Event #53: $1,500 Millionaire Maker

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He is followed by professionals Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Colman, both also yet to win a Main Event in Las Vegas. In the 2008 World Series of Poker, the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event counted toward the Player of the Year award, but the Main Event did not. Beginning with the 2006 World Series of Poker, the Main Event and the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. competition had no effect on the outcome of the winner of the Player of the Year award. He won his seat at a $225 satellite tournament at Pechanga Resort & Casino, in California. The winner of the Main Event has traditionally been given the unofficial title of World Champion.

He was the shortest stack during four-handed play at the final table but staged a comeback to defeat Isaac Haxton heads-up. Pan already had a few WSOP final tables under his belt, including a 6th-place finish in this same event in 2019 and a 4th in Omaha 8 in 2023. With this bracelet win, he reminds everyone he’s still got game. Nick Schulman had a shot at winning his 8th bracelet in one of his best games, 2-7.

Event #53: $1,500 Millionaire Maker

Moneymaker bounced out in ninth, and the Kornuth/Foxen combo did marginally better, with Foxen bowing in fifth and Kornuth falling short in second. Will WPT scale down the event and return to Vegas in December, or move to a less crowded spot in January? The season finale has taken place at Wynn Las Vegas over the last few years, but competition with WSOP Paradise is fierce.

In the final hand, his pocket threes held against ace-jack suited in a classic flip. Cary Catz silences loud Brazilian rail with heads-up win over fan-favorite Breno Drumond. He missed almost the entire WSOP last year and didn’t play a lot this year. Later, Mike said that the break was one of the keys to his success, as he hadn’t been feeling well (he even wore a mask) and couldn’t fully focus on his game. Although originally from Italy, he has lived in France for over 30 years, so he received plenty of support from the French rail as well. The Italian poker enthusiast Giuseppe Zarbo has won the $800 Summer Celebration.

At the final table, he folded many strong hands while waiting for the right spot. After the victory, Wang admitted that patience was the main factor that helped him get through the field of 716 entries and win the tournament. At the final table, however, he wasn’t worried about the pay jumps, as any finish already guaranteed him a solid payday. American Daniyal Gheba won his first WSOP gold bracelet and a career-best prize of $502,985. To see how this year’s results compare with the previous series, check out our complete list of WSOP 2025 winners.

Black Friday didn’t help, as the affiliate model in the US just can’t survive promoting solely regulated online poker, and there isn’t money to have competing updates teams at the WSOP anymore. You saw poker media evolve from blogs, written updates, and experimental podcasts into official livestreams, social video, and organization-owned content. With only a handful of exceptions, I don’t think any player really struck me as wildly different from how they were on television. Everyone on the team at that time really was committed to putting on the best event they could and doing so in a way that revered the brand.

The meat of my career was live updates, so I hold a soft spot for those because that remains the best way to really embrace the game itself and break down a hand. Nothing compared to that format of podcast where you heard the news of what was going on in the tournament, what the gossip was, where people ended up after play ended, and, my personal favorite, the table talk. Honestly, if Chops hadn’t outlined the vision for others, I don’t think I would have ended up doing as much multimedia as I did because the industry was so stuck in the paradigm of girl in poker video equals ‘hot girl.’

This week in Las Vegas, he captured his fifth WSOP bracelet and recorded the biggest cash of his career. In the final hand, Jason’s pocket aces held against his opponent’s flush draw to secure the title. More than 10 years ago, Omar Zazay stepped away from professional poker to focus on business, but he continued to make annual trips to the WSOP. He has six WSOP Circuit rings and one WSOP bracelet, which he won on WSOP.com.

Qinghai Pan claimed his first live bracelet in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud 8 Championship. Kupin held the chip lead since the end of Day 2 and maintained it through the final day. Aaron Kupin earned his first bracelet after defeating mixed game specialist Marco Johnson. Though his previous three wins came in Rozvadov, this is his first bracelet in Las Vegas. Kempe was one of the regulars on the High Roller tournaments between 2015 and 2020, though his appearances slowed down after COVID.

At the final table, Moshe eliminated several experienced opponents, including Chris Moorman, David Miscikowski, and Ihor Popyk. Before that, Adrian had only two cashes in tournaments back home. Patrick moved into the chip lead after winning a big pot without showdown against Danny Tang and eliminating Arthur Morris. In the final hand of the tournament, Martirosian moved all in with A♣9♦8♣8♥, and Negreanu called with K♦9♠3♦2♠.

Maranz previously worked on ESPN’s football pre-game show, and has also produced taped segments for NBC’s Olympic coverage. They included coverage of the entire tournament, with a “Featured Table”. In 1977, the first ladies-only event was introduced in the form of $100 buy-in Stud Poker Tournament. In 2025, Leo Margets of Spain became the first woman in 30 years, and second woman overall, to reach the Final Table; she would finish in seventh place, cashing for $1.5 million. Vanessa Selbst, Barbara Enright and Nani Dollison all have won three WSOP bracelets.

The final two days of the 2005 WSOP Main Event were held downtown at what is now the MTR-operated “Binion’s” in celebration of the centennial of the founding of Las Vegas. The format for the Main Event as a freeze-out Texas hold ’em game came the next year. It was an invitational event sponsored by Tom Moore of Castle Hills, Texas, and held at the Holiday Hotel and Casino in Reno. The idea of a World Series of Poker began in 1969 with an event called the Texas Gamblers Reunion. The 2024 WSOP was held at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, and saw record-breaking attendance for the Main Event tournament. The following year, he successfully defended his title in a field of 2,066 entrants for $262,392.

By early December 2011, the field size had increased to 22, the minimum required for an official bracelet tournament. In 2024, entry fees across all events range from $300 to $250,000, the latter being for the Super High Roller event. In the main event alone, the number of participants grew from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006, and has hovered between 6,300 and 7,200 entrants in the eleven years since. The event moved again in 2013, this time to the Paris suburb of Enghien-les-Bains. However, it is currently treated as a WSOP Circuit event, with no bracelets awarded. This made her the youngest person ever to win a WSOP bracelet, a record that cannot be broken in the Las Vegas WSOP under current laws because the minimum legal age for casino gaming in Nevada is 21.

He became the dominant chip leader at the end of Day 2 after his aces beat Shaun Winter’s pocket kings. Koon got two massive coolers in his favor late in the tournament. His previous WSOP win came in the $25K Heads-Up Championship back in 2021. Stroeber defeated Daniel Cosner heads-up to claim the biggest prize of his life.

Also look out for the “WPT Main Event Super Satellite events on the schedule.Online satatlies can be found at WPT Global or ClubWPT The six-figure featured event attracted 45 entrants and a prize pool of $4,612,500. The beautiful Wynn Las Vegas was the host of a pair of high roller events, in which a portion of each entry fee will be donated directly to One Drop Foundation. The most prominent of World Poker Tour events belong to the WPT Main Tour. Most of the large operators will offer packages via online satellites and you can get packages including travel and sometimes expenses. Over the last few years King’s Resort in Rozvadov, Czech Republic has hosted the event and 15 bracelets will be up for grabs in 2023.

You can also win your way in for free by placing in The Beast or Sit & Crush weekly rake races. Players will be able to play multiple Venom starting flights and combine their stacks for Day 2. One big chunk, $12 million, will be up for grabs in the NLH version, which has bounty prizes that range from $5K to $500K.

Gavrieli had previously earned $300K in live tournaments, and now he’s added another $200K to his total. For the third time in less than a month, we’re mentioning yet another bracelet win by Benny Glaser. The thing is, Yaginuma was in contention for an additional $1,000,000 from ClubWPT Gold, so it feels like the two players might have made a deal before heads-up began. When he’s not playing WSOP events, you can often find him grinding at Aria or Wynn. Phil Ivey made a deep run in the tournament but couldn’t convert his chip-leading stack during the final ten into more than a 6th-place finish. Brian Rast has joined Benny Glaser and Nick Schulman in winning their seventh WSOP bracelets this summer.

• Phil Ivey made a deep run in the tournament but couldn’t convert his chip-leading stack during the final ten into more than a 6th-place finish.
• He made numerous final tables over the past few years but never managed to get his hands on a trophy.
• Only two players in the final ten had never won a WSOP bracelet before.
• After the victory, Daniyal admitted that the prize money could change his life.
• Monthly leaderboards for players in the American, Asian, Oceanic and European regions are awarding even more bonus chips!
• Our tournament calendar is updated frequently.

More or less the same as the previous event but with shorter blind levels and faster action. The other event of the day was the $600 No Limit Hold’em Turbo ($50k GTD). To get there, Mizrahi had to get past Rodruigo Cella during heads up play. Michael Sklenicka took the championship title down, earning $2,339,200, a trophy, and a spot in the history books.

The Super Seniors event — open to players aged 60 and over — was won by businessman Lonny Weitzel. This win should be a major boost to Rosborough’s bankroll, and he’s now planning to play more tournaments this summer than he originally expected. The gold went to Brett Lim, a poker enthusiast since the 1990s who had never played major tournaments before.

Meanwhile, the PLO event features a $3M prize pool, with bounties that range from $5K to $250K. The PLO and NLH Venom tournaments kicked off today with a combined $15M in guarantees spread across several starting flights all month. No matter what happens with the season finale, it’s clear that WPT is intent on establishing a greater presence in Las Vegas, especially during the times of year when WSOP isn’t around. That said, I’ll probably end up going, because I won both the $10K and $25K APT events in January, and each champion got a seat to the APT Main Event in November.

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Even after being on camera in various capacities for years, when I worked as the WPT Live Update Hostess in Season X, the larger poker community still pushed back. Thankfully, Wicked Chops Poker created this position for me on their weekly poker show where I popped in and gave them the major headlines from the industry for five minutes. As a tournament reporter, I was so behind the scenes and so low on the ladder that I did not feel that pressure. A lot of people would say poker was pretty nasty with misogyny during that period. You entered a poker industry that was overwhelmingly male, both at the tables and in the media.

He captured his first bracelet in one of the few events that attracted more than 10,000 entries. Over the past eight years, Daisuke Ogita has won tournaments across several major series (EPT, APT, and WPT), but had never finished higher than third place at the WSOP. After six final tables since 2021, Dylan Smith finally captured his first WSOP bracelet. Another reason I love mixed games is because they’re a little bit more casual than Hold’em tournaments.” Entering heads-up play against Daniil Fedunov, Atchison had about one-seventh of his opponent’s stack, but within an hour he had taken over the chip lead. The main favorite entering the match was Nick Schulman, who already held bracelets won in 2-7 Triple Draw events.

EPT Paris – In 2023, the romantic city of Paris hosted an EPT for the first time, and no European Poker Tour (EPT) debut has ever made such a splash. The 2023 EPT Monte-Carlo Main Event attracted a record 1,098 entrants for a prize pool of €5,325,300. The European Poker Tour (EPT) is Europe’s largest and most popular poker circuit.

Since 2012, he has cashed more than 500 times in live tournaments, but he had only one WSOP bracelet on his résumé, which he won in an online event. Philip Chun captured his first WSOP bracelet and immediately doubled his lifetime live tournament earnings by winning one of the largest-field events of WSOP 2026. With US online poker regulated in several states, players can now qualify for Borgata Poker Open tournaments via online satellites regularly hosted at BetMGM Poker and Borgata Poker. In these tournaments the prize pool goes to buying tickets for the higher buy-in tournament and the ticket(s) are then distributed to the winning players instead of cash. Thanks to partnerships with leading online poker platforms, players can qualify for APPT events via online satellites, enhancing accessibility for newcomers and seasoned players alike.

Ever wonder who is the best poker player in the world? We offer daily poker and casino news, poker professionals’ blogs and tweets, exclusive gambling videos, thousands of free gambling articles, as well as coverage from all major poker tournaments in the world. Canterbury Park offers the most poker tournaments in the Midwest. MyPokerSeries handles no money and doesn’t verify reported results — payments are settled directly between players. Trade an agreed % with another player in the same tournament. Real-time view of the poker series we’re tracking.

So, if livestreams are paramount, they can demand you delay your updates and you have to say yes. You are also beholden to your client to deliver a product they want. On the flip side, I think poker tours consolidating media in house or to official contractors has really killed the rest of poker content. Interviewing them, I got to see a bit of personality that didn’t necessarily come out at the tables, but I don’t know if ‘concealed’ is the word I would use. Working directly for the WSOP did give me a great appreciation for the importance of logistics which were often lost on the larger poker community. When you later worked on the official WSOP side, how did your understanding of the event change?

Yilong Wang, a relatively unknown player from China, won the $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. He was always in the top three during the first three days, then became the chip leader by the end of Day 4 and at the final table, he just never looked back. They rotated frequently since Day 3 began, but Kelvin was the driving force at the final table and secured the win by taking down the final hand against Hicham Mahmouki.

Popular poker games commonly played in live tournaments include Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud and other variations. Live poker tournaments can be watched online on various streaming latest online poker news platforms such as Twitch, as well as on specialized sites that broadcast poker events. The WSOP, the most iconic live poker series, provides online qualification options for events in Las Vegas and WSOP Europe.