Daniel Negreanu's draft set several historic records this year. with 24 teams registered. In 2023, there were 20 teams, and ten years ago, a draft was considered successful if it had more than 10 participants.
PokerGo journalists paid 141 points for Jeremy Ausmus (70% of the total pot). Donny has taken the most expensive player for the third year in a row. In 2023, he and his colleagues paid 112 points for Shaun Deeb and won the draft. And a year ago, they gave 132 points for Daniel Negreanu, but took a place in the middle of the table.
Last year, Ausmus was the most successful player in the draft, bringing 388 points to Mike Nouri's team. However, Nouri had no chance of winning anyway, as his other seven players scored 344 points between them.
In our freeroll, Jeremy was the least popular pick among the "slaughterers", being picked by only 10 teams out of 1243.
The second most expensive was another hero of last year's World Series, Scott Seiver. Then he was very upset that he was valued at only 37 points. In the end, Scott, in spite of everyone, scored 334 points and won three bracelets. This time, Martin Zamani appreciated the recognized all-rounder and paid 125 points for him. Martin ironically called his team Frog Poison.
In the FunFarm x GipsyTеam freeroll, 32 participants believed in Scott Seiver.
Daniel Negreanu this time traded for himself to the end and paid 108 points. The last time Daniel took himself was in 2016, when there were only 8 teams in the draft, then he took only 4th place. In our fantasy Negreanu was chosen by 72 participants.
Phil Ivey was unexpectedly expensive this year, with Glue Factory's Danny Sepiol shelling out 95 points. On our site, 41 players paid that high a price for the legend.
Phil has already played in his first $5k tournament and has become the hero of a small scandal.
On a board of , Justin Zaki opened on the button and continuation bet the flop, Phil called and then led the turn. Justin made the call.
Then something weird happened. Phil had two 5k chips left, which he was twirling between his fingers. The dealer asked him to put them on the table, Phil did so, but Zacki thought it was an early all-in (the river card hadn't been turned over yet) and made a quick call with . The dealer opened .
After that, the manager was called, he listened to all sides and said that the game was continuing with the cards open, and Ivy could do anything. Phil grinned and openly folded . In one of the next hands he was out of the event.
Of all the expensive players (for whom more than 80 points were paid), the most popular among forum members was Shaun Deeb – 217 teams, and the least popular were Chad Eveslage (7 teams) and Texas Mike Monchek with his bad heart (8 teams).
Meanwhile, Mike is 7th in the $5k tournament, with only 25 players left. As promised, he plays all the tournaments in a row. During the break in the $5k tournament, Texas Mike managed to run to the $1,000 Mystery Millions and shoved in the dark with 86o. He got 4 calls – the opponents showed , , And .
"All in dark in mystery million during break of the 5k. Cutoff through Bb have JJ QQ KK AA in order!!! Wtf 😂☠️" – Mike proclaims to the poker universe, quite reasonably.
In the "mystery" 6,222 participants registered for the three starting flights, today and tomorrow the final and most massive ones will take place.
The most popular player of the forum freeroll was predictably Artur Martirosyan, he got into 430 teams. In the original draft, he was taken by Jeremy Becker for 28 points. Artur himself is not sure that this is the right choice, given the potential problems of Russians with taxes. Nevertheless, he is already in Vegas and even managed to register late for the same tournament for $5k. On the direct bubble of this tournament, he went with against On the turn, Arthur made two pairs, but his opponent got two outs on the river.
Our players also believe in Adrian Mateos (362 teams), Alexey Ponyakov (288), Ike Haxton (264), Erik Seidel (259), Ben Yu and the “cheap” Sergio Aido (246 each), Jason Koon (241) and Dmitry Urbanovich (202).
The choice of Haxton seems surprising, as he is not a fan of the WSOP and only plays the most high-stakes tournaments.
In the Negreanu draft, 192 players were selected (24*8), but Allen Kessler was not among them. Like Scott Seiver last year, Kessler disagrees with this assessment of his potential. He is unlikely to win three bracelets in a series (he has not managed to do this even once, but he has 115 cashes), but Allen is ready to pay:
– Can I bet on myself to outscore drafted players?
I'll pick 10 drafted players and wager on my total vs each one.
You must agree to bet each of the 10.
Martin Zamani agreed to these conditions.
Kessler's list included:
- Kevin Gerhart
- Max Pescatori
- Cooper Feltham
- Gus Hansen
- Matt Valeo
- Jon Shoreman
- Kyle Miholich
- Lucky Chewy
- Tyler Moncek
- Esther Taylor
"Can I pick 5 of them and lay 5k to 2.5k on each" Shaun Deeb asked.
“Nope it was a package,” Allen refused, “I intentionally picked players I'm a dog against.”
So far, the World Series has awarded one bracelet – in the $500 buy-in industry tournament.
The winner was California dealer Phovieng Keokham.
However, the hero of social networks and the favorite of the public was Christopher Zolo, who took second place.
He entered the official chip counts in the WSOP+ app not under his real name, but under the nickname SuckMe69.
In the final hand he 4-bet shoved with and almost managed to beat .
The most high-stakes tournaments don't start until next week and Daniel Smiljkovic is already selling shares in Discord.
“Each bullet will be max late and 1 only,” Daniel warns investors. “I'll also try to go back in the max late reg queue, to maximise every single EV that is to be made.”
The screenshot was posted on Twitter by Dominik Nitsche , who asked Steve O'Dwyer: "How much do you want me to get for you?"
In April, Steve called on the organizers of major series to crack down on players who abuse the late registration mechanism. Smiljkovic has done this most brazenly and defiantly.
– Enough is enough, tournament organisers and directors need to start being extremely strict about not seating players once late reg is closed because fucking parasites like Daniel Smilijkovic and others of his ilk will never stop abusing honest players who seat themselves on time.
Ethan "Rampage" Yau has put a $500k "anti-package" up for sale at the WSOP. That is, the players who buy the stake believe he will finish in the red and are rooting against him.
On the StakeKings website, only 0.8% were bought up.
Alex Keating (not to be confused with Alan) came to the rescue:
– I'll buy the whole action if you agree to a $250k cap.
– I am, but then we will only consider tournaments up to $2.5k. Otherwise, any attempt by me to play something more expensive will simply be a charitable donation to your fund.
– Off we go.
Ethan has already made it into the money, albeit in a $5k buy-in tournament. He is still in the game with a 23rd stack out of 25 players.
