The $1,500 Mixed NLH / PLO Double Board Bomb Pot was won by Xixiang Luo of China ($270,820).
This is a new format for tournaments at the World Series, and the world in general. They play the usual NLHE and PLO games, but with each change of games (every 8 hands) “bomb pots” with two boards are played. In these pots, there is no preflop betting, each player places an ante, two flops are dealt at once, and then the game proceeds as usual.
Second place went to Daniel Hashem ($180,541), the son of the 2005 world champion.
Daniel started playing poker at age 11, right after Joe won the main event. This was his first real chance at a bracelet. There are only two times in WSOP history where a father and son have won bracelets – Todd and Doyle Brunson, and Owen and Donnacha O'Dea.
The $10,000 Stud Championship was won by James Obst ($260,658).
James started playing online at age 14, specialized in limit games and quickly moved up the stakes. He consistently won for several years; according to rumors, his bankroll exceeded $1 million. In December 2007, PokerStars found out that James was under 18 years old and banned him. Their example was followed by Full Tilt and for some reason the PocketFives forum, where Obst was banned from writing. However, the punishment was quite lenient – James avoided confiscation of funds, and he was told that he would be able to continue playing upon reaching adulthood. Obst turned 18 just 8 months later in August 2008. A couple of weeks after his return, he reached the final table of the Sunday Million.
In 2018, 28-year-old James announced that he was quitting poker to pursue a professional tennis career.
After missing several years, Obst returned to the WSOP last year and cashed 9 times, including 4th place in the $50k Players Championship.
Second place went to Paul Volpe ($173,391), Robert Mizrachi ($173,391) finished 5th, and Yuri Dzivilevsky ($28,945) finished 8th .
The $1,500 PLO-8/Limit Omaha 8/Big O tournament was won by Sweden's Magnus Edengren ($196,970).
“I haven't started playing again. I just come to Vegas every year to have fun, and then I play some tournaments,” said the champion. “I don't really play poker anymore at all. I stopped a long time ago and just play for fun."
4th place went to Phil Hellmuth.
“Somehow in a good mood,” Phil surprised himself after the flight. – normally would be in my room sulking, examining every play I made all day long to finish in 4th place. Now I'm playing $10/$20 with Steve Aoki in Aria.
The $2,000 1,500-entry tournament was won by Jared Kingery ($410,359).
Jared has only been playing poker for a couple of years. His career began in 2022 with a second place finish in the $500 The Housewarming tournament, which received more than 20,000 entries. That tournament marked the World Series' move from the Rio Casino to Horseshoe and Paris. Despite two such major trips to the professionals, Jared is in no hurry to switch.
“I’m definitely not a professional player, I’m actually a longshoreman back in Washington so I don’t play that much,” he waved the reporters away.
Portuguese professional Pedro Neves won the $1,500 Monster Stack ($1,098,220) tournament.
In January 2023, Pedro tied heads-up in the PCA main event with his compatriot Michael Dattani ( Arthur Martirosyan was 3rd ), and this year he has already won GGMillion$ online.
But Pedro highlights this victory among all his successes:
“This is completely different compared to PCA,” noted Pedro. "I dreamed about the bracelet since I started watching poker when I was 14 or 15. It feels great."
The $100,000 Super High Roller was won by Chris Hunichen ($2,838,389).
Throughout the final table, Chris was supported by a large and very loud support group.
Victor Blom and Chance Kornuth reached the second final table in a row in an expensive tournament.
“High stakes, Victor Blom and a chip lead is a dangerous combination,” wrote Phil Galfond before the first final. “For years, I saw Viktor’s intensity and focus increase with the stakes.
I don’t know what’ll happen, but with 12 people standing between him and $2,000,000, I know he’s going to bring it.🍿"
Things didn’t work out for Victor in the end – he ended up in 3rd place.
On the eve of the second final table, Phil refrained from making bold predictions :
– And again…
Blom chipleading a very tough FT in the $100k WSOP High Roller.
Going to be fun to watch 🍿
“👋🏼,” Chance Kornuth waved to Phil in the comments.
– "Hey, man! What’s up?" – Phil pretended that he didn’t understand the hint.
Victor started the televised final table as a confident chip leader with a stack of 92 blinds, Hunichen had 55BB, and the rest had less than 30BB. However, Isildur was again unable to defeat him.
All key pots of the final ended in moves. Even the participants themselves noted that they had never seen anything like this.
In the very first hand, Ausmus shoved in 20 blinds with A5o and beat Kornuth.
In the top 4, Blom opened, Hunichen called, and Ausmus squeezed QJs from the SB.
Chris thought for a few minutes, made a call and saw that he was doing well. Ausmus smiled shyly as he opened his hand, but made a straight on the turn. After this hand, he became a confident chip leader.
A few hands later Jeremy shoved with the SB , Kornuth from the BB with a stack of 11 blinds called with and finished it.
In the top 3, Hunichen and Ausmus put in preflop. The turn came an ace.
“Looks like today is your day,” Big Huni said and extended his hand to Ausmus.
“No, no,” Jeremy tried to hide from him. – "Chris Klodnicki already did this to me a year ago."
But even such precautions did not save the experienced Ausmus.
Soon, Victor Blom wanted to call the 3-bet, but he messed up with the chips and was counted as a raise.
Hunichen immediately announced all-in, Blom had to call.
“PokerGo should pay us extra for this action,” Chris accepted the move with a smile.
A few hands later Victor with opened from the button and called Chris's 3-bet shove from the SB c .
After this bad beat, Isildur remained the shortest and was soon eliminated.
At the very beginning of the heads-up, Ausmus doubled with against . But in the final hand, Hunichen took convincing revenge. The players fielded the flop with top pair against an overpair.
On the river, Hunichen caught a nine and celebrated his victory very emotionally.
Years ago, Jeremy wrote a song in which he confessed his hatred of pocket jacks.
On the first day of the tournament, Daniel Negreanu, in a hand against Artur Martirosyan, fell victim to the “stupidest” rule in history:
–Dumbest ruling I’ve seen in a while and it happened to me
I limp 5k
Artur makes it 13k on the button
Both blinds fold he throws his hand into the muck
They rule the 5k stays but the other 8k he gets back
Makes literally no sense and it’s an open opportunity to angle
Daniel was so impressed that he returned to this episode in the latest video blog
What impressed Artur most about Negreanu's emotional reaction was the fact that the starting stack in this tournament was 600,000, and all the fuss was due to a couple of blinds.
The $10,000 HORSE Championship will crown the champion tonight.
Mike Lea and Maksim Pisarenko entered heads-up with almost equal stacks and paused to play in the 9-game $3,000 tournament.
In 9 games, Maksim advanced to the second day with an average stack, the tournament will resume at 1 pm Vegas time. The fight for the bracelet will continue at 10 am.
There are 12 people left in the Razz Championship. Brandon Shuck-Harris is in the lead, Dmitry Urbanovich has the 4th stack, Denis Strebkov has the 8th stack in a hoodie, which you can purchase in the GipsyTeam store.
Negreanu and Phil Ivey advanced to the final day with microstacks of 5 big blinds each. A similar situation already happened at the beginning of the series in Dealers Choice with a $10k buy-in, and then they took 10th and 11th places.