To start things off, we're going to begin today with an unconventional Flip & Go NLH tournament with a buy-in of $1,000, 1,088 entries and a prize pool of $957,440. The winner will be rewarded with $155,446.
136 players battled it out for that amount on the second and final day, and all were already ITM. Within four hours of play, more than half of the players had busted out. It didn't take long to get to know the 8 finalists, with Mike Leah sitting as the massive chipleader with half of all the chips in play. However, even that wasn't enough for him to win and he had to settle for third place.
Kannapong Thanarattrakul and Chance Kornuth sat down for the final heads-up, and their combined play lasted just one hand, after which Chance Kornuth emerged victorious, claiming his fourth bracelet.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chance Kornuth | United States | $155,446 |
| 2 | Kannapong Thanarattrakul | Thailand | $103,633 |
| 3 | Mike Leah | Canada | $74,062 |
| 4 | Sean Whelan | United States | $53,662 |
| 5 | Xiaoyao Ma | United States | $39,428 |
| 6 | Filipp Khavin | United States | $29,382 |
| 7 | Ian Hamilton | United Kingdom | $22,213 |
| 8 | John Armbrust | United States | $17,039 |
Josh Arieh in contention for seventh bracelet
Josh Arieh tried to win his seventh bracelet of the night in the $1,500 buy-in, 494-entry, $659,490 prizepool Eight Game Mixed (6-Handed).
A $131,061 prize awaited the winner here, and the top 7 players battled it out on the final day. Among them were such names as John Racener, John Cernuto and Josh Arieh. And it was Josh Arieh who made it to the final heads-up where he fought for his seventh bracelet. However, he was unable to get it and had to settle for the $85,667 second place prize. The winner was Garth Yettick, for whom this is the first WSOP bracelet.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garth Yettick | United States | $131,061 |
| 2 | Josh Arieh | United States | $85,667 |
| 3 | John "Miami" Cernuto | United States | $57,249 |
| 4 | John Racener | United States | $39,135 |
| 5 | Maxx Coleman | United States | $27,379 |
| 6 | Marco Johnson | United States | $19,614 |
| 7 | Xiaochuan Zhang | China | $14,397 |
Main Event before the bubble burst
The record-breaking WSOP Main Event had its third day of play yesterday, with all of the 2ABC and 2D advancers in action. Out of a record 10,112 players, 3,617 made it through to Day 3.
After five levels of Day 3, 1,524 players had bagged their chips. However, 1,517 players may make it to the ITM, so we will see the bubble burst on Day 4, after which everyone will already have at least $15,000 in their pockets.
However, there is a reward of $10 million waiting for the winner, so nobody will be satisfied with the mincash. Among those still in the running are names such as Ren Lin, Nacho Barbero, Adrian Mateos, Tony Dunst, Kristen Foxen, Parker Talbot, Santhosh Suvarna, Jonathan Little, Dietrich Fast, Stanislav Zegal, Koray Aldemir, Daniel Negreanu, Espen Jorstad, Erik Seidel and Phil Ivey.
The overall chipleader here is currently Spanish player Francisco Perez Moreno with a stack of up to 2,187,000. Owning a stack worth more than 2 million after the third day of the Main Event is very rare, and Francisco is well on his way to a great result.
Last year a Main Event dealer, today a Main Event player
Every poker tournament comes down to the last hand, and that's exactly what poker dealer Tyler Mitchell dealt during last year's WSOP Main Event final table to crown Daniel Weinman champion.
Tyler has been saving his money over the last 8 months so that he could play this year's WSOP Main Event, not deal, but play straight. Not only did Tyler jump into the tournament, but he also managed to fight his way into Day 3 in the stiff competition. However, he doesn't consider himself a poker player but rather a poker fan from the Moneymaker era. Playing the WSOP Main Event has been a dream of his and now he has achieved it.
Source - wsop, youtube, pokernews, poker.org
