Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 20

There were no bracelets awarded on Tuesday this week as the MONSTER STACK went to an unscheduled Day 5. Ten-timer Phil Ivey won the battle of the Phils in Day 3 of the PPC by booking the fifth-place stack while Phil Hellmuth made the money but exited in 14th place for a $97,209 min-cash. Matthew Ashton has the lead in that one right now, looking for his second bracelet and second PPC title while Brian Rast is still alive and looking for PPC title #3 as Day 4 is shaping up to be a star-studded run to the final five players.

Event #39: $1,500 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold’em Day 4

There is one more day to play in the MONSTER STACK game after 7 players were still sitting with chips. They played nearly 12 hours on Day 4, which was scheduled to be the final day of play in this game. It’s been a bit of a pattern so far this year for large fields to force an extra day in many events, and the MONSTER was no different.

Nicholas Gerrity leads the final seven players returning to the felt on the unscheduled Day 5. He is the only player with more than 100 million in his bag but Jesse Rockowitz is just under 100 million and the 2010 bracelet winner will be looking to strike. Rockowitz isn’t the only bracelet winner left in this game either – Main Event winner Joe Cada bagged a small stack after losing a chunk late on Day 4 when Braxton Dunaway picked off a bluff. Cada returns with just 8 big blinds, so he’ll need to make an early move, but I doubt anyone is counting him out.

MONSTER STACK Day 5 Chips

Position	Player	Chips
1	Nicholas Gerrity	112.3 M
2	Jesse Rockowitz	94.5 M
3	Braxton Dunaway	54.9 M
4	Colin Robinson	47.4 M
5	Loic Dobrigna	47.1 M
6	Joshua Adcock	43.2 M
7	Joe Cada	16.6 M

Among the players to fall short of the final day was Ashley “PokerFaceAsh” Frank who bagged 16th place, as well as Brandon Sheils, Jaered Besse, David Vedral, Jimmy Setna, and Nate Silver. The final day of MONSTER action is underway at 5 pm Vegas time on Wednesday, and they will play down to a winner on Day 5 for sure.

No words. 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/YDUDV8kk1Z

— PokerfaceAsh (@pokerface_ash_) June 21, 2023

Event #43: $50,000 Poker Players Championship

There are just 12 players left with chips in the massive PPC game now, and 10-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey is still among them looking to take sole possession of 2nd place on the bracelet list with his 11th in what is arguably the toughest event on the whole WSOP schedule. Ivey is fifth in chips after Day 3 with 3.135 million.

While Ivey is looking for his 11th bracelet and a lock on 2nd place, he’ll have to contend with a two-time winner of this event in Brian Rast. Rast bagged 3.365 million to end Day 3 for fourth place on the chips list and he’ll have his sights set on joining Michael Mizrachi in the three-timers club as “The Grinder” is currently the only member.

While Ivey and Rast are likely the marquee players with the most to prove coming into Day 4, they’ll be facing down some serious competition. Bracelet winner Ray Dehkharghani is still in the mix, and his WSOP results page is littered with deep runs in every mixed game imaginable. His single bracelet came in razz in 2016, but Dehkharghani has been deep in razz, O8, LHE, seven card stud, and triple draw deuce at WSOP, not to mention a final table performance in this very event in 2016.

He is joined on Day 4 by players like Johannes Becker, James Obst, Daniel Alaei, recent five-timer Josh Arieh, Talal Shakerchi, and Hal Rotholz to round out what is surely one of the toughest endgames this series. They are all chasing the chip-leading stack of UK’s Matthew Ashton, and Ashton may well have something to prove himself. He is a former winner of this event back in 2013 for his only bracelet so far and he’ll no doubt be looking to join the two-timers club in both bracelets and PPC titles.

The final 12 players return to the felt at 1 pm and the Day 4 plan is to play six levels or down to five players remaining, whichever comes first, before they bag up to return for what should be the final day of play on Thursday. PokerGO has action from both the MONSTER STACK final table and Day 4 of the PPC tonight with PPC action kicking off on stream at 4 pm.

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

Event #44 was another huge turnout with the 1,735 entries billed as “another record-setting field” by the organizers. There is $4,632,450 in total to play for and 261 players will be part of the final payouts. A chunk of those payouts happened before they bagged at the end of Day 2 with 109 players still in the game for Day 3 action.

Canada’s Elliot Smith was the min-cash spot in this one on Day 2, and among the other players to cash out before the end of the second day were Punnat Punsri, Lexy Gavin, Brian Yoon, Matt Affleck, Jack Hardcastle, Rayan Chamas, Katie Lindsay, Stephen Song, Taylor Paur, Alex Kulev, Martins Adeniya, Mark Ioli, and Ryan Laplante.

Yang Zhang leads the way with another solid chance for China to book its fourth bracelet, but Brazilian crusher Joao Simao is right behind him, with both players on about 1.8 million. Eliot Hudon and Frederic Normand both bagged top ten stacks, while Shannon Shorr, Arsenii Karmatckii, Matt Berkey, Chris Moorman, Santiago Plante, Daniel Negreanu, and defending Main Event champ Espen Jorstad are among the other bags at the end of Day 2.

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

Joey Couden is one of just two players with 2 million chips at the end of Day 2 of Event #45. There are 33 players still left in the game and many players have already cashed out of this one. 164 of the original 1,091 starters for this game got a piece of the prizes and when Scott Buller ended his run in 34th to end Day 2, he was the first player to the pay jump to $7,279.

Thomas Taylor, Tom Koral, Brandon Shack-Harris, Men Nguyen, Angela Jordison, Ben Lamb, James Woods, Yuval Bronshtein, and Dustin Dirksen were among the other players to get a piece of the $1,456,485 prize pool on Day 2. In part, Couden got his chip lead by taking out Hollywood veteran and WSOP mixed-game reg James Woods in 65th place. Woods can be found in the mix of many of the WSOP’s more esoteric games and while he is yet to score a bracelet he has 29 cashes in WSOP events of various kinds.

Couden is one of two players with more than 2 million, but he’s the clear leader. He bagged 2.885 million to end the day while second-place Nick Kost barely has 2 million. Six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb, who just recently bagged #6 this year, has the fourth biggest stack and will be looking to make it #7. Canada’s Alex Livingston also bagged a top ten stack for Day 3 of this one while Martin Zamani, Leif Force, and Maksim Pisarenko were among the other Day 3 stacks.

Day 3 is set to go at 1 pm Wednesday, and the plan is to play down to a winner, but fans should be prepared for a possible Day 4 as there are still 33 players left in the game, and extra days seem to be the rule rather than the exception so far this year.

Event #46: $500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem

Preston McEwen is the chip leader at the end of the opening day of play in Event #46. One of the cheapest bracelets on the schedule, the $500 game saw 5,342 runners, and as this game is played in the classic freezeout format, every single one of those entries was a unique person. All those unique people combined for a whopping prize pool of $2,243,640 with 802 players slated to get a portion of it.

In fact, a good chunk of those payouts are already in players’ pockets as they ended the day with just 241 players left alive. Among the players to cash out on Day 1 were Gavin Wood, Steven Couture, Lam Nguyen, Matthew Osorio, Jeffrey Minnema, Evan Thomas, and Veronica Brill.

Joining McEwan with chips for Day 2 are Yita Choong, Lori Persinger, Jeffrey Silverstein, Erik Cajelais, and Maureen Bloechlinger. Day 2 action gets going at 10 am on Wednesday and this is scheduled as a two-day event so the plan is to finish the game on Wednesday, but once again, there are a lot of Day 2 players to get through.

Event #47: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.

Players were eager to get on the HORSE as Event #47 kicked off on Tuesday with 836 entries. Once again, that is up on last year’s number of 773, continuing what is now a clear pattern of year-over-year field increases. That made this HORSE worth a total of $1,116,060 with the winning jockey riding to a victory of $207,678.

“Crazy Mike” Thorpe is the chip leader going into Day 2 with 252,500 to start the day. All the players in the top five have 200k or more, and Phillip Hui is among them with the 4th place stack of 212k. Thorpe already has three cashes this summer, so he is looking to add a fourth here in the HORSE. He’s got competition on Day 2, however, with the likes of Yuri Dzivielevski (189,500,) David “Bakes” Baker (130,000), Koray Aldemir (130,000), and Matt Savage (106,500), as well as Joao Vieira and poker philanthropist Gershon Distenfeld still in the mix.

The cards go in the air for Day 2 at 1 pm, and the plan is to play 10 levels of poker on Wednesday before the remaining players bag up for what should be the final day on Thursday.

Online Event #8: $3,200 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller

• Entries: 321
• Prizes: $1,489,600
• Paid: 54
• 1st Place: $360,036.32
• Winner: Jeremy “ChipChecka” Ausmus (6th WSOP bracelet)

Upcoming Events on June 21

Event #48: $1,000 SENIORS No-Limit Hold’em Championship – Flight A

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 20,000
• Reentries: 1 per Flight
• Must be 50 years of age or older to enter

Event #49: $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’em

• Start: 12 noon
• Late Entry: 11 Levels
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 0

Event #50: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: Start of Day 2
• Start Stack: 60,000
• Reentries: 0