The 2024 WSOP PLO-8 tournament with a $1,500 buy-in attracted 1,277 participants. Caleb Furth won with $265,361. Before this tournament, he had $400k in prize money in his entire career.
The second was a native of China, Gan Jiang. The heads-up opponents are old acquaintances.
“We play cash games together all the time,” said the winner. “When there were two tables left, Jiyan came up to me and warned: “You will win, and I will be second.” Moreover, he had a small stack then.
During this tournament, the traditional World Series scandal with marked cards occurred.
“10 hands into sitting down at PLO8 $1500” wrote Mike Holtz, who ultimately finished in 14th place.
"EVERY A234 in both decks were marked, a woman who plays mixed grabbed both decks and was able to identify every A-4 from face down cards.
The floor replaced the deck and told us they were not going to investigate?!?!"
“After you mentioned this to me both decks at our table had to get replaced with a lot of marked low cards,” confirmed another tournament winner, Tyler Brown.
“We were playing with a deck that had several markings and was told “yea almost every card is marked at this point” and was laughed off” complained another tournament participant.
After the uproar on social networks, the organizers announced that they would still conduct an investigation and released an official statement:
– "Integrity of the game is of the utmost importance to the WSOP, and we take these and any similar allegations seriously. We did, in fact, open an investigation into the PLO8 event, and while we do not comment publicly on security protocols to keep them effective, we do appreciate players continuing to inform tournament staff of any irregularities they observe."
A high-stakes tournament for the same type of poker – PLO-8 for $10k – was won by Sean Troha ($536,713).
Sean started the final day with the shortest stack (11BB) out of 13 participants; he beat the aforementioned Tyler Brown heads-up. The third and fourth places were taken by popular Brazilian players Joao Simao and Yuri Dzivilevsky. In the money, Victor Bloom (14th place) and Phil Ivey (23rd) were eliminated.
Sean Troha has consistently won an Omaha bracelet in the last three World Series. In 2022, he won the prestigious $10k PLO championship, and in 2023, he became first in the $1,500 PLO tournament.
Sean doesn’t mind taking his fourth bracelet already in this series; he plans to play all Omaha tournaments.
On the starting day of this tournament, a strange situation happened to Daniel Negreanu, which he described in a blog.
"This guy over here, he tells me, "Remember when I saw you when I saw you in Kentucky at the Continental Inn, playing in a hockey jersey?"
First of all, I've never been to Kentucky. Second of all, I would have never in my life worn a hockey jersey to play pool. He's convinced! He's 100% convinced and he wants to bet me a million dollars that he saw me playing."
“I'm going to tell you something you're really not going to like," said the overall-wearing player.
"Did we bang or something?"
To the friendly laughter of the table, Daniel turned off the camera, but during the break, he told new details:
"I believe that he believes it," GGPoker's ambassador commented away from the tables.
In the comments on YouTube, several people recalled their absolutely true stories of meeting Negreanu:
– Daniel, I went to buy you a pint 17 years ago in Solihull, England. You ended up paying in the end and then we had a good old chat about snooker. Happy memory.
– Remember back in '92, we were hanging out at Skinners playing Risk? We sat around on his kitchen watching the aurora borealis and eating steamed hams.
– I remember meeting Daniel and Doyle Brunson at a Nas concert in New York back in '93 and them introducing me to poker
In the same video, viewers were amused by the fact that Daniel was at the same table with Barak Wisbrod in a $1,500 shootout tournament, but had no idea who he was.
Daniel sat with one of the strongest cash players in the world, not knowing who it was. As he introduced everyone, he pointed at the unknown opponent and said, "Another good player that knows the sizes already... what's your name?"
It was Barak Wisbrod, sitting beside Texas Mike, who you may have seen lose millions at the Hustler Casino Million Dollar Game 2.
Later on, Barak Wisbrod knocked Daniel out of the tournament.
“Sorry,” he said even before the flop opened.
Wisbrod eventually won his first table, but could not get through the second. The winner of his semi-final table was Jeremy Ausmus. On the final day, Jeremy made the final table and finished in 4th place.
The winner was Daniel Sepiol ($305,849). Last December, he won a record-breaking WPT tournament at the Wynn Casino for a first-place prize of $5,282,954.
In heads-up play for the bracelet, Daniel was left with a stack of 7 blinds against 120. But he managed to win several all-ins in a row and even out the stacks. In the final hand, his opponent Robert Natividad moved away a little.
Preflop they calmly checked, and on the flop they decided to do some action. Natividad with bet, Sepiol with raised, then was 3-bet and he 4-bet in response. Natividad paused and shoved, but received a quick call from top pair. The turn and river didn't change anything.
The $1,500 PLO tournament was won by Dylan Weissman ($294,311).
Players made 1,469 entries. Despite such a number of participants, 3-max turned out to be quite stellar. Dylan was opposed by a veteran of the offline movement, Steve Zolotov, and a well-known gambler who took the path of correction, Chino Rome.
The three-player game lasted more than 5 hours with a constant change of leadership. The first to break down was Steve Zolotov, who was dealt a straight to straight ahead of Weisman. The heads-up lasted only a couple of hands, Chino shoved with two pair, Dylan called with the nut flush draw and backdoors, and became the champion.
Weisman revealed the secret of his success on Twitter.
Special thanks to my good friend @shaundeeb for the veteran advice.
— Dylan Weisman (@Dweisman13) June 7, 2024
Wouldn’t be here without you <3 pic.twitter.com/m1odfRwKkP
The Limit Hold'em tournament with a $10,000 buy-in predictably ended with a showdown between the mix game specialists.
John Racener ($308,930) became the champion, beating Chad Eveslage ($205,954) heads-up, and Marco Johnson ($142,245) was eliminated in third.
In 2010, Racener lost heads-up to Jonathan Duhamel in the WSOP Main Event, and in subsequent years he gradually retrained as a specialist in limit games. He won his first bracelet in 2017 in the $10,000 Dealers Choice tournament.
14 players made it to the final day of the tournament, Racener with 5 BBs was the shortest. At the very beginning of the day, he lost another half of his stack and remained at the very bottom of the chip count until the top 7. But at the most important stage of showdown, he always ended up being superior to his opponents, and this is usually a good recipe for winning a tournament.
The 6-max tournament with a $25,000 buy-in attracted 277 entries.
Artur Martirosyan, who started the second day with the third stack, was eliminated already at the first level.
In a 4-bet pot on the board Artur put three barrels in with , chip leader Brandon Wilson called all bets with . Artur explained his game in detail in a telegram, hot on the heels:
– On the turn I decided to bluff for my stack. I thought that he had too many TT, 99, JJ and QQ that I could knock out. I thought that he would always call the turn and always fold the river. He bet a third on the turn and pushed the river. I hit T9 suit, just a straight. Well, of course, no luck. A third of the field is in the game, I didn’t expect that the guy was ready to cut with big stacks and bring suits under 4-bet T9. According to ICM, I think most likely they won't start. Or a very close solution. For some reason I put it on stronger hands, which in general I was going to knock out and was sure that I would knock them out. Of course it hurts, but what can you do? This is the reality of poker. You must be ready to play for your stack in any situation.
Wilson eventually reached the final table and finished in 5th place. The winner was Brek Schutten ($1,405,641).
In 2022, Schutten played heads-up for a bracelet in a $50,000 tournament but lost to the controversial Jake Schindler.
“I constantly remembered that match,” he admitted to reporters after the victory. – There were a lot of regrets, I wanted to replay some hands. You never know if you'll ever make the final table of a high roller tournament again, let alone heads-up or win. I cared more about winning a bracelet than page jumps and ICM. Perhaps at some moments, this played into my hands. I would put Lego pieces in the center if I felt my hand was better.
Until recently, Schutten's main activity was working as an intensive care unit nurse.
– Now I’m more focused on poker, but from time to time I go on shifts at the hospital.
The 2-7 triple draw tournament was won by Aaron Cummings ($146,516).
4th place in the tournament was taken by one of the most qualified and experienced dealers in the World Series, Heather Alcorn. In 2019, she was recognized as Dealer of the Year.
The $300 buy-in Gladiators of Poker tournament features the cheapest bracelet available.
Over the 4 starting days, participants made 20,647 entries, the champion will receive $400,000. 754 people returned last night to continue the fight on the second day. GipsyTeam forum member Kachalovskyi had the top 100 stack. He has only been in America for a couple of weeks, but he has already managed to share the bad beat jackpot in one of his first cash games.
Today we reached the top 14, there are no famous players left. Kachalovskyi finished his performance during the day, but his exact rank is unknown. The organizers are keeping the lists of eliminated players secret for now.
