: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 12 Noon
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 600,000
• Reentries: 1

Event #30: $1,500 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: 9 Levels
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 1