Shaun Deeb lost heads-up in the $3,000 buy-in 9-game tournament. Joey Couden and his fedora emerged victorious.
Afterwards, Couden celebrated his victory with a bang, along with his support group and beer.
After the loss, Sean refused to shake his opponent's hand.
During the final table, Joey also made several rather aggressive remarks toward his opponent. This behavior surprised Deeb, who said that he'd always had a normal relationship with Joey, until this match.
Calvin Anderson won his second bracelet in four days in the $10k HORSE.
“I don’t think about those type of things, really. I just want to feel forward, you know? I’m just thinking about the next thing,” Calvin said after his victory.
“If he cared, he would have 20 bracelets, minimum," one of his friends shouted.
The key to his success? Anderson claims good health is a big part of it.
“I’ve done it forever, I guess. I take a good bit of supplements. I don’t drink. I eat pretty clean, so that stuff helps a lot too. Just not doing any of that stuff, that, you know, require a lot of enzymes to break down and just like, yeah, make you tired. So I don’t do a lot of that stuff. I think the guy that got third was drinking a little bit, and it kind of wears on you after a while,”
In one hand from the three-way point, John Veltri was called instead of raised, and this suddenly caused a real storm.
"It's a basic rule," Calvin tried to calmly explain the situation.
But after these words, Veltri decided that Anderson was to blame for everything, and he conspired with the organizers against him.
"No problem, you're going to lose."
"I didn't even do anything!"
"Fuck!" Josh Arie, who was still in the game, jumped up from his chair and shouted. "Let's all get a penalty! Let's play poker, man."
At the end of the video, Veltri finally realized he'd gone too far and, with the words "Sorry about the blow up," gave Anderson a fist bump. Calvin didn't play Shaun Deeb and returned the blow.
Organizers ignore mixed games, but the rare moments that do make it onto the broadcast immediately attract attention.
"This for me is what some must feel when they see the Mona Lisa in person," Nick added. "The Sistene Chapel. The early celebration, and then the mucking of each down card, one by one. I almost wept the first time I saw it. Breathtakingly perfect."
Canadian amateur Abhishek Mhatre won the $3,000 buy-in 6-max Hold'em event.
At the final table, he beat a colorful group of players: Max Lykov, mixed-game regular Chris Veatch, regular streamer Paulina "Poker Bunny" Loeliger (no relation to Linus), businessman Nasim Salem (who won a bracelet in the $10k GGMillions tournament at this series), and 2014 world champion Martin Jacobson.
Max's chances for a bracelet were killed by the hand against Jacobson – in a triple all-in, Dickey had , against Martin's and the short-stack's . The flop showed three clubs with a jack, and Lykov had the king of clubs, but unfortunately, the turn and river did not improve his hand.
"I should probably give a shout-out to Kristen Foxen," the champion said. "She gave me some of her chips early in the tournament, and she said, like, ‘Put them to good use.'"
At the beginning of the tournament, one of the participants was disqualified because he decided to smoke right at the table.
The man in the Brazilian national team jacket had clearly had too much to drink and, for a long time, couldn't understand why security had gathered at the table and what they wanted from him. He stubbed out his cigarette, throwing it into a bottle of water. Then they finally convinced him to get up, and he stood and pocketed his tournament chips. But they explained to him that he wouldn't need them anymore.
"Hahahaha," Chris Hunichen said with amusement. "what’s more absurd the smoking or then putting the tournament chips in his pocket 😂😂😂"
"Years ago at Bellagio, a VIP from Macau was playing NL every day who had his own butler stand behind him all sessions," Len Ashby recalled. "One day, mid-hand, he pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking it. Amy, the floor lady at the time, walked up and saw it, looked at me, and I gave her the “let’s just let this one play out” look, and she just threw her hands up and said 'whatever' and walked away."
Air quality is never an issue online, or in Malta.
The upcoming $30 million guaranteed Battle of Malta Online Series at CoinPoker awards 100 packages to Malta's Main Event, and 77 real trophies from highlight tournaments.
Finnish top Omaha reg Eelis "EEE27" Pärssinen won the $25k buy-in PLO. 451 entries were made.
In 2021, Pärssinen won a $5k PLO/NLHE tournament, after which he told journalists that he doesn't really like live poker, and that it was only his fifth WSOP tournament in his life.
Over the past five years, Eelis's approach to poker has changed significantly. He used to play high-stakes cash games online, but now he's switched to live high roller tournaments:
"I don’t play these live tournaments too often. I wouldn’t consider myself a live player. I like to play live, but I mean, this is my fifth WSOP tournament ever.""
Eelis started the final day as the chip leader and was the clear favorite to win.
"Yes, with my experience and skill, somewhere in the back of my mind I felt I was destined to win. But everyone understands that anything can happen in tournaments. So I was lucky to have managed to pull it off."
The $50k PLO tournament saw 110 entries. Brazilian Joao Simao emerged as the champion.
This is Simao's third seven-figure win in the last eight months. Last December, within 10 days of each other, he won the $150k Triton ($3,067,000) and the $100k Super High Roller Bowl X ($1,110,000).
Joao won on Father's Day and dedicated the victory to his father, who recently passed away.
In the comments of the high-profile sale of his son's shares, Phil Hellmuth was asked how he assessed his expectations in the main tournament.
Phil replied that he would sell the shares at a ratio of 4.0.
Phil Helmuth believes he's worth 4.0 markup in the main event.
That implies a 4.3x multiplier or 330% ROI. Phil pays $9300 towards the prize pool, and estimates his equity in the prize pool is around $40,000.
One way to frame this: if everyone were equal skill, how many starting chips would he need to justify that price?
Calculating ICM on the actual payout structure, he'd need to start with about 4.74x starting stacks, roughly 285k chips, to break even.
Patrick Leonard wrote a long article on this topic:
There are many worse things to gamble on than buying action in poker tournaments, it usually lasts longer than a slot machine or a spin of the roulette wheel, you’ll have a personal relationship with somebody you seemingly like/want to root for, and the returns can be high in large fields. If you want to gamble, then go ahead and gamble, but if you’re trying to do it to make money, just remember that 95% of the deals you see will not be profitable.
A way I like to think about the main is that the house is taking NINE MILLION before a hand is dealt.
So, before winning players start winning money they can put in their pocket, collectively they have to win NINE MILLION $$$$$.
Rake is a big thing and most just assume the edge is winning players vs losing players. It is in fact winning players vs rake vs losing players. And the rake almost always take first place money.
"I should read Pads' whole staking thread," advises Chris Brewer . "As someone who has absolutely sun ran pieces, my take. Be easy to work with and extremely fair. Prioritize top regs, over mass volume. Always offer to pre-pay or settle instantly. Be picky about fields, and always plan for worst case winrates/variance.
Also, don’t pay >1.1 in a high roller ever. You may be right but edge too small to be worth the swing."