If learning about poker players winning bracelets is what gets you hot under the collar, boy, do we have a 2024 World Series of Poker recap for you! Four, yes four players returned to their hotel rooms and apartments after Day 23 of the 2024 WSOP at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas having secured live poker’s most sought-after prize.
Five days after the first cards were pitched, Event #38: $1,500 Monster Stack No-Limit Hold’em crowned its worthy champion. Seven players returned for the final day, and Pedro Neves came out on top to clinch the massive $1,098,220 top prize and their first WSOP bracelet.
A second bracelet found a new home, that belonging to Event #48: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed. Eight players sat down for the third and final day’s action, with the top three start-of-the-day leaders holding three-quarters of the chips in play. Christopher Vitch was one of that big-stacked trio, and the player who came out on top. Vitch won $262,734 and his third bracelet.
Bracelet number three of Day 23 went to the one and only Chris Hunichen, the champion of Event #47: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em. One wonders if it is the bracelet of the whopping $2,828,389 cash prize that excited Hunichen the most when they realized they had become a WSOP champion for the first time.
Amazingly, that was not the end of the winners because the one-day Event #51: $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’em awarded its WSOP hardware. A field of 2,110 turned out for this event, but most struggled to stay ahead of the 20-minute blinds. Surviving the storm and leaving everyone in their wake was Peter Park, who received a shiny gold bracelet and $240,724, not bad for a day’s “work.”
Event #45: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship was also meant to conclude, but Mike Leah and Maksim Pisarenko wanted to play in the Nine-Game Mix event, so the tournament was paused until June 21 at 10:00 a.m.
Mark Seif Among the Seniors Championship After Day 2
Only 208 players remain in Event #46: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship, and only two players have more chips than Mark Seif in their overnight bag.
Seif is a veteran of the game and a two-time WSOP champion, having won a pair of bracelets back in 2005. He came close to adding to his collection last year in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, but fell in sixth. Although there is plenty of play remaining in this event, Seif will fancy his chances of ending his bracelet drought in a couple of days.
Canada’s Nathan Henry is the overnight chip leader, with Marc Wolpert finishing Day 2 second on the leaderboard.
Recent bracelet winner Magnus Edengren is lurking just outside the top ten, while fellow champions Julio Belluscio, Farzad Bonyadi, and Luis Velador each have more than 1.1 million chips.
Towards the wrong end of the leaderboard is a name boxing fans will be familiar with. British boxer Audley Harrison, an Olympic gold medal winner, is looking to add a gold collection to his trophy cabinet.
Play resumes on Day 3 on June 21 at 11:00 a.m. local time, with the plan to play another ten levels.
Event #46: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nathan Henry | Canada | 2,900,000 | 116 |
| 2 | Marc Wolpert | United States | 2,350,000 | 94 |
| 3 | Mark Seif | United States | 2,300,000 | 92 |
| 4 | Danny Panagatos | United States | 2,205,000 | 88 |
| 5 | Thomas Ferguson | United States | 2,185,000 | 87 |
| 6 | Mikey Wangh | United States | 2,130,000 | 85 |
| 7 | Sean Downs | United States | 2,015,000 | 81 |
| 8 | Federico Sturzenegger | United States | 1,870,000 | 75 |
| 9 | Rafael Benami | Israel | 1,825,000 | 73 |
| 10 | Ken Harbaugh | United States | 1,825,000 | 73 |
Ben Hoy is the Player to Catch in the $3K NLHE Freezeout With 13 Remaining
Ben Hoy is guaranteed to take home his largest-ever poker tournament score regardless of where he finishes in Event #49: $3,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em, having locked in $27,418. However, he has his sights set firmly on the $523,195 top prize and this tournament’s bracelet.
Hoy returns to the action with the title of chip leader and has every chance of becoming a WSOP champion. Joseph Carden is only a handful of big blinds behind the leader, and there is little separating the rest of the finalists. Indeed, the difference between Erlend Melson in third and Maxx Coleman in seventh is a mere eight big blinds.
Israel’s Uri Reichenstein, David Stamm, and Day 1 chip leader Ivan Ruban are among the final-day returnees.
Return to PokerNews from 12:00 p.m. local time on June 21 to see if Hoy or someone else gets the job done in this event.
Event #49: $3,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ben Hoy | United States | 7,300,000 | 61 |
| 2 | Joseph Carden | United States | 6,300,000 | 53 |
| 3 | Erlend Melson | Norway | 4,980,000 | 42 |
| 4 | Nikolay Yosifov | Bulgaria | 4,635,000 | 39 |
| 5 | Uri Reichenstein | Israel | 4,480,000 | 37 |
| 6 | David Stamm | United States | 4,300,000 | 36 |
| 7 | Maxx Coleman | United States | 4,105,000 | 34 |
| 8 | Ivan Ruban | Russia | 3,445,000 | 29 |
| 9 | Clemen Deng | United States | 3,260,000 | 27 |
| 10 | John Morgan Petro | United States | 2,560,000 | 21 |
Razz Championship Field Cut to 12; Brandon Shack-Harris in Pole Position
The final 12 in Event #50: $10,000 Razz Championship is ridiculously stacked with the surviving players having 30 bracelets between them. Seven are $25K Fantasy Draft picks, while two are members of the Poker Hall of Fame!
Brandon Shack-Harris is a phenomenal player himself, and he leads this band of superstars into battle for the third and final day. Shack-Harris and George Alexander are the only two players with more than a million chips.
Ren Lin, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Hal Rotholz, Robert Campbell, John Racener, and Brian Yoon occupy places in the overnight chip counts’ top ten. As does a certain Phil Ivey, who won his 11th bracelet earlier this week. However, Ivey is one of five players with only single digits of big bets in their stack, the others being Denis Strebkov, the aforementioned Yoon, six-time WSOP champion Daniel Negreanu, and short-stack Jared Bleznick.
These 12 poker Goliaths will return at 1:00 p.m. local time on June 21. Return to our coverage then to discover which of them comes out on top.
: Event #50: $10,000 Razz Championship Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Bets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brandon Shack-Harris | United States | 1,554,000 | 39 |
| 2 | George Alexander | United States | 1,178,000 | 29 |
| 3 | Ren Lin | United States | 945,000 | 24 |
| 4 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | Poland | 815,000 | 20 |
| 5 | Hal Rotholz | United States | 705,000 | 18 |
| 6 | Robert Campbell (AU) | Australia | 457,000 | 11 |
| 7 | John Racener | United States | 381,000 | 10 |
| 8 | Denis Strebkov | Russia | 337,000 | 8 |
| 9 | Phil Ivey | United States | 215,000 | 5 |
| 10 | Brian Yoon | United States | 181,000 | 5 |
Bookmark this page! All you need to know about the 2024 WSOP is here.
Short-Handed Specialists Turn Out in Force for the $5K NLHE 6-Max
A tournament costing $5,000 to enter that is played on six-handed tables, and boasts deep stacks and a fantastic structure was always going to draw poker’s greats out of the woodwork. Event #52: $5,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em did exactly that.
Late registration remains open until the end of the first level on Day 2, so a field of over 800 is expected once the cashier’s stop taking payments. Whoever enters late will have their work cut out to catch Frenchman Julien Sitbon at the top of the chip counts because the bracelet winner bagged and tagged 520,500 chips at the day’s end, the equivalent of 208 big blinds!
Krasimir Yankov also enjoyed himself at the tables on the opening day’s play, finishing with 500,000 chips exactly, or 200 big blinds at the restart.
There were 231 players who made it through Day 1 in various states. Joseph Cheong, Damian Salas, Joao Vieira, and Bin Weng see their names in the top 20 chip counts.
Players like Brek Schutten, Upeshka De Silva, Shannon Shorr, Joe McKeehen, Faraz Jaka, Sergio Aido, Jeremy Ausmus, and Michael Gathy are further down the pecking order but by no means out of contention.
The Day 1 survivors and Day 2 late entrants will flock to their seats from 12:00 p.m. local time on June 21 to play another ten 60-minute levels.
Event #52: $5,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julien Sitbon | France | 520,500 | 208 |
| 2 | Krasimir Yankov | Bulgaria | 500,000 | 200 |
| 3 | Filipp Khavin | United States | 443,500 | 177 |
| 4 | Maksym Sheingart | Israel | 421,000 | 168 |
| 5 | Ihar Soika | Belarus | 393,500 | 157 |
| 6 | Joseph Roh | United States | 392,000 | 157 |
| 7 | Yuliyan Kolev | Bulgaria | 387,500 | 155 |
| 8 | Boris Berthomet | France | 377,500 | 151 |
| 9 | Matthew Hunt | United Kingdom | 372,500 | 149 |
| 10 | Joseph Cheong | United States | 369,500 | 148 |
Day 1 of the Nine-Game Mix Ends With Richard Ashby Leading
Fresh from winning his second bracelet in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event last week, Richard Ashby finds himself leading a crop of elite-level poker talent after Day 1 of Event #53: $3,000 Nine-Game Mix. Of the 379 players who bought in, only 139 progressed to Day 2, and Ashby has more chips than all the other survivors.
Ashby is experienced enough to know that being the chip leader on Day 1 does not guarantee success, especially when some of the world’s best players are hot on his heels. Yuri Dzivielevski, Bryan Micon, Koray Aldemir, and Brian Rast also punched their Day 2 tickets, and they are just some of the players occupying top ten places right now.
Other mixed-game specialists, including Adam Friedman, Robert Mizrachi, recent three-time winner Christopher Vitch, and Ryan Leng are among the Day 1 survivors. Ashby and Co. must also contend with Calvin Anderson, Phillip Hui, Adam Owen, Nick Guagenti, and the 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, among others.
Day 2 shuffles up and deals at 1:00 p.m. local time on June 21 to play ten hour-long levels.
Event #53: $3,000 Nine-Game Mix Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Richard Ashby | United Kingdom | 465,000 |
| 2 | Antonio Seremet | Australia | 433,500 |
| 3 | Kuenwai Lo | China | 278,500 |
| 4 | Yuri Dzivielevski | Brazil | 251,000 |
| 5 | Bryan Micon | Antigua & Barbuda | 230,000 |
| 6 | Travis Erdman | United States | 210,000 |
| 7 | Koray Aldemir | Austria | 200,000 |
| 8 | Ashish Gupta | Australia | 196,000 |
| 9 | Patrick Moulder | United States | 195,500 |
| 10 | Brian Rast | United States | 195,000 |
What to Expect on Day 24 of the 2024 WSOP
After the excitement of five bracelets being awarded today, you may be pleased to learn Day 24 will be a little quieter on that front, but there will still be three new champions!
Event 45: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship will finally end after its unscheduled Day 5 shuffles up and deals at 10:00 a.m. local time.
Those who fired a bullet in Event #49: $3,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em will be reduced to a single champion, with Event #50: $10,000 Razz Championship also scheduled to play down to a winner.
While those two tournaments are handing out poker jewelry, Event #46: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship will be handing out payout slips. Event #52: $5,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em and Event #53: $3,000 Nine Game Mix should also progress to the money place, too.
A trio of exciting events shuffle up and deal for the first time on June 21, starting with Event #54: $1,500 Millionaire Maker, a tournament that does exactly what it says on the tin: at least one player will win at least a million dollars. This event has three flights, and PokerNews‘ traditional coverage starts in earnest on Day 2. Put your name in the thick of the action by using MyStack and tweeting about your progress during the opening three flights.
Event #55: $250,000 Super High Roller is the biggest buy-in tournament on this year’s schedule. Last year saw 69 entries and a top prize of $5,293,556. That gargantuan sum went to Chris Brewer who will be looking to defend his title.
Expect Triple Draw Lowball lovers from far and wide to descend on the casino when Event #56: $2,500 Limit Mixed Triple Draw (2-7, A-5, Badugi) kicks off at 2:00 p.m. Nick Pupillo bagged this event’s title in 2023, earning $181,978 and his first gold bracelet.
