Event #26 ($25,000 High Roller) was won by Korean pro Chang Lee ($1,949,044).
Chang specializes in high-stakes cash games and this was only his second tournament.
– "Four days ago, I came to the United States to register for this WSOP game. I wanted to win this tournament, I really studied the GTO”. “I was super tired because it’s 15 hours from South Korea, [and] I needed to change in L.A.”
In the top 16, Lee himself made a runner-runner and doubled up to the chip lead. He came out against Chin Wei Lim on the flop , came on the turn , and on the river – .
– "I had a lot of chips and the other players were so tight, they didn’t open as much, so I thought if I bet big bets to them, they would fold"
Anatoly Nikitin, who led the top 18, took 13th place ($89,566). Alexander Shilko was eliminated in 17th place ($73,639).
Anatoly lost the lead when there were 14 players left in the game. He pushed the board With , world champion Joe McKeehen made the call with .
At the 60k/120k level, Anatoly was left with a stack of 80k, then he got up to 1.2 million, but in the final hand he went all in with against future winner.
McKeehen finished 6th ($325,757).
Ryan Hoenig took 3rd place in Event #27, $1,500 Big O ($141,315).
He won the Dealers Choice Championship a couple of days earlier.
Ryan is currently ranked second in Negreanu's ranking of the most valuable fantasy players .
Igor Zekster won his first bracelet in the Big O ($297,285). On this series, he has only cashed in Omaha-8 tournaments.
Nick Schulman won his seventh bracelet in Event #30 – $10k NL2-7.
Nick has already won this tournament in 2009 and 2012.
The final day started with six players, and Dan Smith, Ben Yu and Oscar Johansson were eliminated on the first level, and Chad Eveslage finished fourth an hour later. It seemed like the game wouldn't last long, but the heads-up between Schulman and Darren Elias lasted almost 8 hours.
– "First of all, Darren Elias who I was heads-up with is easily, probably the toughest No-Limit Deuce player I’ve ever played with. Big shoutout to him. It was a crap shoot at the end and I made hands. It’s a little silly. He just hung in there the whole time and played so great. It’s a little emotional because I was content to lose to him because he deserved it. I wanted to win. It feels amazing. I’m a little bit overwhelmed with this one."
Darren Elias has specialized in NLH tournaments his entire career, and plays only NL2-7 in mixed games. He has twice placed 3rd in this tournament (in 2017 and 2019), and in 2014 he was eliminated in 9th place.
WSOP Online Event #7 – $250 Mystery Bounty had to be cancelled during the second day.
At that moment, there were 1,100 players left in the game and about 60% had problems logging into the client. Players were not allowed in due to geolocation issues. The rest continued to play calmly and stole blinds. It was at this moment that one of the participants took the maximum bounty – $100k.
Belatedly, the tournament was stopped, and later it was announced that the tournament would be cancelled, bracelets and points would not be awarded to the leaderboard. Players who made it to day 2 were promised to be contacted individually.
Finally, participants were informed that:
- Everyone's buy-ins were returned.
- All the bounties and prizes that were played out were left to the players.
- They promised to distribute the remaining prize fund fairly among the participants.
- The 1,100 players who made it to Day 2 received a $500 tournament ticket valid for 1 year.
Fantasylander Tyler Brown won a $600 ($178,126) PLO/NLH deep stack.
The tournament had 2,775 entries, Tyler won his first bracelet two years ago in the $1,000 Mystery Millions tournament, which had 18,188 entries.
Brown never lost the lead from the two-table stage. He entered the final table with 25% of all the tournament chips, and by the top 6 he had half of them. He won without any problems, but shortly before the final, the organizers threatened him with disqualification. The problems arose because of Brown's unwillingness to change small chips. In a series of tweets, he explained in detail what happened.
— Tyler Brown (@TheBestPanda00) June 10, 2025
– "I didn't wanna color up every single chip I had, they wanted to take it all for some reason. They wouldn't take no for an answer when I wanted to give the two-thirds of what they wanted. Some stuff was said. While this was all going on, we're in the middle of a level, in the middle of a hand. One guy sitting next to me bet, and got shoved all-in on. So while this chaos is happening, he's waiting on a decision while he's all in. Me and the floor are yelling back and forth at each other, he is grabbing my chips out of my stack, telling me, "this is my way, we're coloring up exactly as I want. Too bad." I'm trying to stop him, he's reaching over me to grab chips out of my stack.. it was quite a scene.
I got threatened to be DQ'd twice. Once over not wanting to color up a certain amount of chips, and I all I asked them was to read me the rule where it said they could take them at any point – especially while hands are going on. We were fighting in between me having hands and so forth."
WSOP officials told PokerNews that they threatened to disqualify Brown not for refusing to change chips, but for insulting an employee.
The official rules state: "Casino staff controls the number and denomination of chips in the game and may, at their own discretion, carry out color-ups, of which players must be warned in advance."
"Seeing so many people more vocal about issues with the WSOP this year than any prior year," Tyler wrote a few days before his win. "I feel like it's all going to fall on deaf ears but man we pay so much rake.... I just noticed the 600s are (504+96) how are these things even beatable for most people."
– Collosus rake is 800k more than first, – noted Jared Jaffe. (Editor's Note: – 16,301 entries, $500 buy-in, winner got $542,540 )
Jason Koon wins the $50,000 High Roller for $1,968,927.
– "It's all possible because of her. Stumbling home at 1 a.m. after bagging to wake up and help me get ready and not expect much from me. On days when poker is slow for me, I am all in as being a dad and try to pick up the slack the best that I can. But without her, I couldn't do any of this."
The final table turned out to be the most star-studded of the series. Sergey Lebedev took 5th place.
Alexey Boyko was eliminated 8th.
Second place finisher Andrew Lichtenberger has already taken 6th place in the $100k event tonight. The seating at the start of the final table is as follows:
Scott Seiver was once again impressed by Andrew's performance :
– It’s an unbelievably underrated talent , but let me tell you all, there isn’t a single person better at maintaining calmness and focus after a bad beat or big loss than Andrew Lichtenberger. His composure is unparalleled and it’s what makes him one of the greats. Much to learn from him.
Phil Ivey took 9th place in the $100k tournament . In the final hand, he was dealt against the of Ike Haxton.
In the top 13, Phil could knock out Joao Vieira, who is currently playing heads-up for the bracelet.
.@PhilIvey is human after all.
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) June 13, 2025
Watch the @WSOP $100,000 High Roller streaming now on https://t.co/2RQh5ROjQG. pic.twitter.com/JBpiz9C26g
Phil defended the BB, check-called the flop, led the turn and folded to a river push.
We will tell you more about this tournament in the next review.
Ukrainian Rinat Bogdanov won a bracelet in Event #35 – $3,000 Freezeout ($451,600).
One of the first to congratulate Rinat on his victory was Alexander Shilko, who supported him throughout the final table.
5th place went to Anatoly Nikitin ($111,270).
