Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 8
Isaac Haxton officially took his name off the "Best without a Bracelet" list on Thursday in the High Roller while the first-ever Baddugi event played into the money. As is expected, the USA is leading the bracelet counts, but Brazil became the fourth other country to bag a bracelet so far this year while Haxton takes over the lead as the player who has won the most from 1st-place prizes.
Event #15: $1,500 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em
Brazil picked up its first bracelet of the 2023 WSOP after Rafael Reis made his way through 2,454 runners to take down the top prize of $465,501. The final day of play took almost 13 hours to complete and the game generated a prize pool of $3,276,090.
Reis had to take down the hot-running Sarah Herzali from France. She bagged the big stack to start the final day of play and maintained that chip lead throughout most of the day. In the end, the Day 3 chip leader had to settle for 3rd place for a prize of $207,720, the closest so far this year for the first woman's bracelet.
Spain's Daniel Barriocanal was the runner-up but he did not go gently, battling Reis for the title for nearly two levels of heads-up poker before it was finally settled for good. Another notable at the final table was multiple bracelet winner John Monnette. Monnette ended up in 5th place after he got it in dominated against Herzali and couldn't get there.
This was Reis' first bracelet and brought his career WSOP earnings to just over $800k with just over $2 million in total lifetime earnings on the live felt.
Event #16: $25,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed
For many years, Isaac Haxton was one of the leading names on the list of the best players in the game without a WSOP bracelet to their name. That all changed on Thursday night after Haxton took down the $25k High Roller (Event #16) for his first-ever bracelet in what turned out to be a record-breaking field.
In total, 301 entries were recorded for this one, putting more than $7 million into the prize pool. Interestingly, "more than $7 million" is also how much Haxton has won so far in 2023 on the back of six big titles including this one, putting him on pace for a record-breaking year if he can keep it up. In total, Haxton has pocketed more than $37.5 million from the live poker scene now for the 14th-best total in history.
Haxton took down the title after a short heads-up with Ryan O'Donnell, and the whole final table was full of crushers like Darren Elias, Lewis Spencer, Roman Hrabec, Frank Funaro, Brian Rast, and Joao Vieira.
Event #17: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better
It was a marathon for Jim "Mr. Big Queso" Collopy to pick up his second bracelet in Event #17 on Thursday night. He and second-place finisher Nik Kost battled heads-up for more than four hours before the game was finally decided at almost 3:30 am local time.
Of the 1,143 original runners, just 33 players remained to start the final day of action. They got to the final table pretty quickly, but then played for nine hours at the FT, about half of which was between just the final two players.
Runner-up Kost made a point of mentioning how tough an opponent Collopy was heads-up as Kost was only able to get back as far as even-stacked in the game, never capturing a lead. And while it took Collopy a while, he eventually ground down his opponent to take a bracelet for his other wrist.
The win gives Collopy just shy of $5 million in lifetime earnings with almost $1.5 million of it coming in WSOP events.
Event #18: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-limit Hold'em
The $300 Gladiators of Poker played its second starting day on Thursday, and there were more than 4,500 entries for the second Day 1. That put more than $1m into the prize pool from Day 1b and they played down well into the Day 1 money as this event plays 22 levels on Day 1 no matter how many remain. Many players on each Day 1 will be getting paid small prizes, but most of the day's prize pool money will roll over into the final prize pool when all the Day 1 flights combine.
Justin Arnwine leads the Day 1b counts with just over 3 million, and he heads a top-ten from Day 1b that is almost a full slate of Americans. There are two players not from the USA in the top ten from the second starting flight - Canadian Weston Pring from Calgary has just over 2 million in his bag for 9th place, while Mateusz Moolhuizen from the Netherlands has just 10k more than Pring for 8th place.
The total entries for this event are now closing in on 10,000 with only half the starting flights recorded so far. With much larger fields expected on later starting days, this game promises to be a truly massive field before entries close on Day 1d.
Event #19: $2,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em
They are down to just 11 players left in the game for the final day of play in Event #19. There were 1,139 entries in this one for a prize pool of more than $2.5 million. Qiang Xu is on pace to take down China's first bracelet of the series with the chip lead of 7.76 million, significantly more than the 4.8 million for second-place Alexandre Reard.
Jared Jaffee, Adrian Mateos, Marton Czuczor, Jason Acosta, Stephen Song, Jared Jaffe, and Day 1 chip leader Dinesh Alt were among the players to fall on Day 2 while triple-crown winner Niall Farrell has a short stack going into the final 11. The final day of play in this one gets underway Friday at noon, and PokerGO will be streaming the event starting at 4 pm.
Event #20: $1,500 Badugi
There are 13 players returning for the final day of play in the first-ever Badugi bracelet event at WSOP. Serhii Popovych leads the way with 1.885 million to start the final day, but mixed-game crusher David "ODB" Baker isn't very far behind with 1.4 million. They lead a final day that includes Jack O'Neill, Danny Tang, Matt Vengrin, and Terrence Chan.
There is a total of $688,860 in the prize pool for this one, and along with the honor of winning the first-ever Badugi bracelet, the winner with receive almost $150k.
Final Day Payouts for First-Ever Badugi Bracelet Event
| Place | Earnings |
|---|---|
| 1st | $144,678 |
| 2nd | $89,415 |
| 3rd | $59,879 |
| 4th | $40,996 |
| 5th | $28,710 |
| 6th | $20,577 |
| 7th | $15,102 |
| 8th | $11,356 |
| 9th | $11,356 |
| 10th-11th | $8,754 |
| 12th-13th | $6,923 |
Event #21: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed
There were just over 2,000 entries in the $1k Pot Limit Omaha game before entries closed which put $1,795,130 into the prize pool to play for. The winner of this game will pocket $267,991 along with the bracelet, and at the end of the opening day of play, Suk Bang has the best chance of taking that prize down. He bagged almost 1.5 million to end Day 1, more than 400k better than Israel's Ido Aboudi in 2nd.
They were the only players over 1 million, but Mike Dentale, Amnon Filippi, Mike Gorodinsky, and Thomas Taylor all bagged top ten stacks. There are 117 players remaining in the game, and the bubble burst on Day 1. Players returning for Day 2 are guaranteed at least $2,463 but likely none of them will be satisfied with that payout at this point.
Event #22: $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship
The opening day of the $10k Limit Hold'em Championship is now complete and Japan's Nozomu Shimizu leads a field of 46 players returning from the starting field of 104. That number is still in flux however with entries open until the start of Day 2. If it holds, they'll be playing for $967,200 in prizes.
It is hardly a surprise that the top ten in this one is chock-full of top-name players. Kevin Song follows Shimizu for second place, while Kory Aldemir, Cary Katz, Brian Lieberman, Nate Silver, Joe McKeehan, and Ronnie Bardah are among the crushers in the top ten to start Day 2 play. The prizes will be sorted out after Day 2 begins and entries officially close.
Upcoming Events on June 7
Event #18: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-limit Hold'em - Flight C
- Start: 10 am
- Late Entry: 11 Levels
- Start Stack: 30,000
- Reentries: 2/Flight
Event #23: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em
- Start: 12 noon
- Late Entry: Start of Day 2
- Start Stack: 300,000
- Reentries: 1
Event #24: $1,500 Razz
- Start: 2 pm
- Late Entry: 9 Levels
- Start Stack: 25000
- Reentries: 0
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