After a year, it's that time again when the gates of the tournament of all tournaments - the spectacular WSOP Main Event - have opened. The full name of the $10,000 World Championship is probably the dream of every poker player in the world, but the long two-week journey to get to know this year's champion started successfully last night. Along with it, of course, a marathon of live streams, but you can also remember Day 1A here:
Although we won't know the champion until July 17, we will know the final numbers already after playing the four opening days and the following two days 2, at the beginning of which players can still use the late reg for a still solid 75bb. Early on, many are declaring this year to be the biggest WSOP Main Event of all time, as evidenced by record breaking fields in other events and a record breaking number of qualifiers.
Last year's Main Event became the second largest in history thanks to 8,664 entries, which is certainly remembered by the champion Espen Jorstad, who took home exactly 10 million dollars in addition to the most valuable bracelet. The record from 2006, when Jamie Gold became the champion, who this year opened the Main Event with the traditional "Shuffle-up and Deal!", was 8,772 entries, but many assume that this year it will be possible to cross the 9,000 entries mark.
The opening 1A during the past hours offered the first chance for players to jump into the game and enjoy five two-hour levels. A number of big names appeared in the game, including four former champions (Joe Cada, Martin Jacobson, Damian Salas, Jamie Gold). In total, this flight produced 1,080 entries, of which 721 advanced by the end of the day. They are led by the unknown Israeli player Yehuda Dayan (389,900), who is followed by Doug Polk (281,000) in fourth place.
The opening day also brought a lot of micro-stories, among which the fate of an Israeli player named Idan The One stands out. Everyone who jumps into this tournament hopes for the best possible result, but getting knocked out on the first day is definitely a huge disappointment. According to the live report, Idan ran into a big hand with KK against AA, where he lost almost half of the stack, but in the next hand the situation was repeated again - after a 5-bet preflop shove, he again looked at pocket aces with KK in the showdown! His first Main Event got a really bitter aftertaste, which sent him out of the tournament hall with tears in his eyes.
Outside the closely watched Main Event, another beautiful success of Chris Brewer was born, who won the most expensive tournament of the entire WSOP this year. Although many people talked about the quarter-million dollar Super High Roller because of the Kabrhel case, those who didn't forget Chris Brewer's win must have noticed that yesterday he was immediately on his way to the second bracelet. He won it in the $10,000 NL 2-7 Single Draw Lowball Championship, where he beat 153 opponents and took home $367,599.
The event with number #55, which was the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, also trended significantly over the past few days. In it, Mike Matusow made it to the final heads-up among 566 players, but he had not enough to beat the Polish representative Marcin Horecki. He told pokernews.com that he has been "retired" as a poker professional for 5 years and came to play mainly for fun. For Poland, it is already the second WSOP bracelet in total – the first was achieved online by Dominik Panko in 2021.
Source: WSOP, PokerNews, PokerStrategy, CardPlayer
