Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 22

Brian Rast became just the second player in history to win the Poker Player’s Championship three times after he took down Talal Shakerchi heads up. Yang Zhang bagged China’s fourth bracelet of the series so far while Yuri Dzivielevski won Brazil’s second in the $1,500 HORSE. In perhaps the best story of the day, however, Pengfei Wang literally jumped for joy when he won his first bracelet in his very first official tournament entry.

Event #43: $50,000 Poker Players Championship

There are now two players in the history of the Poker Players Championship to win the event three times after Brian Rast joined Michael Mizrachi in the three-timers club. There were 99 entries for what is considered by many to be the toughest bracelet in the whole series, which meant they were playing for $4,727,250 in total.

As is to be expected in the PPC, the field was littered with the biggest names in the game. Double-defending champion Dan “Jungleman” Cates donned Terminator gear for Day 1 and Day 2 of this event as he made a bid to win three PPCs on the trot, but he was terminated on Day 2 before the money.

Phil Hellmuth showed up looking for his first PPC victory and 17th bracelet but fell short with a min-cash. Phil Ivey was looking to take down his first PPC and 11th bracelet to put him in sole possession of 2nd place behind Hellmuth, but he bubbled the final day in 6th place.

In the run-up to the final day of play, there were crushers falling like flies in the money. Before Ivey bubbled the final day, Ray Dehkharghani, Hal Rotholz, Josh Arieh, and Daniel Alaei were among the players who just missed out on Day 5 action.

When the final day convened, the field was no less scary despite having lost so many big names. Talal Shakerchi took the chip lead into the final day, but he went on a bit of a roller coaster ride through the day with his stack bouncing around all day. Along with Rast and Shakerchi, former PPC winner Matthew Ashton, James Obst, and Kristopher Tong rounded out the final five players in the game.

With five bracelets to his name going into this event, and two of them from this very event, Rast was the clear favorite going in, at least by reputation. He started the final day fourth in chips with only Tong starting the day shorter than him, but he went on a tear building into an early lead as Shakerchip saw his stack nearly vanish. Shakerchi was able to recover and get to heads-up, but he was at a 5:1 disadvantage in the final phase and it only lasted a few hands before Rast was holding his third Chip Reese Memorial Trophy and sixth WSOP gold bracelet.

Final Results from Event #43: $50,000 Poker Players Championship

Place	Player	Payout
1	Brian Rast	$1,324,747
2	Talal Shakerchi	$818,756
3	Matthew Ashton	$573,679
4	James Obst	$411,824
5	Kristopher Tong	$303,071
6	Phil Ivey	$228,793
7	Ray Dehkharghani	$177,294
8	Hal Rotholz	$141,125
9	Josh Arieh	$141,125
10	Daniel Alaei	$115,477
11	Marco Johnson	$115,477
12	Johannes Becker	$97,209
13	Maxx Coleman	$97,209
14	Phil Hellmuth	$97,209
15	John Monnette	$84,255

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

China is soaring up the national bracelet list after winning its fourth bracelet of the series when Yang Zhang was the last player standing out of 1,735 original entries. He pocketed $717,879 of the more than $4.6 million in total prizes along with his first bracelet. The win bests his previous best finish at WSOP, an 8th place in 2019.

That was actually the last time Zhang was able to make it over from China for the WSOP with the reasons likely being obvious as global travel, especially in and out of China, was severely restricted in early 2020 with this year being the first year since then when that travel has been relatively free. “I love the game from the beginning until now but because of COVID, I didn’t play. But ya, I really love the game,” he said after the victory.

Zhang came into the final day third in chips behind the leader Aram Oganyan and Shannon Shorr, but he was able to flip that script when he met Oganyan in the heads-up phase. It was a pretty sick final table across the board actually, with Jon Van Fleet, Frédéric Normand, Aleks Dimitrov, and Shannon Shorr among the players figuring in the endgame for this one.

This wasn’t Zhang’s first win, but it was his biggest-ever score, dwarfing his previous best of just shy of $115k. This first bracelet puts his lifetime earning less than $50k away from $3 million, so he’ll no doubt be looking for another score here in this series to crack that milestone.

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

Yuri Dzivielevski pushed Brazil into the multiple bracelet zone, joining the USA, China, and Canada as one of four nations with more than a single bracelet so far this year after he bagged the big prize in the $1,500 HORSE race. The Brazilian was the last player standing out of the starting field of 836, and his $207,678 was the lion’s share of the $1,116,060 total prize pool.

The smiling and immaculately coiffed Dzivielevski was in a good position nearly from the start of this game. After finishing the opening day in the top ten, he bagged up the lead on the remaining days and ended up with all 20.9 million in play after the final hand.

But that’s not to suggest he ran over the field or faced no competition. When he got heads-up he was looking across at Randy Ohel, one of the toughest mixed game players on the planet. While Ohel has but a single bracelet, his results page is strewn will deep runs in deuce, HORSE, stud8, and dealers choice games with five runner-up finishes in mixed games. In addition to having to slay Ohel in the final stage of his quest for his third bracelet, Frankie O’Dell and Stephen Savoy also stood in his way on the final day, and players like Anson Tsang, Scott Baumstein, poker philanthropist Gershon Distenfeld, Scott Epstein, Shawn “Bucky” Buchanan, and Jeff Lisandro were contenders on earlier days.

This third bracelet for Dzivielevski brings his lifetime earnings to around $5.3 million and it comes on top of an online bracelet from the unprecedented 2020 series and one in mixed stud8/O8 from 2019. The $207,678 score wasn’t even close to his biggest though – last year he won almost $900k for 2nd place in the Poker Player’s Championship, falling to Dan Cates’ second title for his biggest score ever, so it’s pretty clear that this HORSE bracelet was no fluke. Dzivielevski knows his mixed games.

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

There has been a trend all series of massive turnouts for events, and the Seniors Championship was no different. When the dust settled on the second starting flight, 4,488 entries were recorded for 1b. That put the two-day total at 8,180, a record for the Seniors Event here at WSOP and crushing the previous record of 7,188 from last year.

Joseph Workman bagged the biggest stack from Day 1b with 510k while Francisco Corrales is right behind him at 508.5k. They are the only players with more than 500k as third-place Amin Mostafavi sits with just 391k. That puts the top two stacks from 1b in the lead for Day 2 with the top four stacks from 1a filling out spots three through six coming in for Day 2.

There is still a lot of poker to be played in this one with 1,624 players returning for the second day. 1,227 of them will get paid with the min-cash set at $1,601 and that money bubble should burst fairly early on Day 2. The winner at the end of it all can expect to add $765,731 to his or her retirement fund. Day 2 action goes at 10 am local time and the early action to the bubble should be pretty fast and furious.

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

“So excited! Yeah, so it’s actually my first time. It’s my first tournament ever.” That was how Pengfei Wang described his poker experience after winning Event #49: $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’em. He went on to add that he plays mostly cash poker with a few private games sometimes but that he doesn’t really have a lot of tournament experience.

His excitement clearly showed after the final hand as he literally jumped for joy when he realized he’d won poker’s biggest prize on his first try. As the name suggests, it was a very turbo affair that saw the original 2,226 entries play down to the final nine on the first day of play. Most of the early payouts from the $2,971,710 total prizes were already handed out, but the eventual winner was not in great shape to start the final day, coming in with one of the short stacks.

Argentian rapper Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo came into the final day with the lead but was only able to manage 7th place for just shy of $40k. In the final phase, Wang faced Will Linden and Wang was actually at risk for his life in a race early in heads-up. He found quads for a huge double and while it wasn’t smooth sailing from there, Wang was able to grind out the victory. While he’s planning to head home for a bit after the victory, his final comment after the win was that he might be back next week for the short deck games, and with a 100% bracelet-to-tournament ratio at the moment, the rest of the field likely shouldn’t count him out.

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

They are down to 42 players left in the game fighting for the PLO Championship bracelet after two days of play. There were a total of 731 entries by the time Day 2 began, putting the final prize pool at $6,798,300. Dimitar Danchev leads the way into Day 3 with 3.705 million, which is a substantial lead over Sam Soverel with barely 2 million in second place. Dylan Weisman, Ioannis Angelou Konstas, and Jay Harwood were among the top-ten stacks as well, while Sean Winter, Joseph Liberta, and Paul “Jaspal” Brar, who won his first bracelet last year, are among the other stacks to make it to Day 3.

They’ll convene for what is expected to be the final day of play at 2 pm on Friday and PokerGO is expected to pick up the game with a live stream starting when they get five-handed.

Event #51: $1,000 TAG TEAM No-Limit Hold’em

The tag team event is always a favorite amongst WSOP regulars, but it’s at least as much about the fun as it is about the poker in this case. When the registration desk closed there were 1,282 team entries that combined for a prize pool of $570,490. The winning team will pocket $95,331 at the end of it all.

The team headed by Mark Evangelista bagged the biggest Day 1 stack with 562k and that was miles ahead of Kenneth Gallo’s second-place team with 382k. Jesse Sylvia – Ashley Sleeth were also among the top-ten stacks to end the opening day while Alejandro Lococo – Martin Pineiro, Julie Marriott – Dara O’Kearney, Sarah Steffan – Kyna England, and Jessica Teusl – Stefan Lehner all bagged top-40 stacks for Day 2 as well.

There are 252 teams returning for Day 2 at noon Friday with 193 of them making the money. Action should be pretty quick to start the day as they play down to the $801 money bubble with all sights set on the $95,331 first-place prize.

Event #52: $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball

Fans of lowball poker have been waiting for Event #52 and that showed through with 353 entries, up more than 10% from last year’s 309. That put $785,425 into the prize pool with 53 players sharing in the booty. The earliest cashing player will pocket $4,069 while the winner of this event will be $181,978 richer.

Marco Johnson bagged the biggest stack after the first day of play with 228.5k. He leads five players with more than 200k, including Nacho Barbero and Maxx Coleman in second and third place respectively. Brian Yoon, Lynda Tran, Chino Rheem, Cary Katz, Maria Ho, Robert Campbell, Nick Pupillo, Daniel Strelitz, Patrick “Pads” Leonard, and Main Event Champ Koray Aldemir are also among the Day 1 baggers.

The final 145 players will return at 1 pm on Friday but there will be a fair bit of poker to play before any of them can start thinking about cash. They have 10 levels on the schedule for Day 2 and the bubble will almost certainly burst on Friday, but it’s likely to be later in the day.

Online Event #9: $1,000 PLO Championship

• Entries: 383
• Prizes: $606,600
• Places Paid: 99
• Winner: Stanislav “ForlorarDu” Barshak
• 1st Place Prize: $128,841.84

Upcoming Events on June 23

Event #53: $1,500 MILLIONAIRE MAKER No-Limit Hold’em – Flight A

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 25,000
• Reentries: 1 per Flight

Event #54: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship

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