The $500 buy-in Colossus tournament attracted 16,269 entries. Winner Justin Smith received 1,100 buy-ins.
In the final hand of the tournament (which was also the first in heads-up play), Miles Herman shoved 9.5 big blinds with , and Justin Smith called with . He made a king-high flush on the river ( ).
After the tournament, it became clear that the dealer had made a serious error. The button received the cards first, and in heads-up play, the player in the big blind is dealt first. This meant that the players should have received each other's cards, and the game would have continued with equal stacks.
The Tournament Directors Association rules state that if no player immediately notices an error, the game continues as if nothing happened.
“Correct,” Matt Savage confirmed on Twitter. “Once there is substantial action, the hand has to stand.
Yes, it's a dealer error, but this happens way more often than you think, and if I see it, I correct it right away. The reason it happens is that dealers are not accustomed to dealing to the big blind first."
"What would you do if they play a dozen or more hands with the wrong blinds?" someone asked in the comments.
– "Correct it for the next hand"
"I don't even know what to say. I still can't believe it happened," the winner was at a loss for words, not yet knowing he'd won by sheer luck.
An even more egregious error occurred in the $10,000 Mystery Bounty tournament.
Dario Sammartino shared on Instagram Stories that at their shuffle machine table, everyone was dealt the exact same cards twice in a row.
"That's exactly how it happened, I was playing at that table," Loni Harwood confirmed. "Thanks to that, we saw what Ren Lin was bluffing with, because the hands played out the same way, except the button checked on the second hand."
The next day, Dario recorded a story and asked people to stop bombarding him with questions about the story:
"I've passed on all the information. There's nothing left for me to do; it's their job to figure out what happened. Stop writing to me."
"What, shuffle machines can read cards?" Liv Boeree asked in surprise. "That's a huge security risk."
"DeckMate 2 can," the experts wrote in the comments. "Furthermore, the operator can pre-program the layout. There are tons of videos about this on YouTube. But the dealer is supposed to cut, so it's really strange that this happened in a tournament. But with the machines, you can definitely make sure a specific box always wins."
The champion, Alex Anton, received $678,300 excluding bounties.
The two largest bounties were claimed by the finalists. Gregor Sverko (7th place finish) won $250,000, while $100,000 went to $25k fantasy player Josh Reichard (2nd place finish).
Eddie Blumenthal won the $2,500 Omaha-8/Stud-8 Mixed Poker tournament, defeating Nikolai Fal heads-up.
"HU was a one-way street," Nikolai wrote on Telegram after the tournament. "Apparently, taking two bracelets from two finals would have been too much. Overall, I won't be sad. Thanks to everyone who supported me! I felt your support."
Alexey Kovalchuk won this tournament in 2012, and Konstantin Maslak in 2015. Nikolai won his bracelet in 2024 in the $1,500 Stud-8 tournament.
Read ReadThe $10,000 Razz Championship was won by seasoned poker pro Calvin "cal42688" Anderson.
This is Anderson's second bracelet in this tournament and sixth overall.
"I have played it a lot. I guess that's my secret," Calvin explained of his success. "I like this game a lot. I played all the games a bit and I think this one just favors my style."
Another seasoned mixed game specialist, Marco Johnson, won his third bracelet in the $2,500 NLHE Freezeout.
In 2013, Marco won the Limit Hold'em tournament, in 2016 – the HORSE tournament, and in recent years he has also lost five times in heads-up matches for bracelets (in HORSE, Big Bet Mix, PLO-8, LHE and NLHE tournaments back in 2008).
"It means a lot. I started playing no limit twenty, twenty-five years ago. I've been playing for a living and I stopped playing no limit for a while, and then after COVID, so for the last 5 years, I've played a lot of no limit, and I really enjoy it. It actually might be one of my favorite games. So it feels really good to win a bracelet in a no limit event."
In 2007, Marco was one of the initiators of an investigation against Absolute Poker. He lost heads-up in a $1,000 buy-in tournament, and many of the hands struck him as very strange. He asked support for his hand histories, and they sent him a document containing the hand histories of all the tournament participants, along with the players' email addresses and IP addresses.
“Either someone made a mistake, or they deliberately leaked the information to me,” Marco was surprised later.
His heads-up opponent was POTRIPPER, and in the final hand he made the correct call with T-high.
Last night, Marco defeated Chino Rheem, who has also recently focused on mixed games, in heads-up play. Chino doesn't have a single bracelet yet and has four heads-up losses in PLO, PLO-8, and Stud tournaments. He has already won WPT and EPT-PCA tournaments, so another heads-up loss deprived him of the so-called "Triple Crown."
Chino recently posted a great throwback interview with him and Mizrachi, last year's Main Event winner and GGPoker ambassador.
Phil Hellmuth recently tweeted a recommendation to buy his son's shares:
Want to buy a piece of my son in WSOP tourneys?
Phillip Hellmuth has listed a few events at 1.10 mark up and the Main Event at 1.4. I’m sure the main event will sell out! $10M for first place
Phillip finished 10th in a ring event with 541 players in Jan
“Come on Phil 1.4, you’re not worth that much, let alone your kid,” Shaun Deeb brutally pointed out with his usual poor spelling.
“I did have it lower originally, but moved it up on his advice,” complained Phil (the son).
"For almost 20 years Negreanu has given pieces of his World Series action at face value to fans of his," Scott Seiver said, disapproving of the sale, "dating back to his old forum days. Phil Hellmuth tried to charge his fans 40% markup on his son’s tournament when he could easily take it himself if he wanted. I know which path I respect and find truly ambassadorial."
"My guy Scott Seiver has lost respect for me as an ambassador to the poker world. It is truly a shame…," Phil replied. "I will note: I did make my fans $200,000 (total profits from all of my packages on staking sites). $200,000 straight cash into their pockets."
"Just highlighting how generous what Daniel does really is. Also I’m absolutely rooting for your son and it would clearly be the funniest result if there is blood spilled in this bet. Good luck to him!"
Helmut's son's shares are available for purchase on the PokerStake website, where 14.9% of the 20% stake in the main tournament has already been sold.
Jason Mo has been amusing himself all summer by finding inflated sales on PokerStake and reselling them at reduced odds.
Martin Zamani took advantage of one such offer. Sasha Liu was selling 15% at odds of 1.15 in a $600 tournament.
Jason offered her shares at a ratio of 1.1. Martin bought 50%.
– Lol, just realized it was $600 only. Yeah, sure. Booked.
Sasha hit the money and won $1,201.
“You owe me a pretty penny, JMo,” Martin brought the good news.
– I haven't decided yet, maybe it would be easier to scam you.
– I enjoyed doing business with you. Let me know if you sell anything similar in the future.