A WSOP bracelet-awarding event costing a mere $300 to enter was always going to attract a huge field, which is precisely what happened on Day 1a of Event #20: $300 Gladiators of Poker No-Limit Hold'em. The cheapest bracelet event of the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas attracted 3,792 players, with only 124 surviving the flight.
Caleb Levesque enjoyed himself on Day 1a of this event, turning his 30,000 starting stack into 3,145,000 chips, which is some feat by the Californian. Levesque has cashed at the WSOP once before, doing so in the $1,500 Mixed No-Limit Hold'em/Pot Limit Omaha event in 2023. More recently, in November 2023, he finished third in the $400 Monster Stack event at the WSOP Circuit Nevada festival for a career-best $12,502.
End of Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Caleb Levesque | United States | 3,145,000 |
| 2 | Rami Hammoud | Canada | 2,760,000 |
| 3 | Leo Pinamonti | United States | 2,440,000 |
| 4 | Christophe Goeman | United States | 2,250,000 |
| 5 | Waqas Seyal | United States | 2,240,000 |
| 6 | Stephen Hinckesman | United Kingdom | 2,140,000 |
| 7 | Dong Ji | United States | 2,105,000 |
| 8 | Tyler Barnes | United States | 2,070,000 |
| 9 | Richard Collins | United States | 2,040,000 |
| 10 | Dustin Ethridge | United States | 1,990,000 |
Affordable tournaments such as these do not often attract poker's big guns. However, DJ Buckley decided to flick in the $300 and see how things went. Buckley is on a high right now, having pulled out a $1 million bounty in the Mystery Millions event. Buckley finished with 1,230,000 chips in his stack in the Gladiators of Poker event, enough for 25th place in the overnight chip counts.
Other players you may be familiar with include bracelet winner Dalibor Dula and Garrett Greer.
It will not be surprising to see more poker stars entering this tournament over the next three flights because the WSOP has slapped a $3 million guarantee on its prize pool. More than $930,000 has already been collected after Day 1a, so the prizes are going to grow into something quite spectacular.
Day 1b kicks off at 10:00 a.m. local time on June 7. PokerNews' traditional coverage of this event starts on Day 2 on June 10.
