Day 1c of the WSOP Main Event
The third starting day, held on July 4th, attracted only 1,573 players. This isn't too terrible compared to last year, but still the lowest Day 1c in recent history.
| Main Event Year | Day 1c Entries | Total Entries for Main Event |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1,800 | 8,663 |
| 2023 | 3,080 | 10,043 |
| 2024 | 2,500+ | 10,112 |
| 2025 | 1,678 | 9,735 |
| 2026 | 1,573 | Unknown |
The luckiest of the Day 1c entries was Bulgarian Yulian Bogdanov, with 315,000 chips.
Only one relatively familiar face in the top 10 – veteran Freddy Deeb (no relation to Shaun Deeb) – amassed 267,800.
Brian Hastings also amassed a decent stack, with 178,100. It would be funny to see him at the same table with Viktor Blom! But that will only be possible starting on Day 3, as they will definitely play separately on the second days.
1,166 players made it to the stacking stage.
The TV spotlight was on Jamie Gold and Annette Obrestad, who had long since left the spotlight. Judging by the 20-minute compilation of the day's best hands on the WSOP channel, which featured only dead coolers, there wasn't much interesting poker.
Let's hope for better luck and move on to the biggest field, which included almost all the stars, except for the most hardened late-registration repeaters.
Day 1d of the WSOP Main Event
4,694 players took the shortest route to the final table and sat down for Day 1d, the fourth and final starting day.
| Main Event Year | Day 1c Entries | Total Entries for Main Event |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 4,481 | 8,663 |
| 2023 | 4,100 | 10,043 |
| 2024 | 5,014 | 10,112 |
| 2025 | 4,997 | 9,735 |
| 2026 | 4,694 | Unknown |
3,638 players packed their chips at the end, with 38-year-old East Coast professional poker player Taylor von Kriegenberg leading the way with 312,800.
Viktor Blom (217,100), Martin Kabrhel (202,000), and Alex Foxen (156,300) piled up big stacks. Kristen Foxen finished the day with 99,800. Among the losers who busted was Doug Polk.
Without official chip counts, it's harder to follow our players' performances, and relying on the interim results in the PokerNews column is clearly reckless. For example, they reported that a UFC fighter who announced "Shuffle Up and Deal" at the start of the day advanced to the second round with a 43,700 stack, and ESPN showed him leaving the tournament after his elimination. We'll wait for more accurate results, or at least do without them. In any case, the money is still a long way off.
Tables featuring Daniel Negreanu and Kristen Foxen were selected for the televised event. Kristen's table also featured popular young pro Landon Theis, who, however, didn't do anything special—cash players can have a hard time getting into the tournament vibe.
Phenomenally, of the multitude of brilliant poker players starting that day, the ESPN team chose to seat UFC fighter Sean O'Malley and eight unknowns at the third TV table. Only at the final level did we get new tables: Shaun Deeb and Eelis Pärssinen, and Joe McKeen and Jimmy D'Abrosio. The latter is another incessant chatterbox, but, unlike Kabrhel, he speaks English without a Slavic accent and is therefore not considered insufferable.
At the very beginning of the broadcast, Shibuya-based comedian and vlogger Seiki Horita demonstrates what distinguishes Japanese amateurs from most others: they take the time to learn preflop.
Bottos folds.
He soon gets another chance to show off his skills when he cold-four-bets after a raise and a reraise.
Argentine Hugo Nazar, almost without thinking, 5-bet all-in.
Horita thinks for a long time...
...and throws away the cards.
Well done, Horita! However, he still has some way to go before he can master the lower levels of the poker matrix. Once he learns that he doesn't have to open 64s from a lowjack, and certainly doesn't have to overbet the turn without equity, he'll be even stronger.
Roman calls. The river falls and its a . Horita wisely resigned, surprising commentator David Williams, who was used to going all the way in such situations. Incidentally, he had already been eliminated from the Main Event, and, according to him, he only lasted one lap, although it was almost the entire lap.
Roman checks his two pairs next.
When the cameras found Kristen Foxen, the commentators said that we usually see her in the boring shoving stage, but here, in the deep stacks, she will definitely show her skills.
And, in principle, they weren't deceived. In the very first hand, Kristen defends the BB against a raise from second position with . On the flop, with a gutshot draw and a backdoor flush draw, she calls a continuation bet.
The turn pairs the second card of the flop, and Kristen leads. She gets called. The river is an ace, completing a straight draw and a flush draw, and Kristen bets 8,500 for 11,000. This is probably an effective aggressive line in the WSOP Main Event, since the chances of her opponent holding a full house, while not zero, are not very high.
Daniel Negreanu's stack at the start of the stream is only 30,000.
He's not doing well, but he's desperately trying to enter pots and see flops. He ducks raises with J8s from the small blind, 74s from the button, and so on. He starts limping with random suited hands, mediocre connectors, and small pairs... What kind of neural network can predict the mistakes amateurs make postflop to turn such hands into profits? Only the neural network in the minds of the most experienced professionals.
In the next hand, Negreanu defends against a raise from an elderly British amateur on a lowjack. A classic dry flop — . It gets two checks. On the turn , Negreanu bets 1,000 and gets called. The river is a nine-. Daniel checks, and his opponent suddenly bets 2,200.
Daniel explains out loud that the hand is either a nine or king-high at most, and then calls. He's pleasantly surprised by his opponent's hand.
Kristen Foxen 3-bet in the cutoff against a Japanese player's open with a lowjack, and flops a straight. She bets 7,000 on the flop, 9,500 on the turn, but on the river, her nuts are quickly devalued by several positions, just like in Omaha.
Kita makes a block bet of 7,500, leaving himself with a 30,300 cushion. Kristen thinks for a long time and simply calls.
Kita's second attempt to play two sixes ends in another huge pot, but this time without his participation.
Shoda doesn't repeat the mistakes of others and doesn't make a 5-bet that's so obvious for the Main. He simply calls.
On a flop that's perfect for slowplaying aces ( ) Shoda check-calls a quarter-pot continuation bet.
A queen on the turn – both check.
A deuce on the river – and the wily Shoda checks for the third time!
La Francesca tries to get two-thirds of the pot – exactly 20,000, leaving behind 21,500.
Shoda calls all-in. La Francesca looks sadly at her opponent and resigns.
The face of a man who gets 4-bet in the WSOP Main Event when he has kings.
They went all-in preflop, one king was already in the muck, and the last one was not shown on the board.
Negreanu's limping strategy finally allows him to land a decent hand. He limps and calls preflop, checks and calls the flop, checks the turn, and Daniel bets 10,000 on the river.
His opponent immediately folds the cards, causing admiration from the commentators.
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For the first time, we're shown a table filled with biological poker robots—one eats too much, the other drinks too much, but both destroy tournaments and win bracelets. And one of them immediately demonstrates its strength.
Shaun Deeb leads a three-way hand, but one of them ends up with a set, and that set isn't slow-playing.
Having received a raise, Sean starts typing something on his phone, which is lying right in front of him on the edge of the table. Honestly, I've never seen anything like this before, but no one seems to care – Dib's reputation is above suspicion.
UPDATE: The solution was found on Deeb's Twitter: it turns out he was playing a WSOP Online tournament at the same time, which apparently allows phone calls. Funny enough, though, by the time this hand was played, he'd already been eliminated from the online tournament, but he pretended to keep playing "so they'd fold to me more often, lol."
Finally, he stops typing and, without putting his phone away, makes a call.
Turn – . There's 21,000 in the pot. The opponent bets 13,000, 41,000 behind – but Sean calls that too.
River – . The flush draws get there.
“All-in,” Sean says rather quickly.
Nobody wants to be eliminated from the Main Event! Kaawar folds.
Deeb's passive lines are worse. With KTo, he calls Bello's raise, catches a king, and calls three barrels without much hesitation.
"Sean's fighting for the series leaderboard," explains Ali Nejad, "so playing the main event is practically unprofitable for him! His goal is to get a big stack or bust quickly."
Something tells me the commentator is clearly bluffing, and Dib must have had other ideas. A few minutes later, we're given a glimpse of just how broad Mr. Bello's play is.
Preflop, he calls from the small blind to a raise, check-calls the flop, and then attacks on the turn with 5,000 on the turn and 13,000 on the river. From the big blind, this would have looked more convincing than from the small blind, and Zhang, after some thought, makes the call.
The God of Omaha, as the commentators call him, tries to steal the blinds from the cutoff, but the blinds are proving a bit stubborn.
Deeb's 4-bet of 12,000, however, doesn't convince him – he calls and ends up heads-up with Bartha.
Sean's equity on the flop is 91%. Can you roughly guess the board?
The rebus is not the most difficult – flop Barta has two outs. He makes a small continuation bet of 6,500. SPR 2, Sean calls.
The turn, just in case, is another deuce. Both check.
On the blank river, Sean tries to check-raise, but Barta dashes his hopes by checking back.
It's hard to tell whether Pärssinen is 3-betting light or isolating the hyperactive Bello.
On the flop , Eelis continuation bets 3,000 and gets a quick call. The turn is . With some extra equity, the Finn bets 11,000 into the 17,100 pot and Bello folds.
Deeb steals from the cutoff with 32o, gets two calls. He misses the continuation bet, and on the turn his hand suddenly becomes the best, but one of his opponents bets.
The phone is no longer on the edge of the table, but the mind is still there – Sean calls.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to find out what he planned to do on other blank rivers. But the opponent clearly planned to continue bluffing on any runout.
Sean raises a small bet of 2,300 to make it all-in for 27,400. Clearly, there will be no call.
Joe McKeehen is clearly not enjoying his time at the table with the talkative Jimmy D'Ambrosio. With a look of absolute anguish on his face, he listens to the cheerful monologues and throws out 83o, 73o... But then he finally gets a hand that's good enough to play poker with – .
Joe raises to 1,500 and gets two calls from the blinds, Coelloledezma and Britain's Carl Shaw.
On the flop , Joe checks with second pair and a backdoor flush draw to end the action.
The turn is a . Joe gets two more checks and decides to go for value – 2,500. Coelloledezma quickly calls, and Shaw doesn't think twice either – he calls.
River (12,600):
Coelloledezma checks for the third time. But Shaw suddenly overbets two pots – all-in!
Even more unexpected is McKeehen's quick call! Perhaps it was some read... or he's simply completely sick of playing cards. The small blind, down at least with his top pair, folds, and Joe McKeehen's stack drops below 50,000.
A brutal card for Pärssinen, but his opponent helps him out – Bello literally twitches his entire body at the sight of the queen, freezes for a long moment, and donks almost the pot – 9,000. After carefully examining it, the Finn calls.
River (29,400):
Bello hesitates and bets 6,000. It's a good bet, because Eelis raises to 15,000 – and loses 9 thousand more than he could have, but still ends up with a nice stack of 72 thousand.
"I was afraid of a full house!" Bello comments on his quick call, clearly feeling a surge of energy.
In the next hand he decides to put pressure on another dangerous neighbor.
"All in," says Shaun Deeb. "Why not? 130bb is a misunderstanding, not a stack!"
Bello throws out.
And this is where the last starting day ends.
Poker|Red is the only WSOP photographer who regularly posts his shots on Flickr. I'll finish this report with a selection of photos from the last few days.
