Daily Updates From the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) – June 4
Six more bracelets were awarded over the opening weekend, meaning there are now eight players from this 2023 WSOP with bracelets on their wrists. Chanracy Khun was the biggest prize winner over the weekend for his $500k win in the $25k Heads-Up game putting up Canada’s first bracelet of the series in the process. The massive Mystery Bounty game got more than 18,000 runners for $16 million in prizes and TWO million dollar bounties.
Event #3: $1,000 Mystery Millions - No-Limit Hold'em
When the dust settled on the $1,000 Mystery Millions game, the final numbers must have been staggering to even the most optimistic pre-series estimates. More than 18,000 entries were recorded for one of the biggest WSOP fields ever and more than $16 million in total prizes.
The numbers were so big, organizers decided to double to biggest prize in the game. Going into the event, there was a single $1 million bounty guaranteed on Day 2, but with the huge field, the organizers added a second one to the bin. Patrick Liang (pictured) and Shant Marashlian were the two players to pull the million dollar envelopes with Klint Tevaearai and Eric Baldwin pulling $500k and $250k respectively.
There are 30 players left in action for Monday’s final day of play, and the final table action will be streamed on PokerGO.
Event #4: Tournament of Champions
Event #4 is a bit of a special one on the schedule as it’s not open to the average player. Only bracelet and ring winners from the 2022/23 WSOP season are eligible to enter, and they all got free entry to the $1 million guaranteed game as part of their winner package at whatever event they won.
The final day played out on Saturday this weekend with Ronnie Day emerging as the winner for a prize of $200k. Day won his ticket to the event just a month ago with his first Circuit ring at a stop in Elizabeth, Indiana.
The entire final table of the event was comprised of North Americans, with 8 players from the USA and a sole Canadian, Justin Hotte-McKinnon. Day took down the special bracelet after a heads up battle with fellow American Brent Gregory.
Event #5: $1,500 Dealers Choice 6-Handed
The first mixed-game bracelet of the series was awarded on Friday night to Chad Eveslage. Eveslage is no stranger to deep runs in mixed games, and players at the table were joking that he is the “best in the world” at Badeucy.
This was Eveslage’s second bracelet after a $1.4 million win last year in the $25k 8-Handed High Roller event. This was his ninth win in general and pushed his lifetime earnings up to $7,366,750.
He was in tough at the final table of this one though. Despite the $1,500 buy-in, the final table included some of the best mixed-game poker players in the world. In addition to Eveslage, Andrew Kelsall, Nick Kost, john Racener, Clayton Mozden, and James Johnson were all at the final table of this one.
Event #6: $5,000 Mixed No-Limit Hold'em; Pot-Limit Omaha
Michael Moncek picked up his second career bracelet on Friday night and pocketed $534,499 in the process. He had to demonstrate prowess with both two cards and four in this mixed-game event that switched up the games between NLHE and PLO every level.
Fernando “Jnandez” Habegger nearly went wire-to-wire on the final day of this one. He came into the final day with the chip lead and managed to run that all the way up to heads-up play against Moncek.
Among the other players Moncek had to navigate at the final table were Alex Livingston, Christian Harder, and Kristen Foxen (nee Bicknell). Moncek noted that such an early bracelet win in the series means he has a decent shot at a Player of the Year run.
Event #7: $1,500 Limit Hold’em
Vadim Shlez picked up the first bracelet of the series for a player from war-torn Ukraine when he took down the win in the Limit Hold’em game on Saturday night. He won $146,835 and proudly wore the Ukrainian flag in his winner’s photo.
In an unusual turn of events, once the game got heads-up, the bracelet was always going to Ukraine. Shlez was up against countryman Rostyslav Sabishchenko in the final two so no matter how it turned out, there was going to be a Ukrainian flag in the photo at the end.
There were 527 entries for this one and a total prize pool of just over $700k. Among the players the Ukrainians had to best at the final was the “original” David “ODB” Baker.
Event #8: $25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship
Sunday night saw the crowning of the Heads-Up Champion for this series, and Canada bagged its first bracelet of the year. Chanracy Khun picked up his first career bracelet and more than $500k along the way.
The Heads-Up Championship is among the most prestigious bracelets of the series with the field full of nosebleed HU NLHE specialists. Among the players Khun had to get through in his bracket were Alexandre Vullirumier, winner of Event #2 this year, and rising star Landon Tice in his quarter-final match. In the final game, Khun faced down high stakes HU beast Doug Polk, who made his name in the game crushing some of the biggest online HU games in the world.
Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud
Nick Schulman won his fourth bracelet in Event #7 on Sunday night, once again demonstrating his prowess in the less common forms of poker in the modern world. After bagging previous bracelets in Deuce (2) and PLO8, Schulman has now added a seven-card stud bracelet to his collection.
Schulman now has more than $15.5 million in total lifetime earnings, with $5 million of that coming at the WSOP alone from 93 cashes. He didn’t have an easy field to best at the final table either, with John Monnette and Shaun Deeb both fighting for another bracelet for their own collections.
Event #10: $10,000 Dealers Choice 6-Handed Championship
There are just 13 players remaining out of a starting field of 115 and Chad Eveslage is looking to win his second bracelet of the year in his second Dealers Choice game of the year. Eveslage won with $1,500 version of this game earlier in the week (see above) and he will go into Monday’s final day of play with the chip lead in the $10k Championship version.
Eveslage has 1,371,000 to start Day 3 and is only one of two players with more than a million chips. There is more than a million in prizes for this game with the winner expected to pocket $311,428.
Event #11: $600 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack
There were more than 6,000 entries for the $600 NLHE Deepstack game and Phil Hellmuth survived Day 1 on his quest for his 17th bracelet. He’s competing for a piece of more than $3 million in prizes, but at this point, the money is hardly the biggest thing on the Poker Brat’s mind.
Hellmuth has a respectable stack of 665k going into Day 2 with Kevin Daily (GA) bagging the lead at almost 2 million. The game is already in the money so Hellmuth has already scored his 190th WSOP cash but extending his record bracelet haul by one is surely front of mind.
Event #12: $5,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed
There is almost $3.4 million up for grabs in the $5k Freezeout game with 111 players sharing in the prizes. A total of 735 entries were recorded for this one and 148 players return to Day 2 action. Artem Metalidi leads the counts going into Day 2 looking to secure Ukraine’s second bracelet of the series.
Online Event #1: $333 No-Limit Hold'em Triple Treys Summer Tip Off
The first online bracelet of 2023 has been awarded with Cody "1eggadayMike" Bell taking down the top spot for more than $87k and his first bracelet over Douglas "OpenOpen" May. There were 1,330 entries for a prize pool of $634,800 with 240 players sharing in the prizes.
Upcoming Events on June 5
Event #13: $600 Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack
- Start: 10 am
- Late Entry: 12 Levels
- Start Stack: 30,000
- Reentries: 2
Event #14: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship
- Start: 2 pm
- Late Entry: Sart of Day 2
- Start Stack: 60,000
- Reentries: 0
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