The Top Performing Teams and Players So Far in the $25k WSOP Fantasy Draft

The Top Teams

1. Team Lady Gaga – Ren Lin

Ren Lin’s team has gotten off to a flyer over the first three weeks of play at the WSOP. His team’s heaviest hitters, the mecurial Alex Foxen and Mixed Games maestro Yuri Dzivielevski, have both binked bracelets this summer. Foxen tops the overall individual player count with a whopping 362, and Dzivielevski has notched 202 points for his haul so far.

The Brazilian Dzivielevski recently scored his sixth bracelet and a career-best score of $2,841,432 in the $100K High Roller NLH, knocking out six of the final eight players en route to another bracelet victory. The bulk of Foxen’s points came from his capture of bracelet number four and a score of $594,246 in the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’em event. Mr and Mrs Foxen’s summer has been adorned in gold thus far, with Kristen Foxen winning the $25K NLHE WSOP for a career-best score of $1,773,083.

Team Lady Gaga sit top of the leaderboard with 736 points. Below are the points totals of the remainder of Ren’s selections.

2. TEAM BLEZ/NGNF

The first team to have three players scoring over 100 points is Team Blez/NGNF, with Chris Brewer, Justin Liberto, and Adrian Mateos being the team’s top three players. So far, Team Blez/NGNF has recorded 676 points.

Of the trio, Mateos has had the biggest score, winning the $250,000 No Limit Hold’em Super High Roller for $4,334,411 for his sixth bracelet. Mateos has also cashed the $50,000 NLH Eight-Handed for $100,000 and the $10,000 Mystery Bounty for $31,750. Mateos has over $10,000,000 in recorded cashes so far this year, and that number will be considerably bigger come the end of the year, or even the summer.

Brewer has recorded six cashes in a wide range of events. Of the six cashes, he made the final table three times, finishing 4th in the $10k GGMillion$ High Roller for $355,610, 5th in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud for $72,254, and 4th in the $50,000 No Limit Hold’em Super High Roller for $634,870. A great haul so far, which includes cashes in the $10,000 Limit HORSE, $10,000 BigO Championship and $1,500 No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw.

Justin Liberto has also cashed six times, with two of those being a win and a runner-up place. Liberto won his second bracelet after an 11-year drought in the $1,500 Mixed: Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, “Big O” for $265,297, and finished second in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship for $511,580. Below are the counts of the rest of the roster.

3. Team Very Handsome Horses

Narrowly on the podium is Phillip Sternheimer’s Team Very Handsome Horses, who have 638 points, one more than the fourth-place Team DNegs. Sternheimer’s stable is led by Number 1 on Brazil’s All-Time Money List, Joao Simao, and last year’s $25k Fantasy winner, Bryce Jockey. Robert Mizrachi is third in the roster in terms of points.

Simao has notched 248 for the team, most of which was earned for his latest success in the $50,000 PLO High Roller, where he won his fourth bracelet and $1,368,700, besting $50,000 NLH High Roller champion Santhosh Suvarna heads-up in the process. All but six of Bryce Yockey’s points came in his victory in the $10,000 Dealers Choice Championship, where he banked 126 points for the win, his third bracelet, and $371,664.

Top 10 Players

The surprise player from the Fantasy picks, and the WSOP overall so far, is Naoya Kihara, who bagged two bracelets in three days. He won the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship for $428,923, coming back from one big blind to win it all, before returning to win a second bracelet in the $10,000 Limit Seven Card Stud Championship.

Calvin Anderson won his second bracelet of the summer in the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship and $413,580, adding to his victory in the $10,000 Razz Championship, where he won $357,026. Anderson, in turn, became the first player to win the $10k Razz Championship twice!

Team Rankings in Full

Here is the full leaderboard of the teams. It is tight and still all to play for as there is plenty more action to come from the Vegas Strip.