Nielsen Leads Final Five In $10,000 Short Deck Championship
After close to nine hours of play on Day 2 of Event #93: $10,000 Short Deck Championship at the 2023 World Series of Poker, only five players remain in the hunt for WSOP gold.
Once the dust settled, it was Martin Nielsen who claimed the chip lead with a stack of 2,007,000. Nielsen, who mentioned he is a software engineer, has only $31,000 in tournament winnings and has already well surpassed his career-best score of $13,166 from back in 2022.
Eric Wasserson bagged a healthy stack of 1,705,000 and will look to capture his first bracelet with a win here. Most recently, Wasserson finished seventh in Event #89: $1,000 Flip & GO for $21,880 only a few days ago.
Final Day Seat Assignments
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Antes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Wasserson | United States | 1,705,000 | 284 |
| 2 | Ivan Ermin | Russia | 743,000 | 124 |
| 3 | Hong Wei Yu | United States | 1,596,000 | 266 |
| 4 | Martin Nielsen | Faroe Islands | 2,007,000 | 335 |
| 5 | John Juanda | Indonesia | 332,000 | 55 |
Day 2 Action
A total of 31 players bagged on Day 1, and with late registration open until the start of Day 2, another 22 players jumped in the short-deck action to bring the total to 106 entries. The prize pool collected $895,300 with the winner taking home $270,160 and the prestigious gold bracelet.
Many big-name pros max late registered, but some who couldn’t find any run good included high-stakes regulars Seth Davies, David Peters, Jeremy Ausmus, and 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess joined on Day 2 and made it to the final 17 players, but after nursing a short-stack for a while, was eliminated as the unfortunate “bubble boy”.
Once in the money, the action was fast and furious for the next level of play. Some who were fortunate enough to find a cash included last year’s champion Shota Nakanishi (14th - $19,636), Mikita Badziakouski (13th - $19,636), and Sam Soverel (8th - $29,028), who finished on the final table bubble.
The official seven-handed final table kicked off with John Juanda in the lead, but that didn’t last long when he got it all in with a set of nines against the set of tens for Wasserson to score the massive double up.
Chris Brewer built up an impressive stack throughout the day and had his sights set on another bracelet and Player of The Year, however, his day ended when he ran his kings into the ace-king for Nielsen to make quads on board and eliminate Brewer in seventh place.
Shortly after, Nobuaki Sasaki got his remaining chips in the middle on a king-high board with king-queen, but was up against the flopped set of jacks for Wasserson. The board didn't improve Nobuaki and he was sent to the payout desk in sixth place.
The final five players will return to the Horseshoe blue section tomorrow, July 18th at 1 p.m. and will play until a winner is crowned. The antes will resume at 6,000 with 23:27 left on the current level and continue to be 60 minutes in length.
As always, be sure to stick with PokerNews for all your up-to-date coverage of the remainder of this event and the rest of the 2023 WSOP at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
