The $25,000 High Roller was won by Nick Schulman.
At the start of the final table, Nick survived a huge all-in with queens against Noel Rodriguez. After this hand, he had 80 blinds, while none of his pursuers had even 30.
After this accident, Rodriguez had two blinds left, but he immediately doubled with J9s against Shulman. They ended up meeting heads-up.
“After winning a coinflip at the very beginning, I found myself in a uniquely advantageous situation,” Nick said after the victory. – Could do anything; the opponents could only watch. Even if they understood that I was frankly playing the fool, they could not do anything about it.
This is Nick's fifth bracelet, but his first in NLHE:
– No-limit hold'em has always been my favorite game, it started my love for poker. Then I switched to mix games for a long time, but recently I became interested in hold’em again, and the reward was not long in coming.
Shulman eliminated five out of seven opponents from the final table and received $1,667,842.
One of his victims was top online cash reg Roberto “DavyJones922” Perec, who received $273,414 for 6th place.
At the end of Day 2, Phil Ivey was eliminated in 22nd place . He put himself in for the chip leader stack with against Yinghui Li, but the flop came a king. The next morning, Phil will enter the late-registration 2-7 three-draw tournament and unwind with 10 big bets.
The $300 Gladiators of Poker tournament attracted 20,647 entries. Stephen Winters became the champion. This is only his seventh career cashing. Before that, he had never won more than $6,000 in tournaments, but this time he immediately received $401,210.
“I guess this is for the little guys,” said Stephen after the victory. – "I just play a few small tournaments each year, so it was exciting just to be relevant for once.
He also added, “It was fun to have my kids kind of railing me from home. Like, every time I would report on how I was doing, they'd be like, ‘Oh, daddy, try to get a thousand, try to get in top 900, and then they kept setting bars and bars and bars, and it's just the whole thing (is) surreal to be at this point.
19th place went to the owner of seven bracelets and a very dubious reputation, Men “The Master” Nguyen. This time he again found himself at the center of a scandal.
With 28 players left in the game, Brian Smith shoved the short stack for 4,525,000s , Steve Fotti raised 10 million on the button with , Nguyen on the BB declared all-in for 25.2 million with .
– How much is it? – Foutty clarified.
“I don't care,” Nguyen replied.
Foutty called. The river came a five and Smith tripled. He was already pretty tipsy, and after this success, he asked for a waiter at the table and went to celebrate tripling with friends. Counting chips interested wasn't a priority.
At the same time, someone busted at the next table, and the participants were moved to three tables. Only after collecting chips for the next hand did Smitty discover that he had been deprived of a significant part of his stack.
Smitty gave his account on Twitter:
I go to the rail and have some fun. The dealer pushes 10.525m my way. Now at minimum 4.525 *3 is 13.575 plus the ante and SB of 1m and 500k respectively is 15.075m. WSOP rules we will continue final 3 table redraw and play while they review footage. 🤔
Then they pause clock for 15 mins and the senior director gives me 2m. Still short 3m. How is it that in 2024, we can’t get this stuff right with all the tech at our fingertips. The dealer acknowledged there was an error and we are dealing with a repeat offender in Men…
Was hard for me to compose myself and get my head on straight following the situation. Other players and spectators acknowledged how poorly this was handled. I’d love for someone with a little clout to comment on the matter. I’m a cash player, is this common for tourneys?
While the floras were studying the cameras to find the missing 3 million, Smith managed to fly out in 26th place.
From the amateur video posted on Twitter, it is difficult to understand what happened to the chips owed to him. It is clear that Nguyen is taking part of the stack for himself, but it is unclear exactly how much. Some of the chips belonged to him by right, since he had a large stack. However, in this case, reputation runs far ahead of the person.
“He should be barred from every casino in America.” Scott Seaver is sure.
“Men Nguyen is the most blatant cheater in poker and he receives no repercussions.,” wrote Jay Farber, “He tried this with me in a pot at the Venetian back in the day and then asked me to step outside when I called him out. Naturally he changed his tune when I said okay and got up."
Another strange episode involving Nguyen occurred a few days before this scandal.
2,317 people played in the $1,500 freezeout. But Nguyen may have managed to do it at least twice. Nicholas Palma witnessed the strange events :
Men the master just busted at my freezeout table but I see him at another table now ???
The winner of this tournament was Evan Benton ($412,484), a reckless but lucky man.
“I did not expect to win,” he admitted honestly. – "I did not expect to win. These guys were much better tournament players than I was. I just ran good when the time came and felt like I played pretty well throughout the day."
"I used to play back then when I was like 12 years old, but I didn’t know anything. About a year and a few months ago, I just played with some friends and I was like, ‘man, this is kind of fun,’ and I just ran with it. I'm obsessed with it now. I play every day and study"
The $1,500 Big O tournament was won by Michael Christ ($306,884).
There were 1,555 entries, with Sammy Farha coming in 11th place.
This is the champion's first profile entry on the Hendon Mob.
“Absolutely exhausting,” Michael complained to reporters. "I try to keep my poker sessions between six to eight hours, so I'm literally pooped right now.
"It's super surreal, that excitement hasn't really hit me yet. But never in a million years did I think it would be me as the last one standing."
The Big O Championship started last night, and Michael, who respects family values, was not seen in it.
The 2-7 three-trade championship was won by Phil Ivey ($347,440).
“I love poker and I still want to win bracelets,” Phil said immediately after his victory. “But family and other things are more important to me now.”
This is just as Daniel Negreanu predicted before the WSOP began, along with other things.
This is Phil's first bracelet in 10 years and the first in a tournament over $5k. This year, he's endorsing the WPT, who's online poker room we've already reviewed.
In 3-max against Jason Mercier and Danny Wong, Phil was left with a 120,000 stack at 80,000/160,000.
– How much do you have, Phil? – Jason asked.
– Are you sure you want to know? – Phil asked sternly.
Jason was a little embarrassed at first, but then he saw Phil's smile and started laughing too.
In this hand, Phil made a perfect nine and tripled. After which, they began to deal cards that he could not lose with, even if he wanted to.
Phil hit the nuts several times in key pots in both 3-max and heads-up situations.
He completed the tournament by also collecting a wheel.
In an interview after the victory, PokerGo journalist Drea Rene asked Ivey about the most important thing.
– "Phil, you're looking very stylish these days. Are the bucket hats here to stay?"
– "These lights bother me, so I try to stay low and stay out of the lights because they kind of tire me down."
Phil's victory made a big impression on the usually stingy Mike McDonald:
(I do think bracelets are stupid and Hellmuth is an embarrassment- but also know you've gotta pick your battles and Ivey winning is the most wholesome poker content can get)
Fun fact: first few years of my career I'd bring sunglasses to the table. Pocket them 98.5% of sessions, and wear them when seated with Ivey.
Immediately after his victory, Phil went to play the $10,000 Big O tournament.
The $3,000 6-Max was won by Nicholas Seward ($516,135).
He beat Ukrainian Konstantin “Kostya_Jock” Golsky heads-up.
In the top 5, Konstantin lost with K9s against Q9s and was left with one blind in the BB, but tripled in the mandatory all-in. After that, Golsky won several more showdowns and reached heads-up, where he even managed to be the chip leader. But the tournament ended with a bad beat for him.
The turn came with a queen and the river with a king.