Carlson and Lim Way Ahead Going Into Final Day of $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold'em
Day 4 of Event #48: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship at the 2025 World Series of Poker has ended here at Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas.
The day began with 19 players returning out of a field of 7,575 entries and playing down to seven players. After a short day's play, Dennis Carlson (49,250,000) and Brett Lim (44,825,000) are way out in front of the chasing pack and hold more than double the chips of Jose Boloqui (18,425,000), who currently sits in third place on the leaderboard.
Jason Reels (18,400,000), Elan Lepovic (10,925,000), and Lawrence Rabie (7,900,000) are also still in contention for the $653,839 first-place prize and the WSOP bracelet. They are followed by Manish Madan, who will return with just four big blinds (1,850,000).
Final Seven Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dennis Carlson | United States | 49,250,000 | 99 |
| 2 | Brett Lim | United States | 44,825,000 | 90 |
| 3 | Jose Boloqui | United States | 18,425,000 | 37 |
| 4 | Jason Reels | United States | 18,400,000 | 37 |
| 5 | Elan Lepovic | United States | 10,925,000 | 22 |
| 6 | Lawrence Rabie | Canada | 7,900,000 | 16 |
| 7 | Manish Madan | United States | 1,850,000 | 4 |
Day 4 Action
The action started off quickly with several returning players starting the day in the ten-or-fewer-big-blinds danger zone. Alan Gould fell first in 19th place when his ace-ten fell to Mitchell Lehman’s eight-seven when Lehman spiked an eight on the river to send Gould to the rail.
Boloqui started the day off strong, building his stack from 15,450,000 to over 20,000,000 with some aggressive moves and by eliminating Raminder Singh in 17th place in a massive cooler of a hand when Singh’s kings ran into Boloqui’s aces.
The chip lead then chopped and changed for a while, with various players holding it at some point during the day, but in another massive cooler, Carlson jumped ahead of the pack when his pocket queens flopped a set against Lehman’s pocket nines, which had also flopped a set. This hand propelled Carlson’s stack to just under 30,000,000, which was way ahead at the time.
After his pocket nines nightmare against Carlson, Lehman obtained some handy double-ups, but was eventually busted in 13th place when Carlson flopped a set of nines to crack Lehman’s pocket kings and eliminated both Lehman and Adeeb Harb (14th - $33,579) in the same hand. This massive pot sent Carlson way out into the lead with just under 50,000,000.
A special mention must go to Madan, who, after leaving himself with under three big blinds when he folded preflop after Jason Reels accidentally exposed his pocket kings, stayed strong and managed to triple up, then double up and build his stack back up to over 4,000,000. He hung on to make the redraw at ten players, and advance to the final day.
After Douglas Pappan's elimination in 12th place, Ron Fetsch got himself into the mix and up to over 15,000,000 with an aggressive move against Peter Fellows, and he pushed on to nearly 20,000,000 when he took out Patrick Blackwell in 11th place.
Those magical pocket nines came into play again, and Fetsch flopped a set to crack Blackwell’s pocket tens and send him to the rail, and the remaining ten players to the unofficial final table.
The unofficial final table didn’t take too long to become official when Boloqui took out William Gibbons when his ace-queen rivered a straight to crack Gibbons’ set of tens and send him packing in 10th place. In the very next hand, Reels came back on the scene, picking up pocket aces to eliminate Peter Fellows in ninth place.
Fetsch was unfortunate to lose a big chunk of his stack to Reels, who rivered a straight to beat Fetsch’s pocket nines, and Fetsch was eventually eliminated in eighth place just before play stopped for the day when his ace-jack failed to improve against Lepovic’s ace-king.
Remaining Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | - | $653,839 |
| 2 | - | - | $435,572 |
| 3 | - | - | $326,508 |
| 4 | - | - | $246,464 |
| 5 | - | - | $187,351 |
| 6 | - | - | $143,425 |
| 7 | - | - | $110,581 |
| 8 | Ron Fetsch | United States | $85,872 |
| 9 | Peter Fellows | United States | $67,166 |
The tournament will resume for Day 5 at 2:00 p.m. local time on June 21 and will play down to a winner. A live stream for the final table will start at 3:00 p.m. Play will continue with 45 minutes remaining in Level 35, featuring blinds of 250,000/500,000 with a 500,000 big blind ante. Players will get a 15-minute break after every two levels, and there will be a dinner break to be decided.
As always, stay tuned to PokerNews to get all the latest updates as they happen here at the 2025 World Series of Poker.