Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 15

Jans Arends bagged his biggest lifetime score after winning the $100 High Roller while a firefighter from Houston hosed down the NLH/PLO Mix bracelet and made some bold predictions in the process. John Monnette booked his fifth bracelet win and Mark Ioli got a monkey off his back with a bracelet in his third heads-up attempt at WSOP.

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

Benjamin Ector had to make his way through 2,046 runners in Event #28 to win his first bracelet, and along the way, he busted seven opponents at the final table. There was $2,731,410 to play for in this one and it took them three days to play down to the $406,403 first-place prize.

Heads-up against Adam Swan was a fairly quick affair, and Ector finished it out the way he’d run through most of the final table with Swan as his eighth knockout at the final table. Ector had a great spot near the start of the final table that set the stage for his eventual win. He was at risk and racing against start-of-day leader Matthew Hunt, and his ace-king had to get there against pocket eights. Ector found his outs to survive and score a huge double to take the lead and proceeded to send the rest of the final table to the showers one by one after that.

Among the other players Ector faced were bracelet-winner Dietrich Fast, who booked eighth place in this one, as well as Nick Palma, Santiago Plante, Rocco Iati, Everett Carlton, and Dimitar Danchev. This was Ector’s first bracelet and fourth win on the live poker felt, and represents his biggest ever score, eclipsing $344,826 from a second place in 2016’s The River Poker Series, Thackerville. The win bumped his total lifetime earnings to just over $1.5 million.

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

There was almost $9 million to play for in the stratospheric $100k High Roller after the field topped out at 93 entries. In the end, it was Jans Arends from the Netherlands who sat atop the pile with all the chips. It’s little surprise that a $100k game was chock-full of familiar names and faces, and just a few of the crushers Arends had to battle in this one included runner-up Cary Katz, Adrian Mateos, Chance Kornuth, Jeremy Ausmus, Biao Ding, and Justin Bonomo – and that’s JUST from the final table. Among the other high-stakes regs who cashed this one were Canada’s Kristen Foxen (nee Bicknell), David Peters, Punnat Punsari, and Koray Aldemir with the min-cash.

Arends is no stranger to big scores with just over $5 million in total wins now. However, that means this score basically doubled his previous winnings and eclipsed his previous biggest score my about $1.5 million. When he got heads-up, it was student loan mogul turned PokerGO founder Cary Katz across the table. It was pretty quick with Arends taking a big lead into the final phase. He started heads up with a lead of about 45:11 and quickly pressed the gas to get it to 50:6.

Katz got down to barely fumes before finding a double to stay alive, but in the end, the hill was just too steep for him to climb and he fell in second shortly after that. Katz is no stranger to deep runs in deep-pocket events like this one, and the heads-up here played out as yet another round of the “businessman vs poker professional” battle that is typically waged on the high-stakes felt. This time, the poker pro won the day, but Katz showed he can compete with the best on the biggest stages in poker.

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

John Monnette had to come back from the felt to take down his fifth bracelet win in the Triple Draw Deuce game. He was down to half a big bet at one stage, but in one of the most dramatic comebacks of the year so far, Monnette ground that back up into a win.

Monnette had to get through 522 runners, another very solid field for a mixed-game event. That meant they were playing for just shy of $700k with $145,863 up top for the winner. While this was a $1,500 buy-in, the field was still full of familiar faces looking for hardware including Patrick “Pads” Leonard, who finished third, Benny Glaser, who is a recent 18-time COOP winner and finished 8th, Allen Kessler (9th), Tom Schneider (13th), Carol Fuchs (16th), and Thomas Taylor (17th).

This was Monnette’s fifth bracelet and brings his lifetime earnings to within $30k of $4 million, and as if anyone needed reminding, this cements his legacy as a mixed-game beast at WSOP. His fifth career bracelet also marks the fifth poker discipline he’s bagged hardware in. His previous four bracelets were in Limit Hold’em, No-Limit Single Draw Deuce, Seven Card Stud, and the 8-Game mix. With his Triple Draw bracelet added to the mix, there’s really no question that Monnette knows his poker variants.

Event #31: $600 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em; Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack

While the big stories at the WSOP are often the stories about big names winning huge prizes for multiple bracelets, some of the best stories to emerge from the summer are always the games where a grass-roots player steps up to make a mark in the poker world for the first time. Scott “Joseph” Dulaney is one such story from this year after the Houston firefighter and Omaha lover found his way to the winners’ circle of the Mixed NLH/PLO game. It was his biggest score ever by quite a bit as he only had around $300k in registered winnings on Hendon Mob going into the event.

Dulaney was the last player standing out of another solid starting field of 2,759 entries. That put $1,407,090 in the middle to play for with $194,155 for the eventual winner and 414 players getting a piece of the pie. Among the players Dulaney had to face down at the final table was OG legend and double-bracelet winner Barny Boatman. With almost $4 million in live wins, the co-founder of The Hendon Mob was by far the most decorated player in the endgame, but he could only manage 8th place for $23,371 this time.

Dulaney made no bones about the fact that he is an Omaha lover, and he put the rest of the players here on notice – he plans to win “multiple Omaha bracelets” this year to prove his contention that the best Omaha players in the world come from Houston. While this one wasn’t strictly an Omaha bracelet, he is well on his way to making good on that promise.

Event #32: $3,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em

It took two days to play through the 1,241 entries in Event #32 and Mark Ioli was the last player with chips. He bagged $558,266 out of the $3,313,470 prize pool for his first bracelet and biggest score yet after winning a heads-up duel with Colombia’s Johann Ibanez.

This was the third time Ioli has been heads-up for a bracelet, but he fell short the previous two attempts. In both of those games, he was one card away from winning before it all went south on him, but this time he managed to hold on and take it down for the win.

Among the players who cashed in this one was Alex Foxen, who busted early after Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen called him off with six-three and got there, as well as Martin Jacobson, Maria Ho, and Noah Schwartz. Hunichen started the day as chip leader, but he could only manage 8th place in the end.

Event #33: $10,000 Razz Championship

There were 123 entries in the $10k Razz Championship before entries closed at the start of Day 2. That put $1,143,900 into the prize pool with $298,682 up top for the winner. The game was supposed to finish on Day 3, but as has happened a few times so far this year, they needed to add a fourth day of play to finish it out.

19 players got a piece of the prizes in this one, and Daniel Zack was the first player to exit with cash. Joining him on the rail with money in hand were players like James Obst, David “Bakes” Baker, Steve Zolotow, Adam Owen, Nick Schulman, Bryce Yockey, John “Johnny World” Hennigan, and Talal Shakerchi.

Three Americans are still in contention for the Razz bracelet with Jerry Wong leading the Day 4 counts at just over 3 million. Michael Moncek and Carlos Chadha round out the final three players coming back on Friday to decide the bracelet. Action gets underway at 3 pm and will play down to a winner today.

Event #34: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha

Robert Mizrachi is the chip leader after two days of play in Event #34: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha with 5.68 million. There is one other player, Matthew Beinner, with a bit more than 5 million, while third-place Matthew Parry has just over 4 million to start what should be the final day of play.

They got a field of 1,355 entries for this one, putting $1,808,925 into the middle. There were 203 players walking away from this one with money in their pockets and among the players who cashed out on Day 2 were recent five-time winner Josh Arieh, Daniel Negreanu, John Racener, and Ronald Keijzer.

There are 10 players still alive going into Day 3 with cards going in the air at noon and the plan is to crown a champion before the day is out.

Event #35: $10,000 Secret Bounty No-Limit Hold’em

The Secret Bounty game saw 568 entries before registration closed for a final prize pool of $5,282,400. This game was played in the mystery bounty format with a top bounty prize of $250k won by Ali Shahni and it played a little quicker than expected. Initially, the structure showed bounties kicking in on Day 2, but as Day 1 played out and the field dwindled, the decision was made to play Day 1 into the money and have the bounties kick in when the bubble burst.

Winners of other substantial bounties in this game so far include:

• $100,000
  • Artur Martirosian
  • Tyler Cornell
• $50,000
  • Matthew Bremer
  • Sriharsha Doddapaneni
• $25,000
  • Upeshka De Silva
  • Axel Hallay
  • Uri Reichenstein
  • Eric Yanovsky

There are eight players left alive in the game going into Day 3 and Chris Klodnicki is the chip leader with 6.615 million. Jeremy Ausmus is close behind with 6.475 million and third-place Aram Oganyan starts Day 3 with 5.41 million. This should be the final day of play and action gets going at 4 pm on Friday.

Event #36: $3,000 Nine Game Mix

There were 361 entries for the Nine Game Mix for a prize pool of $963,870 but fans might be forgiven for wondering if it was still the 2022 event. Philip Long final tabled this game last year, ultimately finishing in third place, and he is well on his way to repeating that this year. Long still has a ways to go before he manages to go back-to-back final tables in this event with 22 players still left in the action, but he has a good chance of doing it as the chip leader and one of only two players to bag up more than 1 million chips after two days of play.

Jean Gaspard is the other player with more than a million, while Justin Liberto, Shawn Buchanan, Tamon Nakamura, and Scott Clements also bagged top ten stacks for the final day. A total of 55 players cashed out in this one, and among the names on the cashing list are Viktor “Isuldur1” Blom, Max Kruse, Todd Brunson, Craig Chait, and Roman Hrabec. The final 22 players return with the plan to finish it out starting at 2 pm on Friday.

Event #37: $2,000 No-Limit Holdem

They got nearly 2,000 entries for Event #37 with a prize pool just shy of $3.5 million. A total of 295 players will share in the prizes with 321 players returning for Day 2 on Friday. Mark Seif is among the chip leaders with more than 700k and the only player with a bigger stack for Day 2 is Lee Piniatoglou at 738k. Joshua Reichard also has more than 100 big blinds to start Day 2 with a “beastly” stack of 666k.

Among the players still alive and looking for cash are Mustapha Kanit (284,000), Steve Zolotow (276,000), Juha Helppi (201,000), Dominik Nitsche (201,000), Nacho Barbero (185,000), Bin Weng (148,000), Dietrich Fast (135,000), Brad Owen (126,000), Upeshka De Silva (108,000), and Maria Ho (57,000). The remaining players are back in action to decide the money spots starting at 10 am and the plan is to play 10 levels on Friday before they bag up for Day 3.

Event #38: $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship

There were 106 entries for the razz Championship on Day 1, putting the prize pool at $985k. That will still change, however, as entries are open until the start of Day 2 meaning it’s likely the field size will increase. Michael Wagner is the chip leader with 284k at the end of Day 1, with Adam Friedman close behind in second with 279k. Ryan Leng has 273k for third place and there are six other players in the 200k range. Rep Porter was the only top-ten stack under 200k at the end of the day, and Porter is certainly one of the biggest threats at any razz table.

Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Terrance Chan, Allen Kessler, David “Bakes” Baker, Scott Seiver, Daniel Strelitz, and Alex Livingston are all among the players who put chips in a bag after the opening day of play. Day 2 begins at 1 pm on Friday, and that’s when the entries will close on this one. The plan is to play seven more levels (90 minutes each) on Day 2 before they bag for what should be the final day on Saturday.

Upcoming Events on June 16

Event #39: $1,500 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold’em Day 1a

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 10 Levels
• Start Stack: 50,000
• Reentries: Re-entry on Day 1b

Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: Start of Day 2
• Start Stack: 1,500,000
• Reentries: 1