WSOP 2019 Updates

[Pokerpops]

https://www.pokernews.com/tours/wsop/2019-wsop/main-event/chips.293864.htm

Player disqualified

Seems harsh.

Probably just mucking around.

Effel later spoke with PokerNews and weighed in on the decision:
“Here’s the thing, you’re playing the Main Event you can’t touch other player’s chips. The chips that you have in front of you are the ones that belong to you, you shouldn’t be touching chips that don’t belong to you. Plain and simple. Discussing beyond what was seen at the table, everybody saw the exact same thing – he took the chips that were next to him, they didn’t belong to him and you can’t do that when you’re playing the Main Event.”

But it would be ok in other games?

[tikay]

Play briefly suspended due to another earthquake which affected SoCal & Nevada, 7.1 magnitude this time.

[tikay]

Will Kassouf busted, his KK no good v AA.


 
‏
 
@WilliamKassouf
 
OMFG! Just busted in the sickest cooler AGAIN end of Day 1 in the WSOP Main Event!
KK v AA obviously! No other hand I’m busting with on Day 1 ffs! FML lol.
Thanks for all the love and support. On to the next one. Oh and pic or didn’t happen obv lol..

Click to see full-size image.

https://twitter.com/WilliamKassouf/status/1147428792224243715

[TightEnd]

The single-day attendance record for the WSOP Main Event was broken on Friday with almost 5,000 players registering for the Day 1c flight.

That number brings the total attendance for the 2019 Main Event over the 8,000 mark, making it the second-highest ever.

With late registration still available until the start of the Day 2 flights (Saturday and Sunday), there’s still a chance that this year’s tournament could break the all-time record for Main Event entries.

The current record of 8,773 players has stood since the 2006 Main Event.

[tikay]

https://www.pokernews.com/tours/wsop/2019-wsop/main-event/chips.293864.htm

Player disqualified

Seems harsh.

Probably just mucking around.

The fella has apologized on Twitter now;

 

Hello
I really want to apologize to all players, staff, mr. Effel and the whole poker community for my unprofessionalism and misbehavior in WSOP main event. I take full responsibility for my behavior that I really got drunk and could not control myself.

I was up all night playing and drinking in cash games in Rio. By the time I realized what time it is, I decided to go register into main event. I don’t remember much, I really did not want to cheat nobody, just a stupid drunk joke which landed me a night in jail for trespass.

I hope that you all will understand and believe me if I say that it’s first time in my life that I involved in such a bad story. A lot of people in poker community can confirm that before this accident I’ve never been involved in any suspicious activities.

I really care about my reputation and life values and I promise you all that this will never ever happen again.
Georgii Belianin




Here;

https://twitter.com/GBelianin/status/1147716761292177408

[Karabiner]

I can see why you don't drink now Tony.

[Tal]

I can see why you don't drink now Tony.

Would have been quite a turnup for the staking thread, mind.

[tikay]

Event 71 - $500 Salute to Warriors NLH, Day 3 of 3, 1723 entries


The WSOP didn't quite get the fairy story they wanted from this event; that a US Military Veteran would win it, but I suppose they got the next best story, the first female win in an Open Event this year.

71-year old Susan Faber has really only been playing the game for about 10 years, and regularly plays events when the WSOP circuit visits her nearest events in North Carolina and had one earlier WSOP proper cash (earlier this summer). The $121K is by far the biggest cash of her career.

She only took five hands heads-up to finish off Rob Stark, with Dean Yoon having departed in third. Faber eliminated her final four tablemates, including Day 2 chip leader (and the last Vet standing), Taylor Carroll who ended up in 5th spot


Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 1C of 10, 8127 entries so far


Nearly 5000 players decided to play Day 1C, taking the total figure so far to over 8000, the second highest figure and with late reg open until the start of play today for Day 2AB and tomorrow for 2C, there's a slight chance that the all-time record of 8773 which dates back to 2006 could be broken.

So what happened on Day 1C? Not one but two players were disqualified (one for stealing someone else's chips, one for dropping his trousers and throwing a shoe at the table hitting one of the other players). Play was suspended for a while due to the effects of the earthquake in California, and Phil Ivey was bust within the first half of Level 1. Just your regular day in the Main Event.

3647 players made it through the five levels of play with James Henson from Tiki Island which sounds like something from Disneyland but is actually a village off the coast of Texas. The big names start at Position 2 with Mike "Timex" McDonald, and in third place is Joshua Ray.

The highest placed GB player is Barry Donovan who sits with 280K chips (starting stack was 60K) in 6th spot. Andrew Pantling, Jack Salter, Kenneth Broad, Carl Shaw, Andrew Fields, Juan Sanchez, Charles Combes, Sean Mills, Chris Brammer, Raul Manzanares, Gilad Gutkin, Thomas Ward and Stuart McNally all line inside the top 300.

Lower down a quick search through those with "GB" against their names adds the likes of Peter Linton, Jason Gray, Philip Long, Alexander Zeligman, Guy Taylor (I mentioned a week or two ago about his record in massive field tourneys), Sam Trickett (playing his first event of the year), Max Silver, Ben Heath, Jake Cody, Sunny Chattha and Louis Salter. Niall Farrell and Stuart Rutter both have barely over half their starting stack, with Talal Shakerchi and Michael Kane just under that mark.

Some former winners battled through - reigning title holder John Cynn, Joe McKeehan (who was at the table when the first disqualification happened), Scotty Nguyen, Jim Bechtel, Johnny Chan and 2002 winner Robert Varkonyi. We did lose our first former winners though - Jamie Gold, Joe Cada and Martin Jacobson

A decent amount of coverage on TV tonight, and starting at not too bad of a time - midnight to 4:30 if I'm reading the programme guide correctly.

We still haven't seen the entrance of the Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth yet, he's been off on vacation to Macchu Pichu and the Galapagos Islands, along with actor Rob Lowe and owner of the Golden State Warriors and LA Dodgers Peter Guber. He hasn't indicated yet whether he'll be back in time from South America to play the Main.


To start today

Event 75 - $1111 Little One for One Drop, 4 Day Event, 3 starting flights Sat/Sun/Mon

[tikay]

Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 2AB of 10, 8225 entries so far


A man named Su!

Not as many distractions as the previous day, so the poker could take centre stage. The day ended after the regulation 5 2-hour levels with Boston, Massachusetts native Timothy Su bagging the biggest stack ahead of Tony Blanchandin of France and Germany's Anton Morgenstern in third. Morgenstern has 4 6-figure cashes in his career, including a run to 22nd in the 2015 ME but has yet to win big NLH live event.

That doesn't apply to Qui Nguyen of course. He won the 2016 Main and after delivering today's "shuffle up and deal" he proceeded to win pot after pot and ends Day 2 with a very tidy 602K in chips.

Florian Duta is the first player listed with "GB" against his name, but in reality he's a Romanian who lives in Birmingham so the honour of top Brit (out of about 50 who've qualified) goes to Gary Blackwood who has two previous WSOP Cashes, neither for more than $2000.

Other GB names inside the top 400 are Marc Foggin, Day 1 chip leader Adam Owen, Barny Boatman, Fraser MacIntyre, Nicholas Marchington, Joshua Boulton, Yudhishter Jaswal, Michael Kane, Craig McCorkell, Timothy Flanders, Jack Maskill, Leo Worthington-Leese, Andrew Martin, Arron Woodcock, Cyril Andre, Armin Ghojevand, Thomas Drinkwater, Mitchell Johnson, Philip Clarke, Robert Heidorn, Alex Goulder, Ben Dobson, Charlotte Godwin and Conor Beresford

While Nguyen moved on, four former winners didn't. Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer, Greg Merson and Ryan Reiss all will have to wait until next year to try and get a second win.

Picking a few more players who are still in leads me to Shaun Deeb, Allen Kessler, Jeffrey Lisandro, Asi Moshe, Neil Blumenfield, Todd Brunson and Brian Hastings. Doubtless there are plenty more well known names lurking as well.

About a hundred players took advantage of the late reg being extended to the start of today, the WSOP are expecting slightly more than that for the start of Day 2C, and then we'll know the exact size of the field, the prizepool, and the massive first prize.

Phil Hellmuth has tweeted a video of a Giant Galapagos Tortoise with the logic that a tortoise (implying not the hare) always wins in NLH and that he is back and ready to enter Day 2C.

The TV coverage starts right from the start of play tonight - 7:30 UK time to 11:00pm, of course that's with cards on a 30-minute delay, cards are actually in the air at 11am Vegas time, 7pm BST.


Event 75 - $1111 Little One for One Drop, 4 Day Event, Day 1A, 702 entries so far


With considerably lower media spotlight, the first post-Main Event tournament started with the first of three starting flights attracting just over 700 players, of whom 240 made Day 2.

France have been coming on strong during the second half of the WSOP, including here where Leandry Ainonkpo has a massive lead, his 726K well ahead of Mark Eddleman's 464K and Schahin Ghiai with 409K in third.

John Hesp will be disappointed that he busted out of the Main Event (as will ESPN) but he's having a go here and lies 47th and top Brit. Shola Akindele, Daniel Myers, Irene Albarran, Gareth James, Barry Grime, Damien Le Goff, Graeme Ladd, Simon Higgins and Niall Murray all made Day 2 and now have a couple of days off.

I can't see many names that I recognise, Valentin Vornicu, David "ODB" Baker and Victor Ramdin are about it.


To start today
Event 76 - $800 WSOP.com Online NLH 6-max, 1 Day Event

[TightEnd]

WSOP Main Event official #'s:

8,569 entries (up 9% y-o-y)
$80,548,600 prize pool
1,286 places paid
Winner: $10,000,000
Min-Cash: $15,000
344 late registered for Day 2C
Entries by day: 1,334/1,914/4,877/100/344

[tikay]

Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 2C of 10, 8569 entries


A milliard reasons to dream

344 players bought in just in time to start Day 2C, making the final number of players 8569, the second most in Main Event history, and bringing the first prize to a round $10 Million. The min-cash remains at $15000 for the players who finish 1063-1268 inclusive as to raise this by so much as a single dollar would have tax implications.

Does anyone remember when there was a difference between different versions of a billion? In some countries a billion was a million million, in others it was a thousand million (and that latter usage has now become standard). Well in some countries where the former usage was common, the word for a thousand million was a "milliard". We've got about half a milliard chips in play but a Milliard in the chip lead at the end of Day 2C - Julien Milliard from Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. He has almost a million chips, ahead of Czech player Vlastimil Pustina and another American Andrew Brokos.

We have to look all the way down to 44th to find the best British player, Mark Teltscher who has about half Milliard's chips. The next group of Brits includes Barry Donovan, Philip Long, Daniel Charlton, Andrew Pantling, Luke Brereton, Kenneth Broad, Sean Mills, Jack Salter, Chris Determeyer, Christopher Sly, Jonathan McCann, Alexander Zeligman, Laurids Nielsen, Richard Kellett, Christopher Gatley, Louis Salter, Thomas MacDonald, Samuel Goodman, Oliver Price, Carl Shaw and Thomas Seaman all of whom like in the top 500 with a few names from further back in Jake Cody, Usman Siddique, Tom Hall, Jason Gray, Peter Linton, Paul Ephremesen and Max Silver.

Phil Hellmuth late registered, turned up about 45 minutes late and then proceeded to bluff of three-quarters of his chips pretty quickly and didn't stop mumbling to himself and anyone else who'd listen until he finally got eliminated.

He wasn't alone in former winners getting busted. Robert Varkonyi, Jerry Yang and Scott Blumstein also found themselves on the rail, leaving by my reckoning eight ME winners still in (Chan, Bechtel, Nguyen, Moneymaker, Hackem, McKeehen, Nguyen and Cynn). The first Nguyen is of Scotty Nguyen who delivered the "shuffle up and deal baby!" at the start of play.

Among those who did make it through, former final tabler Tom Cannuli lies inside the top 10, Kathy Liebert is 20th just ahead of Adam Friedman and Jeff Madsen is 41st. Also with decent stacks are Calvin Anderson, Bertrand Grospelier, David "ODB" Baker and another who has been all the way to the FT, Cliff Josephy.

After the 2 Day , 2880 players are still involved and will all combine now for Day 3 where the TV coverage isn't at as kind of time for UK viewers, action on BT Sport/ESPN from 3am-7am.


Event 75 - $1111 Little One for One Drop, 4 Day Event, Day 1B, 702 entries so far


The chip lead changed in the last level of Day 1B, Stefan Ivanov winning a huge hand to vault himself into the number one position. The Bulgarian has the lead from Hophuong Loy and Joris Ruijs.

With a lot of players still involved in ME action, there was still a number of better-known casualties from the Big One who decided to play the Little One, Vlaidimir Geshkenbein, Daniel Ott, Mike Sexton, both Barry and Allyn Shulman, Michael Mizrachi and Chris Ferguson.

505 players made it through of whom Tamer Kamel appears to be Top Brit, with William Overmire, Brian Leddy, Mohammed Suhail and Waikiat Lee the next best placed.


Event 76 - $800 WSOP.com Online NLH 6-max, 1 Day Event, 1560 entries

This one has gone to Shawn Buchanan ahead of David "Bakes" Baker and Hunter Gebron. The Canadian is a very familiar pro player, having over $6m in live earnings, but this is his first bracelet.

This was the final online event of the 2019 WSOP.


To start today
Event 77 - $3K Limit Hold'em 6-max, 4 Day Event
08/07/19 Event 90 - $50K High Roller NLH, 3 Day Event. This event was a late addition to the schedule, hence why it is out of sequence in terms of event numbers.

[BigAdz]

I'm reading these numbers in disbelief.

I read a day or two earlier about the decline of poker, rake issues etc and here we are with the biggest Main Event ever. I don't get it.

[tikay]

I'm reading these numbers in disbelief.

I read a day or two earlier about the decline of poker, rake issues etc and here we are with the biggest Main Event ever. I don't get it.

On which note, here are some stats from this year's WSOP;


Through 75 events (of 90) at this year’s WSOP at the Rio, here is where some of the key metrics stand:

•   168,135 entries – 36% above last year’s pace through 75 events (123,356). (All-time record)
•   $250,231,945 in prize money awarded  – More than any WSOP between 1970-2017 and up 6.5% y-o-y
•   25,236 places paid – Breaks record of 18,105 established last year
•   52 -- $1 million+ prize pools
•   25 -- $2 million+ prize pools
•   8 -- $5 million+ prize pools
•   3 -- $10 million+ prize pools
•   1 -- $80 million + prize pool
•   11 – Events with 5,000 or more entrants (Event 3, 9, 19, 32, 34, 50, 59, 61, 64, 69 & 73) – New record
•   4 – Events reaching Top 10 field sizes all-time (Event 3 (1st); Event 61 (4th), Event 64 (7th) & Event 19 (10th)
•   1 – Largest $500 buy-in event in history (Event #3, Big 50, 28,371 entries)
•   1 – Largest $400 buy-in event in history (Event 61, Colossus No-Limit Hold’em, 13,109 entries)
•   1 – Largest $1,500 buy-in event (Event #19, Millionaire Maker, 8,809 entries)
•   1 – Largest $600 buy-in event in history (Event #9, Deepstack No-Limit Hold’em, 6,150 entries)
•   1 – Largest $800 buy-in event in history (Event 53, 8-Handed Deepstack No-Limit Hold’em, 3,759 entries)
•   1 – Largest $888 buy-in event in history (Event 64, Crazy Eights No-Limit Hold’em, 10,185 entries)
•   1 – Largest $1,000 buy-in tournament in history (Event #34, Double Stack, 6,214 entries)

[tikay]

Day 3 has ended, everyone is in the money.

Just seen this on Twitter;

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Event 73 - $10K MAIN EVENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP NLH, Day 3 of 10, 8569 entries


From a chip and a chair to chip leader inside a day

Preben Stokkan had a pretty good start to Day 3, doubling his stack from 93K to 180K or so inside the first level. Then he tried a bluff with all but 5K of his stack, was over-shoved and had to fold, thanking his lucky stars he hadn't shoved that last 5K chip in too, and was left with the proverbial "chip and a chair" at the first break of the day. It wasn't the lowest denomination chip, but it was just a single chip.

From then on, he didn't look back, and a huge hand just before the end of the night brought him to a total of 2.184 million, the biggest stack in the room and the only player over 2 million in chips.

Hand for hand play wasn't needed; while they were getting all the hands paused to start hand-for-hand, on one of the last tables to get ready, Ryan Pochedly (who had been on the feature table a couple of days ago) lost all his chips when Julien Pineda rivered trip sevens. As has become traditiona, Pochedly was given a free entry to next year's ME as a consolation, but Jack Effel was able to say "with 1286 players left in the 50th World Series Of Poker Main Event, you are all IN THE MONEY" leading to no doubt the cheering and mutual back-slapping that has become the norm when the bubble bursts in the Main Event. Play was then immediately called off for the night with just over 6 minutes in the level.

Behind Stokkan, Andrew Brokos and Ryan Dodge lie second and third with Galen Hall the first former bracelet winner in 4th.

We lost former winners Scotty Nguyen, Joe Hachem and John Cynn during the day (though Hachem's son is still in), and Jim Bechtel too although I believe the player in question was Jim Bechtel jr not the former ME winner. That leaves just two trying to win their second Main, Chris Moneymaker and Qui Nguyen, plus Johnny Chan still alive with the possibility of his third.

There are a number of GB players with serious stacks - Daniel Charlton and Alexander Zeligman lie virtually neck-and-neck with 1.4m chips, Robert Heidorn has 1.2m and Oliver Bithell just over a million. I'm going to list all the players marked as GB from here on, for today I haven't the time to sift out any psuedo-Brits but I'll try and get that on from tomorrow.

So, in chip order:

Max Silver
Marc Foggin
Christopher Sly
Thomas Drinkwater
Yudhishter Jaswal
Stuart McNally
Luke Brereton
Nicholas Marchington
Nikolay Ponomarev
Jack Maskill
Andrew Martin
Timothy Flanders
Philip Long
Carl Shaw
Laurids Neilsen
Pierre Joubert
Craig McCorkell
Steven Morris
Adam Owen
Jonathan McCann
Sean Mills
Simon Deadman
Jan Eric Schwippert
Alexander Clark
Gary Blackwood
Thomas Seaman
Louis Salter
Mitchell Johnson
Robert Warburton
Thomas MacDonald
Scott Franklin
Oliver Price
Christian Christner
Philip Clarke
Thomas Waters
Michael Kane
Peter Linton
Armand Matti
Samuel Goodman
Mark Teltscher
Barny Boatman
Robert McAdam
Chris Determeyer
Florian Duta
Conor Beresford
Joshua Boulton
Alex Goulder
Charles COmbes
Daiva Byrne Barauskaite
Guillermo Sanchez
Paul Ephremesen
Gilad Gutkin
Stephen Hay
Leo Worthington-Leese
Mauro Suriano
Raul Martinez
Adam Daniel
Cyril Andre
William White
Ben Dobson
Igor Dursel

Phew. All of the above have now guaranteed a min-cash of $15K.

A few other names still in - Jean-Robert Ballande, Joseph Cheong, Eoghan O'Dea, Ertic Baldwin, Tom Cannuli, Jay Farber and Gus Hansen.


TV coverage is scheduled to run from 12 midnight to 4am, note yesterday's show as delayed because ESPN in the US were carrying the overrunning MLB All-Star Home Run Derby, so their coverage started about an hour later (and also ran until an hour later than the scheduled finish time).



Event 75 - $1111 Little One for One Drop, 4 Day Event, Day 1C, 5463 entries


A huge Day 1C took the starting field for the Little One for One Drop over the 5000 mark, with the chip lead for the day (but still well behind the Day 1A leader) in the hands of Nikolay Fay from Russia, with Darren Attebery and Kenneth Golden second and third.

The Moldovan resident in Northern Ireland, Dragos Trofimov, is the first player with "GB" against his name, but if you want a full Brit you've got to look down to 33rd where Sunny Chattha is listed. Several other British players survive, including Tsz Ho inside the top 100, George Demetriou and Calin Trif inside the top 200 and John Wright, Usman Siddique, Iaron Lightbourne, Sam Razavi and Will Kassouf and Ian Simpson among approximately 50 players from over here making it through Day 1C in total.

Two former ME winners are there - Jamie Gold and Greg Raymer, as are Shaun Deeb, seniors bracelet winner Howard Mash and Pierre Bounahara (son of former November Niner Bob Bounahara)

From the three starting flights, a little over 2000 players will return for the combined Day 2.


Event 77 - $3K Limit Hold'em 6-max, Day 1 of 4, x entries


More Limit Hold'em. Just what we need. Maybe not, with only 193 entries and only 57 making it through to Day 2.

Ron Carmona finished 17th in the $1500 version a few days ago, and he's in a position to do better here by being the Day 1 chip leader with Joshua Turner and Zachary Gruneberg second and third.

I know I often make the point that GB players historically do comparitively badly at Limit Hold'em but perhaps things are changing here as we have two inside the Top 8 overnight - Stuart Rutter is 4th and Patrick Leonard is 8th.

Dual bracelet winner Robert Campbell is one of the others through as are Dan Zack, Jeff Shulman, Greg Mueller, Chris Vitch and Joao Vieira.

29 will get paid (a min cash is $4571 and the first prize is $133K).


08/07/19 Event 90 - $50K Final Fifty High Roller NLH, Day 1 of 3, 109 entries so far. This event was a late addition to the schedule, hence why it is out of sequence in terms of event numbers.

A late and in some places controversial addition to the structure, 70 players have made 109 entries so far, just one below the similar event at the start of the series with late reg and re-entry open until the start of Day 2 that number should be surpassed.

Seth Davies has the early lead ahead of Dan Smith and first British name Elior Sion. The British challenge is very strong here, as Daniel Tang, Ben Heath, Ben Rolle, Chi Zhang, Talal Shakerchi, Canay Ekmen and Orpen Kisacikoglu make it 8 players listed as GB from the 44 qualifiers.

Of course at this buyin level plenty of the big hitters are present, Brian Rast, Ben Yu, Fedor Holz, Dan Shak and Daniel Negreanu amongst them.


To start today
Event 78 - $1500 PLO Bounty, 3 Day Event
Event 79 - $3K NLH, 4 Day Event