Main Event Day 3 Recap: Polk, Hellmuth & Kornuth Bust Before Bubble

Carlos Serrano raises to 6,000 on the button. Andrey Pateychuk defends the BB.

On the flop Andrey check-calls continuation bet 3,500. Turn – , both check. River – . Again two checks. Andrey has a king-high – , and that's a win. Not a particularly outstanding hand, but it illustrates the typical strategy of many local players in the Maine – "one and done", short bluffs. Andrey's stack is 345,000.

Matthew Sabia raises to 5,500 from early position. Roland Rokita calls in middle position. Will Kassouf calls on the button.

On the flop Two people check and Kassouf bets 13,000. Sabia check-raises the minimum to 26,000. Rokita folds, Kassouf muses out loud for a long time, then calls.

Thorn – . Sabia checks.

– Oh, are you waiting? – Kassouf asks him. – This is strange. I'm beginning to think you have the ace-queen of diamonds.

He continues to discuss the situation until one of the players at the table asks for time, at which point he bets 57,000. Sabia has 114,000 behind him, and by going all-in he makes his second flat check-raise in a row.

Kassouf thinks for a moment, then says:

– Well, if you really have this hand, there's nothing I can do, – and calls with a flush up to eight – .

Sabia shows a set of fours. The river doesn't pair the board, and the never-silent Kassouf, to the horror of his neighbors, reaches 785,000.

American Michael Garner, a stocky middle-aged amateur, raises the button to 5,000 with . Leon Sturm, sitting in the small blind, makes the call with . The BB folds.

Sturm has won, it seems, something like eight hands out of the last ten. However, his opponents do not see that the guy is just having fun, and gradually become enraged. It is time for payback.

Flop . Sturm checks. Garner bets 3,000. Sturm check-raises to 9,000.

Garner makes the call.

The commentators are confusing the action – they think Sturm just called the flop. So, they are a little surprised to see him lead 14,000 on the turn. , but they find a rational explanation.

Garner responds by raising to 30,000.

Sturm calls.

River – . Garner makes a solid looking bet of 40,000.

Sturm thinks for a few minutes and folds, to the shock of both commentators.

Michael Garner's career winnings are worth less than the buy-ins of many tournaments Leon Sturm has played.

Michael Zulker raises to 6,500 from first position. Sturm calls next to him. Phil Hellmuth shoves all-in for 93,000 from the hijack. Zulker calls with , Sturm folds eights.

Hellmuth has – .

Empty flop. Turn is a king! River is a queen—and the winner of 17 bracelets is out of the main event.

At the 1.5k/3k/3k level, Jonathan Tamayo gives up hope of repeating the success of Shiina Okamoto. The defending champion makes a raise to 6,000 from early position. Alan Tenorio reraises to 17,500 in the hijack. Tamayo, with a stack of 107,500, decides to play eights all-in. Tenorio has AKs. He calls. The dealer shows an ace first...

Daniel Negreanu stubbornly maneuvers with a short stack.

"There are a lot of amateurs in this tournament who look at the average stack size on the board and feel obligated to catch it if they drop even a little bit lower. They don't care how many blinds they have, they're willing to risk everything for it," Bleznik says. "But Negreanu has 20 blinds, and he feels great, he works calmly. Respect."

Daniel is dealt two nines in early position and raises to 8,000. Simon Levy three-bets 25,000 in the small blind. Negreanu pulls out his selfie stick, says, "That means I'm done," and shoves in his remaining 53,000.

Levi calls with AQo. Negreanu leads until the river, but the last card is an ace.

Daniel says that his Main Event is over, and leaves the table.

Francis Kelly raises to 8,000 from early position. Valentin Shabelnik 3-bets to 22,000 from the middle. Jonathan Walter cold-4-bets to 50,000 on the button. Shabelnik calls.

On the flop Valentin checks. Walter bets 12,000. The Ukrainian check-raises to 70,000. The opponent calls.

Thorn – . Shabelnik makes a small bet – 25,000. Walter wants to play a little more high-stakes, but without fanaticism – he raises to 55,000. Valentin calls.

River – .

Shabelnik goes all-in for 188,500. Walter has only a few more chips and thinks for a long time. A few minutes later, he apologizes for the nit-roll and calls with the nut flush – .

Valentin turns over – He flopped a flush.

Micah Raskin, businessman, investor, philanthropist and poker enthusiast, was arrested by the New York police 7 years ago. As some newspapers joked, he made a serious mistake – they found more than 100 kg of marijuana on him. Raskin returned to the poker tables in 2023 and since then has made four money in the World Series of Poker tournaments. Today, he found himself at the center of a more innocent incident.

At the start of the next hand, all the players folded to the button, and only at that moment Mike, who was sitting in the BB, discovered that the dealer had dealt him only one card.

A manager was called in, who ruled that there had already been significant action in the hand (!), so a misdeal could not be declared. Consequently, Raskin's hand was dead.

Armed with this information, Sorin Cristea raised to 12,000, the small blind folded, and Cristea took the blinds and antes.

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The commentators' focus this afternoon is on the table with Chance Kornuth and Doug Polk.

Kornuth raises to 10,000 from first position with a pair of eights. Luke Chun on the button three-bets to 30,000. Kornuth doesn't have the deepest stack, but he calls.

Flop – . Chun makes a continuation bet of 30,000. Kornuth calls.

Thorn – . Chance Kornuth checks. Chun fires a second barrel, 60,000. Kornuth calls again, much to Bleznik's dismay:

– Chance is one of the best hold’em players in the world, but he has one weakness: he hates folding. He knows this weakness very well, but he can’t do anything about it. In his place, Hellmuth would have folded preflop! The flop is a call, but you definitely should fold on the turn. The call is terrible.

River – . Kornuth checks and Chun moves all-in. Kornuth has 116,000 in his stack. He looks thoughtful.

Suddenly Chun smiles.

– Kornuth is a great tell specialist! Can't he read his opponent? After such a smile, it's already an elementary pass, – Blaise is indignant.

“Wow,” says Kornuth. “Now I really, really want to fold.”

But of course he doesn't throw it away.

After thinking for a while, he makes a call and is eliminated, losing to a pair of kings.

At 3k/5k/5k, Luke Chung raises to 10,000 from the button with , Gaetan Lheureux defends the big blind.

On the flop Lheureux check-calls 13,000.

Turn – . Lheureux checks. Chung bets 30,000. His French opponent calls all-in for 103,000.

"What a great game!" Bleznik said happily. "I'm sure Chung will have to throw away his best hand."

Chung calls.

River is a blank, and another of Chung's opponents is out of the tournament. Not the first, but not the last, either, although there's not much time left in the day.

Arsenii Karmatcii, now representing Slovenia, wins a small pot with a flush.

At the next level, a preflop clash between Doug Polk and Luke Chung results in Polk shoving 243,000 into the middle with a pair of aces. His opponent holds two kings.

The first card to be dealt on the table is the king...

Doug Polk leaves the World Series of Poker Main Event like a true amateur, losing with two aces.

The closer to the money, the tighter the game. On the river The pot is about 100,000. Japanese player Masanori Izu checks. Rodrigo Jim moves all-in, forcing Izu to risk his tournament life.

Izu sighs heavily and gets up from his chair. He stands motionless for three minutes, staring at the board. Then suddenly he flips over one of his cards – , but does not put it on the table, continuing to hold it in his hand.

The dealer calls the manager, but technically there was no action in the hand, they can continue playing. Another manager approaches. While the fuss continues, Izu turns over a second card – He still holds both cards, so technically he didn't open them, he just held them carelessly, exposed them. It's impossible to recognize his hand as dead.

The third floor manager arrives. Time is ticking and the all-in player asks to start the clock. The Japanese player is given 30 seconds.

"Can I take a photo?" Izu asks. He takes out his phone, turns on the recording, films his aces, the board, himself and his opponent, then smiles at the camera and throws the cards into the discard pile.

For the tight fold, he gets two penalty rounds. (But for what?) Izu has only 115,000 left, and each round in the forced sitout will cost him 15,000.

Another brutal bad beat takes the tournament away from the 2004 World Champion. Greg Raymer squeezes and then 5-bet-all-in with kings. His opponent calls, also with kings. By the turn, Raymer is left with no outs – the dealer puts down four spades.

In keeping with his old tradition, Greg takes a fossil out of his pocket and signs it for the opponent who knocked him out, then wishes everyone luck and leaves the table. A true champion!

The day is ending. Waiters traditionally carry beer and cocktails to the tables. People play tighter and tighter, there is less and less room for imagination. And suddenly...

Bleznik:

– This is the look of a man who never bluffs! Everything about him says it, including his Utah football jersey. I would throw away even a top set against an opponent like that. And here he is, check-raising 150k with a pair and a blocker! A real psycho. I like him. I think he is Mikita Bodyakovsky’s dad!

The discussion of the merits of bluffing continues for several minutes until the opponent finally folds. But Bleznik still can't calm down for a long time:

– He has a Utah jersey, but his file says he's from South Dakota. How two-faced!

“I think he’s banned for life from every casino in the country except this one for counting cards at blackjack, and poker is the only way he can make money,” Blaise suggests after a few more minutes.

Throughout the rest of the broadcast, commentators call this player Bodyakovsky's father and attribute the most unimaginable virtues to him.

Chip Counts at the End of Day 3

Leaders:

• Shotaro Kobayashi (JPN) – 1,971,000
• Max Neugebauer (AUST) – 1,928,000
• Sam Jakubowicz (FRA) – 1,800,000
• Juliet Hegedus (USA) – 1,745,000
• Thomas Schwartzberg (MEXICO) – 1,709,000
• David Alvarez (SPA) – 1,629,000
• Thomas Ishen (FRA) – 1,618,000
• Brendon Harris (GBR) – 1,616,000
• Luke Chun (USA) – 1,606,000
• Chad Power (USA) – 1,546,000

Stars:

• Viktor Blom – 986,000
• Will Kassouf – 957,000
• Isaac Haxton – 717,000
• Jason Mercier – 687,000
• Brian Hastings – 686,000
• Leon Sturm – 623,000
• Henrik Hecklen – 623,000
• Mike Matusow – 612,000
• Nate Silver – 572,000
• Greg Merson – 560,000
• Joseph Cheong – 528,000
• Isaac Baron – 492,000
• Stephen Chidwick – 395,000
• James Obst – 333,000
• Evgeny Timoshenko – 333,000
• Liv Boeree – 320,000
• Josh Arieh – 204,000
• Dylan Linde – 195,000
• Michael Mizrachi – 186,000
• Landon Theis – 124,000
• Yuri Dzivilevsky – 117,000
• Phil Lack – 104,000

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