Millionaire Maker Day 2 Will See 2,322 Players Return
The trend of breaking records persists at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas venues. A remarkable number of 5,845 participants registered for Day 1b of Event #53: $1,500 Millionaire Maker at the 2023 World Series of Poker, surpassing the 4,585 entries recorded on Day 1a. Consequently, these two days combined to establish the biggest poker event with a $1,500 buy-in in history, boasting a total of more than 10,430 entries.
The 2,322 players who survived the two starting flights in the hope of becoming the next millionaire will all be together today for Day 2, with the shuffle up and deal scheduled at 10 a.m. local time.
Day 1b chip leader, Canadian player Nicola Basile, holder of three WSOP rings, will start with the overall chip lead, bringing 480,000 to the felt.
Basile and Peng Li (460,000) will take the two largest stacks into play today, but they’ll be up against plenty of big names from the poker world who survived their opening days.
Alex Greenblatt, who has made deep runs in these types of large field tournaments, is also in the top ten counts with 405,000.
Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nicola Basile | Canada | 480,000 | 192 |
| 2 | Peng Li | United States | 460,000 | 184 |
| 3 | Paul Gunness | United States | 430,000 | 172 |
| 4 | Ryan Dodd | United States | 414,500 | 166 |
| 5 | Zilong Zhang | United States | 407,000 | 163 |
| 6 | Alex Greenblatt | United States | 405,500 | 157 |
| 7 | Christian Vaca | United States | 405,000 | 162 |
| 8 | Pei Li | United States | 396,500 | 159 |
| 9 | Osman Ihlamur | Turkey | 392,000 | 157 |
| 10 | Stan Yuk Lee | United States | 386,000 | 154 |
Many notables will be back in the battle for the million today, as Matt Affleck (314,500), multiple bracelet-winners Julien Martini (269,000) and Dutch Boyd (241,500), Loni Harwood (220,500), along with WSOP Main Event champions Espen Jorstad (149,500), Martin Jacobson (169,000), Jamie Gold (83,000), and Ryan Riess (42,000).
A few familiar faces will be entering the day with a short stack and looking to quickly spin them up, including recent winner of Event #28: $1,500 NLH Freezeout Benjamin Ector (36,500), Joseph Cheong (21,500), Johan Guilbert (29,500) and Georgios Sotiropoulos (20,500).
The cards are set to go in the air at 10 a.m. local time with the blinds resuming on Level 12 at 1,000/2,500 and a 2,500 big blind ante. The schedule calls for a total of ten 60-minute levels on Day 2 with a 15-minute break after every two levels. There will be a 60-minute dinner break after Level 17 which is at approximately 4:30 p.m.
Keep it locked here as the PokerNews live reporting team will have all the updates for you throughout the day from Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.