The event everyone looks forward to each year is the 2024 World Series Of Poker $10,000 Main Event No Limit Hold’em World Championship, where one player attains legendary status, claiming the coveted championship bracelet and a life-changing cash prize. This year a record 10,112 players sought that dream at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas to build a prize pool of $94,041,600. By the end of Day 7, the last of the Asian contenders vanished. We’ve got those results including more Asia deep runs at the remaining side events.
Yake Wu Runs Deepest For Asia
Increasing each year, Asian players were in full force with many notables reaching double digits. China’s Biao Ding, once seen in the upper ranks, and Taiwanese local star Chi Jen Chen finished 69th and 67th for $140,000 each. Four-time Triton winner from Hong Kong Danny Tang laddered up to 62nd for $160,000.
At the start of Day 7, only four Asian hopefuls remained, and by the end of day, each one met their end. Going the furthest was 2019 GPI Player of the Year Yake Wu who entered as top 5 but after several hits, he bowed out 20th for $350,000. This was Wu’s 29th WSOP career cash and first Main Event payday. Eight spots down, was another Chinese player, Shundan Xiao who placed 28th for $300,000.
Japan once had the most qualifiers in the money round with the last two bowing out – Kyosuke Nagami (21st – $350,000) and Hiroki Nawa (45th – $200,000). Lower down the rung were notables Nevan Chang (125th – $100,000), Wai Kit Lo (128th – $85,000), and Jangkyu Lee (156th – $70,000).
Asian Players At the Remaining WSOP Events
With 99 bracelets awarded this year, fallouts at the main jumped straight into these last events to try to capture the elusive gold. Several Asian fared well, most notably Ishibashi Dai who knocked on victory’s door.
Ishibashi Dai Finishes Runner-Up At $10K Eight Game Mix
Magnificent run by Japanese pro Ishibashi Dai finishing 2nd to multi bracelet winner Calvin Anderson at the $10,000 Eight Game Mix (6-Handed). Anderson claimed the top prize of $413,446 and his fifth career WSOP bracelet while Ishibashi had to settle for a career high payout of $271,351.
The 189 entries brought the prize pool to $1,757,700 with only 29 making it into the money. Koji Fujimoto of Japan was the only other Asian to cash in this event in 18th place for $22,643. At heads up, Anderson and Ishibashi returned for an unscheduled Day 4 to compete for the bracelet. Anderson had a significant 2:1 chip lead and never relinquished.
Ishibiashi’s resume on Hendon Mob only started filling up on August 2023. In the first five records of his cashes, Dai has a 3rd place finish in PokerStars Live NLHE Freezeout Hyper Turbo in the Philippines, a championship in the Asian Poker Tour Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Mix 4/5/6/ Cards 7 Max event in Vietnam and two consecutive runner-ups at two events at the 2024 Kinds Series of Poker GG Poker South America in Brazil. It’s also Dai’s first time to participate in the WSOP, and has made 6 significant cashes, all from this series, including this 2nd place finish.
Wooram Cho Reaches Final Table And Punnat Punsri Cashes at $50K High Roller
Korean poker pro Wooram Cho made it to the intimidating final table of the $3,000 Limit H.O.R.S.E. (8-Handed) flanked by WSOP bracelet and ring winners. Cho may not have WSOP jewelry, but he’s no slouch either. In the past four years, has has bagged ten first place finishes in major tournaments around Asia in different poker disciplines. Before going to the WSOP in Las Vegas, Cho had an eventful March 2024 at the Asian Poker Tour in Taiwan with 4 cashes and 3 final tables, bagging two runner-ups and winning one.
Cho finished 8th out of 354 entries for a payout of $18,238. Other Asian ITM finishers were China’s Xiaochuan Zhang in 12th and female Japanese pro Itsuko Yoroi who managed to cross the line at 46th for her 10th career WSOP cash.
The eventual winner was two-time WSOP circuit ring winner Gary Bolden, who added a WSOP bracelet to his collection plus a cash prize of $206,321
178 High Rollers coughed up the $50,000 buy in of the High Roller No-Limit Hold’em event bringing the prize pool to a whopping $8,499,500. Only the top 27 earned a payout with with Thailand’s top player Punnat Punsri just making the cut in 25th place. Rising to victory was USA’s Jared Bleznick who earned his first WSOP bracelet and a sizable $2,033,947 payout.
Bleznick outlasted an international final table from five countries, defeating USA’s Jesse Lonis at heads up. Lonis also went home a millionaire with $1,353,633 awarded for his runner-up finish.
Tsugunari Toma, Xuming Qi Just Outside Final Table At $1,500 6-Handed PLO
1,304 entries entered the 2024 WSOP Event #90 WSOP $1,500 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha to generate a prize pool of $1,740,840. While the title went to Joseph Sanders for his first WSOP bracelet, several Asian pros did find success as well.
Japan’s Tsugunari Toma and China’s Xuming Qi nearly reached the final table. Tsugunari Toma finished 10th for a payout of $19,681 payout. This was his 5th and most significant WSOP career cash however it was far behind his half a million dollar score at the European Poker Tour No-Limit Hold’em High Roller back in 2019. Tsugunari is listed as Japan’s 2nd ranked all time money list with over $3 million in earnings.
Xuming Qi finished 12th for $15,317, making this his 37th career WSOP cash and 9th in this 2024 series. Qi has over $1 million in total live earnings. Other Asian players who made decent payouts were Ken Okada (26th), Takashi Ogura (57th), Guoliang Wei (61st) and Renji Mao (75th).
*Article by JJ Duque
Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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