Last year's champion, Evan Benton, sifted through a whopping 2,317 unique entries in this very event at 2024 World Series of Poker.
He sat down right at the start of the day to get to work on defending his title. With nearly 700 entries to start the day, only time will tell if this field will rival last summers. Either way, it would be quite the accomplishment to wade through such a large field again.
Only time will tell but you can follow along with the action here at PokerNews to see what becomes of the defending champ.
At the 2025 World Series of Poker, this year's schedule includes 100 bracelet events. One notable event returning this summer at Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas is bracelet Event #78: PokerNews Deepstack Championship (PNDC).
This also means last year's popular PokerNews Daily Deepstack Challenge is coming back, bigger and better than before!
From May 27 to June 30, players grinding the $200, $250, and $400 Daily Deepstacks tournaments at the WSOP will rack up leaderboard points. Every week, the top 10 players will be awarded a complimentary entry into the PNDC on July 1. That’s 50 seats up for grabs—10 more than last year, thanks to the additional week of action. Best of all? You can win multiple seats, meaning the more you play and perform, the better your shot at a deep WSOP run.
Welcome back to PokerNews, the official media partner of the 2025 World Series of Poker and home of live updates from all bracelet events.
Today sees the start of Event #52: $1,500 Freezeout No-Limit Hold'em here at Horseshoe and Paris Las, Vegas. Since this is a freezeout, no reentries are permitted. Starting stacks are 25,000 and blinds begin at 100/100 with 100 big blind ante.
Day 1 of the three-day event kicks off at 2 p.m. local time and will play 15 40-minute levels with 15-minute breaks every three levels. No dinner break is scheduled for Day 1, and late registration will remain open for the first nine levels (until about 8:30 p.m.).
Day 2 will pick up on Wednesday, June 18, at 1 p.m. and will play ten levels as the level length increases to 60 minutes for the duration of the tournament.
Last year, Evan Benton won his first bracelet and $412,484 as he bested the field of 2,317 players.
Year
Entries
Winner
Country
Payout
2024
2,317
Evan Benton
United States
$412,484
2023
2,046
Benjamin Ector
United States
$406,403
2022
1,773
Justin Pechie
United States
$365,899
2021
1,191
Chad Himmelspach
United States
$270,877
Planning on playing this event? PokerNews activates MyStack for every WSOP event, regardless of that tournament's buy-in, allowing you to directly adjust your chip counts in our live reporting.
MyStack is a free poker tool that puts you in control of your chip counts on our live reporting pages. Once you have created a free PokerNews account, you can use MyStack to update your chip counts in real time; hopefully, your stack will continue increasing throughout the event!
Stay closer than ever to the action with MyPlayers. This brand new, free feature on PokerNews puts your favorite poker players front and center. Whether you're keeping tabs on legends like Daniel Negreanu or following a friend grinding their way through a Day 2, MyPlayers delivers real-time updates tailored just for you. No subscriptions, no paywalls - just the hands, chip counts, and bustouts that matter most.
It’s simple: log in, search for any player in our live coverage, hit the star, and they’ll be added to your personalized MyPlayers list. You’ll see their progress across all live-reported events, with chip counts and updates pinned right where you need them at the top.
From railbirds to backers, MyPlayers is the smarter way to stay connected to the game.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for updates on this and all bracelet events at the 2025 WSOP!
