After a month of continuous poker action at the 49th World Series of Poker, the highly prestigious US$10,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event finally took center stage, and to say it was big is an understatement.
The past three days saw players from all over the world crowd the Rio All-Suite Casino resulting in an enormous turnout of 7,874 players. Let’s have a look at how that breaks down:
Day 1A = 925 players
Day 1B = 2,378 players
Day 1C = 4,571 players
*The official number of survivors has yet to be announced.
This now becomes the second largest WSOP Main Event attendance bested only by the 8,773 entries of 2006. Added to that, the massive 4,571 draw of Day 1C set a record high as the single biggest flight in the tour’s history.
Moving on to more jaw-dropping figures, let’s have a look at the prize pool and the payouts. Players are looking at a pot worth $74,015,600 with the final 9 earning seven-figures. All eyes though are on the main prize which is a whopping $8,800,000.
Main Event payouts
1st: $8,800,000
2nd: $5,000,000
3rd: $3,750,000
4th: $2,825,000
5th: $2,150,000
6th: $1,800,000
7th: $1,500,000
8th: $1,250,000
9th: $1,000,0001,182nd: $15,000https://t.co/zt6l3nvgvg
— WSOP (@WSOP) July 5, 2018
Starting days ins and outs
As they enter Day 2, Frenchman Samuel Touil will be at the helm with the overall largest stack bagged of 352,800. Joining him is a long list of bracelet winners and notable pros such as Patrik Antonius, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Adrian Mateos, David Peters, Shaun Deeb, Alex Foxen, Johnny Chan, Martin Jacobson, Joe Cada, Eli Elezra, Jason Mercier, Jonathan Duhamel, Joe Hachem, Chris Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen, Joe McKeehen, Alex Papazian, Erik Seidel, Dominik Nitsche, Antonio Esfandiari, Chino Reem, Justin Bonomo, and the list goes on.
For last year’s champion, Scott Blumstein, there won’t be a repeat. He was one of the Day 1A casualties. Also out of the running were Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, Vanessa Selbst, Jamie Gold, and Greg Raymer to mention a few.
Out of all the eliminations, bracelet winner Max Steinberg had the earliest of exits seeing all of one hand. He was dealt pocket aces on his first hand and somehow had it all in against Michael Rack with pocket kings. A lucky king graced the board to quickly send him out. He immediately tweeted,
Well this is a first. AA first hand of the main. Get it all in vs KK. K in the window. Two players said they folded other aces. GG!
— Maxyface (@MaxJSteinberg) July 3, 2018
Asian contenders
Asia was well-represented in the Main Event and though the ultimate goal is still several days away, many did advance into Day 2. Among them were Mike Takayama, Aditya Sushant, Nikita Luther, Raiden Kan, Aditya Agarwal, Muskan Sethi, Chris Chong, Steve Yea, Terry Fan, James Chen, Iori Yogo, Park Yu “Sparrow” Cheung, Lester Edoc, Yuki Ko, Carlos Chang, Marc Rivera, John Tech, Yukiko Sumida, Ben Lai, Yah Loon Lim, and Ha Duong.
60k to end day 1c of the main #WSOP2018
— Aditya Agarwal (@AdiAgarwal_int) July 5, 2018
A long list of players from China and Israel also made it through. A few among the Chinese contingent were Yang Zhang, Sixiao Li, Wei Guo Liang, and Hui Wang. From Israel were top players Ran Azor, Idan Raviv, and Hari Bercovici. One player from United Arab Emirates advanced, Dashrath Dhawan, and one player from Syria, Amjad Nader.
Somuchpoker will keep track of the action so stick with us as we update you on the Day 2 results and the progress of the Asian players.
Article by Tricia David
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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