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- Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 12
Lyle Bateman
PokerListings Author
June 13, 2023 · 6 minutes to read
Jason Simon bested the biggest field of the series so far after making it through the more than 23k runners to become the 2023 Gladiator of Poker. Ben Lamb bagged the lead for the final day of play in the $10k O8 Championship while Adrian Mateos is leading the way in the $100k High Roller event.
Event #18: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-limit Hold'em
The biggest field so far this year has finally been reduced to just one player with all the chips after Jason Simon took down the Gladiators of Poker (Event #18) for just shy of $500,000. The numbers in this one were truly eye-eatering for a $300 buy-in with the 23,088 entries combining for a total prize pool of $5,679,648, nearly double the $3 million guarantee.
The massive field was built over four starting days, with the final day hitting almost 8,500 runners. Of those Day 1 hopefuls, just 827 made it through to the second day of play but that doesn't mean they all went home empty-handed. This was a Day 1 cash event, so, on all four Day 1 flights, a significant number of players went home with a bit of cash in their pockets late in the night.
In total, there were almost 3,200 players who pocketed cash from this one, either on Day 1 or in the final stages. Of course, most of the money was on the final days, and players who made Day 2 were playing for $3,603,162 still remaining. Day 2 ended with just 14 players left and eventual winner Simon sitting in the fourth spot in the chip counts. In the end, he ended up in a heads-up battle with the start-of-day leader Eric Trexler.
Simon got heads-up with a chip lead after making a run on the final day and took it down fairly quickly. It was Simon's first bracelet and his biggest ever cash, which was also true of runner-up Trexler's score of $301,097.
Event #25: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship
It's hardly a surprise that the final seven players in the $10k O8 Championship include a lot of familiar names and faces. The smiling face of Ben Lamb sits atop the final day standings with almost 2.55 million chips. Erik Seidel, Luis Velador, and Brad Ruben all have more than 2 million as well, while Robert Yass, Johannes Becker, and James Chen round out the final field with shorter stacks to start the day.
There were a total of 212 entries in this one, continuing a trend this year of big fields with 212 entries for this one and a prize pool of almost $2 million. While the final list of contenders is distinguished as a whole, it's hard to ignore the gargantuan presence of nine-time bracelet winner Seidel. With the 3rd biggest stack to start the day, and just a hair behind Velador in second, Seidel will return today with a solid chance to become just the 5th player in history to win at least 10 WSOP events to draw even with greats like Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Ivey.
Seidel won't have an easy run though. Outside the chip leader Lamb, who has a bracelet of his own and more than $8.5 million in winnings on the WSOP alone, Becker, Ruben, and Chen can all be dangerous no matter how many chips they have. The final seven return to finish it out at 2 pm on Tuesday with the winner set to pocket $492,795 in addition to the Championship bracelet.
Event #26: $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack
Just two players are left in the game after the end of the second day of play in the $800 Deepstack game. There were 4,747 entries for a total prize pool of $3,341,888, and one of the two players returning Tuesday will pocket $402,588 plus a gold bracelet. Matthew Elsby and Renji Mao were the only players left with chips after the second day with Elsby holding the lead with ~119m to ~71m. While that may sound like a lot of chips, they will be coming back to 1.5m/3m/3m blinds, so the 71m stack of Mao is only worth a bit more than 20 bigs meaning the heads-up phase could go pretty quickly.
Event #27: $1,500 Eight Game Mix 6-Handed
They played for 10 hours on Day 2 of the $1,500 8-Game tournament and there are still 21 players remaining in action for what should be the final day of play. Chad Campbell is the chip leader going into Day 3 with just under 2 million chips, while Daniel Strelitz is second with almost 1.8 million. John Bunch, Robert Mizarchi, and Shaun Deeb are among the other players to bag a big stack.
Outside the top ten there are a few other notables still left in this one. Four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (who moonlights off the table as co-commentator of Poker After Dark on PokerGO as well as commentary in the pool world and just bagged his fourth bracelet earlier in the series) has 828k to start Day 3, while three-time winner David "Bakes" Baker has a short stack of 440k.
Event #28: $1,500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem
There were more than 2,000 entries for the $1,500 Freezeout generating a prize pool of $2,731,410. That means there will be 307 players sharing in the prizes with the earliest cashers pocketing $2,406 and $406,403 up top for the winner and when Day 1 ended there were only 188 players left in the game.
That means players returning for Day 2 are guaranteed at least $3,007. The first pay jump will happen at 170th place when the payouts jump to $3,282 and that should happen very early on Day 2. Hao Zhou leads the way with 970k but Taylor Paur is close behind in second with 876k. Dietrich Fast, Ryan Leng, Chino Rheem, Masaki Nakamura, Mustapha Kanit, and Upeshka De Silva are among the other notables to bag a stack for Day 2. Cards are back in the air at 10 am Vegas time and there are 10 levels on the schedule for Day 2.
Event #29: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em
There are just 35 players left in the $100k High Roller game after the opening day of play and it is no surprise that the top ten reads like a poker whos-who. Adrian Mateos leads the way into Day 2 with 3,650,000, but Chris "BigHuni" Hunichen is right on his heels with 3,620,000. Chance Kornuth also has more than 3 million, while reigning Main Event champ Espen Jorstad is fourth with 2.2 million. Jeremy Ausmus, Talal Shakerchi, Cary Katz, Koray Aldemir, Justin Bonomo, and Ren Lin round out the stellar top ten.
There were 79 entries for this nosebleed game, making this another tournament to go beyond last year's field size with 17 extra this year. That meant a prize pool of $7,643,250 making this the biggest single-day prize pool so far this year. The payouts for this one are yet to be posted, but it looks like 12 players will share in the money.
Event #30: $1,500 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw
There were 522 entries for the $1,500 Triple Draw Deuce game this year continuing the trend of 500+ fields for the mixed games. That put $696,870 into the pot to play for with $145,863 up top for the win. 79 players will share in the prizes for this one with the earliest paid exits getting $2,405 for their troubles.
Jason Gola is in a good position to take down his second bracelet as the only player to start Day 2 with more than 200k. However, he has some stiff competition in the top ten from the likes of John Monnette, Tom Schneider, Alex Epstein, and David Funkhouser to name but a few. Among the other players to continue on to Day 2 with smaller stacks are Chris Vitch, Randy Ohel, Dan Shak, Allen Kessler, Viktor "Isuldur1" Blom, and Benny Glaser, who recently became the winningest player in PokerStars' COOP series history with 18 titles.
Upcoming Events on June 13
Event #31: $600 Mixed No-Limit Hold'em; Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack
- Start: 10 am
- Late Entry: 12 Levels
- Start Stack: 30,000
- Reentries: 2
Event #32: $3,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em
- Start: 12 Noon
- Late Entry: 12 Levels
- Start Stack: 40,000
- Reentries: 1
Event #33: $10,000 Razz Championship
- Start: 2 pm
- Late Entry: Start of Day 2
- Start Stack: 60,000
- Reentries: 0
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