Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP - July 15 - PokerListings (2024)

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• Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – July 15

Poker coach Faraz Jaka bagged his first bracelet in the shootout event while Diego Ventura won the first bracelet ever for his home country of Peru in the Hall of Fame Bounty game. Dong Meng was the third first-time winner on Saturday after taking down the Flip & Go game. Also, after a day of rest on Saturday, the final table of the biggest live MTT ever is set to begin on Sunday at 2 pm with 9 players left and everyone guaranteed at least $900k.

Event #85: $1,500 SHOOTOUT No-Limit Hold'em

Faraz Jaka put a checkmark beside another live poker achievement on Saturday after taking down his first bracelet in Event #85. He had to make his way through 987 total entries to take his $237,367 share of the $1,317,645 in total prizes. Along with Jaka, there were 100 players who got a piece of the cash in this one with prizes ranging from $5,759 to the top prize.

Jaka, who spends a lot of his time lately as a poker coach, had a pretty solid run at the final table. He was the chip leader for most of the final phase of this game, taking about a 2:1 lead into heads-up against Michael Finstein after he sent third-place finisher Olga Iermolcheva to the cage in third for $109,780.

That set up a bit of a battle between Jaka and Finstein that went on for about 30 minutes. While Jaka retained the chip lead throughout, Finstein proved to be a sticky customer, getting the stacks back to about 1.4:1, but that was about as far as he was able to go after Jaka rivered a straight and caught a big bluff from Finstein to take it down.

Money-wise, the win was a middling prize for Jaka, who now has about $7.3 million in total earnings from live MTT poker. While this win wasn't even close to his biggest score of about $775k, his first bracelet will surely make this a special one. "Pretty great and just taking it all in," was how he described the feeling after the win.

Event #86: $1,979 Poker Hall of Fame Bounty No-Limit Hold'em

Peru bagged its first-ever bracelet on Saturday when Diego Ventura made it through a field of 1,417 entries to win the biggest share of almost $2.5 million. They weren't your average entries either, as the game he mastered was the Poker Hall of Fame Bounty where Hall of Fame members who enter the game get a bounty on their heads equivalent to the year they were inducted into the Hall. Among the HoF members to play this time around was the newest inductee, Brian Rast, who got the nod this year after winning the Poker Player's Championship for the third time, but his $2,023 bounty went early in Day 1.

Ventura had to get through Thomas Kysar heads-up to take down his country's first Gold Bracelet and $402,054. Kysar took home $248,502 for his runner-up finish, and two other players in the game, Jason James of Canada and Francis Anderson of the USA, took home scores of $100k or more. Among the other players that scored one of the 213 paid spots included final tableists Jose Nadal, Martin Jacobson, and Jimmy Setna, as well as Martin Zamani, Phil Hellmuth, Jim Collopy, Roman Hrabec, Rayan Chamas, and Marton Czuczor who all scored top-50 finishes.

While this was the first bracelet for both Ventura and his home country of Peru, it was not his best result on the live felt. That came in 2015 at the PCA when he was runner-up in a $10k game for $907k, but this score marks his second-best cash prize ever and pushed his Hendon Mob earnings over $2 million. It also cemented his position atop the Peruvian money list, extending his lead over Martin Carnero to almost $700k.

Event #87: $2,500 Mixed

There are still three players left with chips in the Mixed split-pot game after they were unable to finish it out on Saturday's Day 3. Nghia Le bagged up the most chips from the final three, but the recent winner of the Mixed Triple Draw Lowball, Nick Pupillo is hot on his heels in second. Canadian Bradley Smith rounds out the top three with a significantly smaller stack than the big dogs.

Day 3 started with 37 players left in the game and a bit more than 20 payouts already awarded. Renan Bruschi, Todd Brunson, Patrick Leonard, and Karina Jett were among the players who fell on Day 3 before the final table. Yuval Bronshtein and Philip Sternheimer were among the other players to make it to the final table but fall before the endgame.

They had planned to finish this game out on Day 3 and award the bracelet, but as has been the case a few times this series, the 460-entry field size (for a prize pool of just over $1 million) conspired against them to force a fourth day of play. The final three players will hit the felt at 1 pm on Sunday, and they will finish it out on Day 4, no matter what.

Event #88: $1,500 The Closer - No-Limit Hold’em - Day 1b

Chen Feng Wen leads the counts after the second starting day in The Closer. Between both starting flights, there are 259 qualifiers for Day 2 from a starting field of 3,531, all of whom are now guaranteed some part of the $4,713,885 in total prizes. This event is a Day 1 pay structure, so many players who exited late on a Day 1 did so with money in hand already.

Wen's stack of 1.75 million from 1b puts him fourth overall going into Day 2 with Benson Tang leading the way as the only stack with more than 2 million in it. Alan Hamza bagged just over 1.9 million for second, while Jeffrey Tanouye bagged just under that figure for third. Among the other players who will be in action when Day 2 kicks off on Sunday at 10 am include Jack Duong, Niall Farrell, Samuel Gagnon, Matt Glantz, and Massoud Eskandari. The full Day 2 prizes for this one aren't published yet, but everyone returning to Day 2 is guaranteed a payout.

Event #89: $1,000 FLIP & GO No-Limit Hold’em Presented by GG Poker

The Flip & Go event is now in the books, and Dong Meng took down Wenzhi "Westside Wesley" Fei in the heads-up phase for his first bracelet and $160,490. For his part, Fei bagged $100,120 for second place. They were the top dogs out of 1,022 total entries and took the only two six-figure shares of the $911,360 prize pool.

The unique format event began with a series of flip rounds where the results were down to the flip of the cards alone. Once those rounds were complete, players who won a flip table during one of those rounds earned a spot in the Go portion, which featured regular MTT poker through to a winner.

There were 128 players to make it through the flip phase but only 18 of them remained at the end of the first day of regular play. Pete Chen led the way into Day 2 while eventual winner Meng brought the 5th-place stack to the final day. Runner-up Fei was even farther down the list to start the final day, but they both spun it up to the top spots. This was Meng's best result by far with his total Hendon Mob earnings at $255k AFTER this win. His previous best before the bracelet win was just over $20k for a Circuit final table result last year, so this win certainly padded out his live results.

Event #90: $10,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold'em Championship

The field for the $10k 6-Handed Championship hit 550 entries before cards went in the air for Day 2 on Saturday. That meant the prizes ended up at $5,115,000 with the winner expected to pocket $1,057,663. There are a total of 83 paid spots for this one, and more than 50 of them were spoken for before they bagged up on Saturday.

Among the players to fall short of the final day of this last live Championship game of the series were Tommy Chen, Steve Zolotow, Alex Keating, Elliot Smith, Victor Ramdin, Cliff Josephy, Rainer Kempe, Renan Bruschi, and David Peters, but they all pocketed at least a bit of cash as they left the game. Last year's Main Event winner, Espen Jørstad, was the first player to hit the cage for the min-cash in 83rd place.

Ireland's Jamie O'Connor leads the way into Day 3 as one of two players with more than 2 million with AJ Kelsall right behind. Fabrice Bigot has the biggest bag with less than 2 million in it at 1.975 million, and Stephen Chidwick has a stack of 1.615 million for the final day of play. Bruno Volkmann, Justin Liberto, Alexandre Reard, Yueqi Zhu, and Phil Hellmuth are among the remaining 30 players who return for Day 3, which should be the final day of play. The action get going at 1 pm on Sunday, but it's worth noting that with 30 players still alive, it's not impossible this one will require a Day 4.

Event #91: $3,000 H.O.R.S.E.

Brazil's Andre Akkari is leading the way after the opening day of play in the $3k HORSE race. He leads Matthew Schultz, the only other player to bag 200k or more after Day 1. They got 332 entries for this one for a prize pool of $886,440. The winner is scheduled to pocket $208,460 of that as the biggest share of 50 paid spots starting at the min-cash of $4,873.

Among the other big names with big stacks after the opening day is Chad Eveslage. He bagged the fourth place stack and has shown this year that he knows the mixed games after winning the first two Dealers Choice bracelets on offer this year. Craig Chait and Byron Micon are also among the top ten, while Viktor Blom, Paul Sokoloff, Victor Ramdin, Brandon Shack-Harris, Patrick Leonard, and Allen Kessler all bagged stacks of at least 100k and will be looking to pounce on Day 2. Among the horses put out to pasture on Day 1 were Jason Stockfish, Andres Korn, Tom McCormick, Nacho Barbero, Yuri Dzivielevski, John Esposito, Roland Israelashvili, recent Hall of Fame inductee and three-time PPC Champion Brian Rast, and David ODB Baker.

Day 2 play resumes at 1 pm on Sunday with action planned to continue until the end of Level 20. The day picks up with a bit of time left in Level 10 as Day 1 ended a bit early after a player collapsed late in the day.

Upcoming Events on July 16

Event #76: $10,000 MAIN EVENT No-Limit Hold'em World Championship Day 9

• Start: 2 pm (streamed on delay on PokerGO starting at 4 pm)
• Entries: 10,043
• Remaining: 9
• Total Prizes: $93,399,900
• Guaranteed: $900,000

Event #92: $1,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 9 Levels
• Start Stack: 20,000
• Reentries: 0

Event #93: $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold'em

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: Start of Day 2
• Start Stack: 60,000
• Reentries: 1

Online Event #19: $500 NL Hold'em Summer Saver

• Start: 3:30

Online Event #20: $777 No-Limit Hold'em Lucky 7's

• Start: 4:30