Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 18

Benny Glaser won his fifth bracelet with his second Triple Draw win and two OG legends, Johnny Chan and Phil Ivey, are fighting it out in different events to become the first player since Phil Hellmuth to win 11 bracelets. Chan bagged the final 18 in Event #41 while Ivey is second in chips after the opening day of play in the epic Poker Players Championship. Meanwhile, Chris Brewer won more than $5 million after taking down the Super High Roller game.

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

Benny Glaser is proving to the world in 2023 that he can handle himself on both the live and virtual felt. He just added his fifth bracelet to his poker resume after making it through 130 entries for the biggest share of the $1.209 million in prizes. Glaser’s share was $311,428 with runner-up Oscar Johansson from Sweden pocketing $192,690.

They needed an extra day to finish this one out, which hasn’t been that unusual in this series. Day 3 was called when play was still heads-up with the final two players returning to finish it out on Sunday’s Day 4. It took less than an hour once they reconvened to finish it, and Glaser, who came in to the extra day with the chip lead, never gave up the lead.

This was Glaser’s fifth career bracelet on the live felt, becoming the fourth player to reach that milestone during this series. Josh Arieh, Brian Yoon, and John Monette joined that club in recent events and now Glaser sits among them. Glaser has been making a name for himself across the poker world recently however with this accolade being just the latest in a string of them. He recently proved he is among the best in the world at the online game after he scored his 18th victory in PokerStars’ COOP games, putting him on top of the list of Championship titles in the iconic Spring and World championship series.

The win gave Glaser more than $7 million in live tournament wins but it ranks as only his fifth-best score. He won almost $3 million for second at the WPT World Championship last year for his biggest score and also has a few other scores in the $300k-$500k range above this most recent bracelet win.

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

After three days of play in the biggest buy-in of the whole series, Chris Brewer was the player sitting behind all the chips in the game. He made his way through 69 of the best and most well-heeled competitors in this nosebleed game to win almost $5.3 million of the $17,181,000 total prize pool.

Brewer was one of the short stacks coming back for the final day of play, playing about a third of the chips that leader Chance Kornuth had, but he put on a solid show of short-stack survival to make his way through the field to the title. For his part, the leader to start the day ended up finishing fifth for the first payout of more than $1 million.

Brewer battled Russia’s Artur Martirosian in the endgame for the title and it was a microcosm of the whole day for Brewer. He was down about 2:1 to Martirosian to start heads-up play but after his treys held against Broadway overs for a double, he reversed the stage to put himself in the lead. In the final hand, Brewer was in bad with a dominated ace but managed to go runner-runner straight after Martirosian spiked his kicker on the flop to take the lead in the hand.

That gave Brewer his biggest lifetime score and added almost 50% to his total earnings. He had a bit more than $10 million lifetime going into this bracelet event and so the $5 million plus score from this one puts him well over $15 million now and is about 5 times his previous biggest win on the EPT for just over $1 million.

Event #39: $1,500 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold’em Day 2

They are closing in on the endgame in the MONSTER STACK game now. The monster field of 8,317 across the two starting days was whittled down to 2,715 players returning for Day 2, and after the second day of play, just 389 players remain in contention for the top prize. David Vedral ended Day 2 with the biggest bag, finishing the day with 4.35 million.

Vedral was the only stack above 4 million, with seven players bagging stacks in the 3 million range including Rayane Bouibeb from France and Canada’s Frederic Normand. Among the other players to bag a stack for Day 3 were Kyle Julius, Brian Topp, Jimmy Setna, Joseph Liberta, Jaered Besse, Drew Scott, Dietrich Fast, Barry Greenstein, Kyle Cartwright, Vincent Wong, Joe Cada, and Niall Farrell while a few of the players who bagged for Day 2 but missed the cash included Marle Spragg, Timothy Watts, Chris Da-Silva, and Veronica Brill.

Among the other players to find a Day 3 bag was poker philanthropist Gershon Distenfeld. Distenfeld famously donated the winnings from his 2021 bracelet to charity, and he pledged to do exactly the same thing with whatever he wins from this one. Day 3 action kicks off at 10 am on Monday and they’ll play 10 more levels before they bag for the final day.

Event #41: $1,500 Big O

Johhny Chan is chasing his 11th bracelet in the first-ever Big O bracelet event as the final 18 players in the game prepare for Day 3 action. The OG legend Chan famously won back-to-back Main Event titles in 1987 and 1988 before falling to the then young upstart Phil Hellmuth in 1989 as he was poised to win his third straight title. Chan went on to win 8 other bracelets tying him in the rarefied company of Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey. If he could take down this one, he would be standing alone at 11 bracelets, trailing only the man who prevented his 3rd straight Main Event win back in ’89.

Fans looking in on the Big O might be forgiven for looking at their calendars to check the year. While it is indeed still 2023, a look at the final 18 of this one makes a fan nostalgic for aughts with names like Victor Ramdin (2nd, 3.495 million) and Robert Williamson III (7th, 2.7 million) joining Chan on the 3rd day of play. Ramdin trails the leader Gary Gwinn by a bit more than 1 million and two other players join Ramdin in the 3 million range going into Day 3.

Scott Abrams, Adam Owen, and Patrice Biton are among the other players to round out the field of what should be the final day of play. Action begins at 1 pm today, and when they finish, one player should be holding the first-ever Big O bracelet.

Event #42: $800 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack

Chino Rheem leads after the opening day of play in Event #42. He bagged up 2.45 million after the opening day and is one of three players with more than 2 million. “World Famous” Pay Lyons is one of those 2 million stacks, sitting just below Rheem while France’s Antoine Saout is in fifth place with 1.62 million to start Day 2.

There were 3,778 entries for this one, putting the prizes at $2,659,712. In a continuation of a trend this year, that crushed last year’s field by nearly 1,000 entries. A total of 566 players will get a piece of the pie with 566th place pocketing $1,281 and the winner looking to pad their accounts with $339,033. Some of the early cashes were paid out near the end of Day 1, as the field is down to 238 to start Day 2. That means returning players are guaranteed at least $1,976 for their efforts.

Koray Aldemir, Ryan Reiss, Martin Finger, Mike “GoLeafsGoEh” Leah, Leo Margets, and Eric Baldwin are among the other players planning a Day 2 return. They’ll get underway at 10 am with the plan being to play down to a winner on Day 2.

Event #43: $50,000 Poker Players Championship

Ten-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey is poised to move out of the three-way tie for second place in the bracelet hunt with the second-biggest stack after the opening day of play in the Poker Players Championship (PPC). He trails Josh Arieh, who recently joined the five-time winners club earlier in the series, and leads the way with 1.088 million. Ivey has just under a million to start Day 2 but it’s no surprise that the rest of the field is chock-full of some of the best players in the world. The rest of the top five are James Obst, John Monnette, and Viktor “Isuldur1” Blom, all of whom clearly know their poker.

There were 73 entries on Day 1, but registration is still open for a few levels on Day 2 so the current prize pool of $3,485,750 could well increase before it all shuts down. 54 players still had chips at the end of the starting day, and among them is back-to-back defending champion Dan “Jungleman” Cates, who became the Terminator for this event, dressing up in some pretty convincing cosplay. He was nearly terminated himself early in the day, but managed to claw his way back into it with Terminator-like persistence.

Cates wasn’t the only former champion to bag a stack on Day 1. Double-winner Brian Rast finished the day in the top 15 with a bit less than 500k, and former winner Elior Sion is in the top-ten. There are dozens of other crushers looking to win their first PPC title including Jeremy Ausmus, David Williams, Matthew Ashton, Paul Volpe, Nacho Barbero, and Scott Seiver, just to pick a few from the top 20 names.

The second day of play in this marquee game kicks off at 1 pm, and players will have three levels on Day 2 to get into the action before the field is set in stone. PokerGO will be covering the PPC live with hole cards starting on Tuesday this week, and the broadcaster plans three days of coverage from what is considered by many to be the pinnacle of poker excellence.

Online Event #6: $500 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo

• Entries: 1,203
• Prizes: $845,550
• Paid: 289
• 1st Place: $134,527
• Winner: “suited_h13”

Online Event #7: $500 PLO 8-Max

• Entries: 608
• Prizes: $504,900
• Paid: 167
• 1st Place: $93,911.40
• Winner: Joe “jimjam01” Serock

National Standings

The United Kingdom joined the list of countries with a bracelet after Benny Glaser’s fifth while the USA extended its lead. Canada has a shot at its third this series with Frederic Normand in the top ten of the MONSTER STACK with the end approaching, but there are still lots of events left in the series.

Country	Bracelets	1st Place Wins
USA	26	$15,439,838
Canada	2	$775,011
China	2	$927,365
Brazil	1	$465,501
Bulgaria	1	$435,924
Germany	1	$1,546,024
Japan	1	$221,124
Netherlands	1	$2,576,729
Portugal	1	$144,678
Switzerland	1	$1,215,864
Ukraine	1	$164,835
United Kingdom	1	$311,428

Upcoming Events on June 18

Event #44: $3,000 No-Limit Holdem

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 12 Levels
• Start Stack: 40,000
• Reentries: 1

Event #45: $1,500 Mixed Omaha Hi Low

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