Gladiators of Poker with a huge field

The cheapest tournament of the entire WSOP is the $300 buy-in Gladiators of Poker NLH, which this year brought in 20,647 entries, making it the biggest tournament of the year. The prizepool was worth $5,079,162, leaving $401,210 waiting for the winner.

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14 players advanced to the final day and the winner was Stephen Winters, for whom this is the first bracelet and the biggest lifetime tournament prize.

Controversial Hand

We'll stick with this tournament for a while. There was a controversial hand on Day 2 involving the infamous Men "The Master" Nguyen. Men has 7 WSOP bracelets and over $11 million in winnings, but in addition to his successes, he has a history of mistreating dealers, drinking at the table, and was also allegedly involved in cheating. However, he denies this to this day.

There were 28 players left and the blinds were at 500K/1M/1M. Brian Smith put his entire stack of 4,525,000 into play, Steve Foutty raised to 10M, and Men Nguyen called all in for 25,250,000. Foutty called that all-in and the board came down, after which Brian Smith was the hand winner, making it a triple up.

After this hand, play was halted due to a three-table redraw. However, as Smith was collecting his chips, he noticed that his stack was 4 million short. He firmly believed that after winning, his stack should have been around 15 million, but he only had 11 million. He immediately called the floorman, who went to check the cameras. Upon his return, he instructed the players to collect their chips and proceeded to redraw.

Smith still insisted, however, and after a few minutes, the tournament stuff finally decided that Nguyen and Foutty had to hand over one million each to Smith. Smith, however, disagreed with that decision, and kept saying that it still wouldn't be the right amount for him to have anyway. Foutty, meanwhile, still maintained that he was convinced that he had paid the correct amount.

Trying to get this out there. A #poker #wsop 27 left in Gladiator. I'm UTG with 4.525 @ 1m BB. I ship with J5ss.!The button raises to 10m, Men Nguyen raises all in from bb after SB folds. The button calls. They both have AK and I end up winning the main pot with pair of 5s.

- Smitty (@MithPoker) June 11, 2024

The tournament staff promised Smith that they would take another look at the camera footage and play resumed. Smith busted out moments later in 26th place for $16,770, the staff did not address the situation further and the hand remained unresolved.

Evidence videos on social media?

There are 3 videos on Twitter (x) charting this hand. One of the videos shows Nguyen withdrawing his chips while Smith celebrated his win, but it is still unclear how the pot was reduced by 4 million. It looks like the dealer probably didn't withdraw 4 million from Nguyen's stack into the side pot. The Pokernews website reached out to Foutty for comment, who said: "I'm not accusing Men of anything. But he has a history of this sort of thing. I know how much I put in. I was drinking and having a good time, but I know what I put in." Where the truth lies we'll probably never know, but the WSOP staff's approach to the issue certainly doesn't paint a good picture of the series, and points to yet another of the series' many problems.

3 table re draw in the Wsop gladiators
And some crazy stuff happened.
Guy went all in and was shorted 4m in chips. The dealer never pulled seat 4 (Men Nguyen) chips in for the side pot.
Player at risk hit his five on the river, i n the second video during celebration... pic.twitter.com/aQizXqdFMA

- Tay (@TiltedTay) June 11, 2024

Nick Schulman wins fifth bracelet

The $25,000 buy-in NLH High Roller produced 318 entries and a prizepool of $7,473,000, with $1,667,842 awaiting the winner. Names like Shaun Deeb, Ben Heath and Nick Schulman battled it out for that amount at the final table. Shaun Deeb had to settle for $153,302 for 8th place, Ben Heath took fifth place with $376,762 and Nick Schulman was the winner, taking home the winner's prize and his fifth WSOP bracelet to boot.

Record holder in ITMs, but still without a bracelet

Moving on to tournament number 25, which was a $3,000 6-Handed Limit Hold'em tournament with 248 entries and a prizepool of $662,160. In this tournament, however, we are now interested not in the winner, but in the player who finished in fifth place. That is Roland Israelashvili, who took home $33,387. Roland has already recorded 501 ITM finishes during the WSOP since 2005, when he played his first WSOP tournament. He has cashes in excess of $4.5 million and still hasn't won a single gold bracelet.

Roland has currently advanced to Day 2 of the $600 Mixed: No-Limit Hold'em; Pot-Limit Omaha DeepStack (8-Handed) with 3,356 entries and a prizepool of $1,709,010, where $207,064 awaits the winner. It is already so clear that he will win his 502nd ITM, whether he will finally win his first bracelet, we will have to wait and see.
 

Source - pokernews, wsop, twitter (x)