Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP - June 21 - PokerListings (2024)

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• Daily Updates from the 2023 WSOP – June 21

Phil Ivey came within five players of bagging his 11th bracelet on Wednesday but fell short after bubbling the final day of play in the Poker Player's Championship. Talal Shakerchi leads the final five of that one, but it's a star-studded affair that includes two previous winners, 7 bracelets, and multiple millions in winnings. Braxton Dunaway won his first bracelet before jetting off to watch his son in the College World Series, while William Leffingwell bagged a second bracelet for the Houston Omaha community and Jay Lockett called himself "dead money going in" while he was holding his first-ever bracelet. Details on those stories and more are below.

Event #39: $1,500 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold'em Day 4

The MONSTER STACK has finally been slayed as Braxton Dunaway took down the big prize for more than $1.1 million. Dunaway had to survive five days of poker and make it through 8,317 entries for the biggest share of the $11,103,195 in total prizes. Dunaway had some tough competition in the endgame, with two bracelet winners sitting opposite him on the final day of play.

Main Event winner Joe Cada was short coming into Day 5 and was the first to exit the stage in 7th place, but Jesse Rockowitz, who won his bracelet in 2010, made it all the way to 3rd place for a score of $541,376. Once Rockowitz was on the rail with third-place money in hand, the short heads-up against Colin Robertson began with Dunaway winning it a few hands later with two pair over a pair.

Dunaway is a family man whose first order of business upon winning his first bracelet and more than $1 million was to call his wife and kids, who couldn't be here with him as his son in playing in the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. He'll be hitting the airport almost immediately to fly out there to join the rest of the family and cheer his son on, but he pledged to be back for the Main Event.

MONSTER STACK Day 5 Results

Event #43: $50,000 Poker Players Championship

The final day of play for the Poker Players Championship is now set, and old-school British pro Talal Shakerchi is on course for his first bracelet in what is arguably the toughest event in the whole series. Shakerchi leads a star-studded final five as the only player with more than 10 million. That puts him significantly ahead of former winner Matthew Ashton in second with 7.38 million. Double-PPC winner Brian Rast is also still in the mix looking to join Michael Mizrachi in the three-timers club as The Grinder is currently the only member.

James Obst and Kristopher Tong round out the final-day field. In total, there are seven bracelets and more than $14 million in WSOP earnings left in the field for Day 5, but there could have been a whole lot more had Phil Ivey not bubbled the final day of play in 6th place. He was on course to bag his 11th bracelet in this event and take over sole possession of the second spot on the bracelet race by breaking his current tie with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan on 10. Interestingly, Chan also recently had a solid chance to book his 11th when he made the final two tables of the Big O game, but neither player was quite able to finish it out.

They have one more day of poker to play in this game, and while Shakerchi has the advantage going into the final day, there's a lot of poker talent standing between him and his first WSOP bracelet. The final day of play kicks off at 1 pm and this massive bracelet will be streamed on PokerGO until the final hand is dealt.

Final Day Counts for the PPC

Event #44: $3,000 No-Limit Holdem

Event #44 is down to the final 15 players now with Aram Oganyan leading the way into the final day of play. He has just shy of 10 million to start the day while Shannon Shorr is second with 8.75 million. Aleks Dimitrov, Ankush Mandavia, and Frederic Normand are among the players who bagged chips at the end of Day 3. There were a total of 1,735 entries that built a prize pool of $4,632,450, and 261 players figured in the payouts.

Defending Main Event champ Espen Jorstad was among the players to cash out before the end of Day 3, and joining him were Eliot Hudon, Boshuang Gao, Bart Lybaert, David "ODB" Baker, Daniel Negreanu, and Jans Arends, among others. The final day of play gets underway at 11 am Vegas time with returning players all guaranteed more than $30k now but all 15 players coming back will have their sights on the $717,879 first-place prize.

Event #45: $1,500 Mixed Omaha Hi Low

Event #45 is now in the books, and Houston's William Leffingwell navigated through almost 1,100 entries to take down the top prize of $253,651 and his first bracelet. That was the biggest share of the $1,456,485 total prize pool, and Leffingwell actually called his shot, Babe Ruth style. While he didn't literally point to the bleachers, after his friend and fellow Houstonian Scott Dulaney won Event #31 last week, and in the process proclaimed his mission to prove the best Omaha players come from Houston, Dulaney challenged him to win a bracelet before the Main Event.

Leffingwell responded with "Ok, I'll come win the $1,500 Mixed Omaha event." One week later he made good on his promise and brought another Omaha-related bracelet back to Houston. He was in the middle of the table coming into the final day, and he put on a bit of a clinic in split-pot Omaha, picking his spots to find the extra value when it was available.

And it wasn't as if he was facing a bunch of nobodies for this title. Standing in his way on the final day alone was perhaps the hottest player of the last decade. Six-time bracelet winner and perennial PoY contender Shaun Deeb already has one bracelet this year and was hungry to add another, but ended up falling in 5th place. Joey Coudon had the chip lead to start the day but he could only manage fourth place in the end. And before the final day, players like Nick Kost, Alex Livingston, Maksim Pisarenko, and Leif Force stood between Leffingwell and the bracelet.

Between this win and Dulaney's win last week, the Houston Omaha community is putting the world on notice. After his win last week, Dulaney claimed Houston produces the world's-best Omaha players, and for his part, after the win Leffingwell added "PLO is our game, and we invite everyone in the world to come [to Houston to] play at any stakes."

Event #46: $500 Freezeout No-Limit Holdem

"This wasn't supposed to happen," said Jay Lockett after his win. He called himself "dead money coming in" and admitted he ran super-hot, getting quads twice at the final table, and getting there for a huge pot with ace-queen into ace-king. While Lockett was quite emotional after the win and pointed to his luck, as with any poker tournament with 5,342 entries (all unique by the way, since this was a classic freezeout game), the winner will always have gotten to the end on a combination of good play and run-good.

It was pretty shallow to start the final day of play with just 25 big blinds average. That created an action-filled day that saw the returning field of 238 players drop to the final nine in about eight hours of play. The fast pace continued with the final table finishing in around two hours.

Incredibly, this was just Lockett's second live cash, with his first coming in 2021 at the rescheduled 52nd WSOP where he took 176th place in a $600 NLHE game for just under $2k, so this win was clearly a massive boost to his bankroll. His $262,526 was the biggest share of the $2,243,640 with all players returning for Day 2 getting a piece of that pie. Runner-up Benson Tang scored $162,207 as a consolation prize.

Event #47: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.

There are still 28 jockeys left in the HORSE race and Yuri Dzivielesvskil leads by a couple of lengths rounding the final turn. The Brazilian crusher is the only one over 2 million, and is about 700k ahead of second-place Stephen Savoy with 1.345 million. The charity world will also be happy to see Gershon Distenfeld sitting in third place on the chip counts with 1.3 million as he's pledged to donate all of his winnings from the series to charity, with 10% earmarked for the Charity Series of Poker.

Andrew Barber, Scott Epstein, Randy Ohel, Anson Tsang, and Scott Baumstein are among the other players still on their HORSE for Day 3 of this $1,500 race while Jeff Lisandro, Shawn "Bucky" Buchanan, "Crazy Mike" Thorpe, Frank Kassela, Tom McCormick, and Joao Vieira were among the players to cash out on Day 2. Day 3, which begins at 1 pm on Thursday, is scheduled to be the final day of play for this game, but with 28 players returning and the pattern of extra days so far this series, don't be surprised to see a few stacks still in play when they close the Day 3 action.

Event #48: $1,000 SENIORS No-Limit Hold’em Championship - Flight A

The opening flight of the Seniors event is complete with 3,692 runners and 730 bags at the end of 11 levels of poker. That means there is already $3,285,880 in the prize pool with Thursday's Day 1b expected to be even bigger. Frank "Skullman" Harrington is the chip leader after the opening flight as one of four players with 400k or more. Rajesh Goyal, Christian Munk, and Jose Obadia Chocron are the other players in the 400k club, while Joshua Mountain rounds out the top five counts with a slightly smaller mountain of 383,000 in chips. Mark Seif also bagged a top-ten stack while Allen Kessler and Andy Black are also moving on to Day 2.

There is one more Day 1 starting flight to play in this one before the final field and prizes are decided, and the Day 1a bags will join up with 1b on Friday for Day 2.

Event #49: $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold'em

The Super Turbo Bounty lived up to its billing as they played down from 2,226 entries to the final nine players on the first day. There is $2,971,710 to play for in this one, but most of the 334 paid spots have already been spoken for. Chance Kornuth was among the min-cashers in this one and other players to pocket cash on Day 1 included Dylan Wilkerson, Jason Mann, Anh Nguyen, Eric Baldwin, Leo Margets, Erik Cajelais, Punnat Punsri, Xuan Liu, Daniel Idema, Ryan "Christopher" Comely, and Fabrice Bigot.

The final nine players will return to finish it out on Thursday with Alejandro "Papo MC" Lococo leading the counts with more than 15 million. That's not just "leading the counts" however - it is almost twice as many chips as second-place Will Linden with 8.85 million, so the Argentinian rapper appears to have a stranglehold on the field for the final day.

Event #50: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship

There were 688 entries on Day 1 of the PLO Championship for a combined prize pool of $6,398,400. That is still set to grow a bit, however, with entries for Championship events open until the start of Day 2. Daniel Aharoni has the biggest bag after one day of play with 535,000 while Japan's Motoyoshi Okamura has exactly 500k for second. Johann Ibanez, Bryce Yockey, Roman Hrabec, Paul "Jaspal" Brar, Sean Winter, Isaac Kempton, Joao Vieira, and Nick Schulman are among the 265 bags still in play after the first day.

There are 10 levels of poker on the Day 2 schedule, and the field for this one will be set when the cards go in the air at 2 pm on Thursday.

Upcoming Events on June 22

Event #48: $1,000 SENIORS No-Limit Hold’em Championship - Flight B

• Start: 10 am
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 20,000
• Reentries: 1 per Flight
• Must be 50 years of age or older to enter

Event #51: $1,000 TAG TEAM No-Limit Hold'em

• Start: 12 noon
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 20,000
• Reentries: 0

Event #52: $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball

• Start: 2 pm
• Late Entry: 8 Levels
• Start Stack: 35,000
• Reentries: 1

Online Event #9: $1,000 PLO Championship

• Start: 3:30 pm