After taking a huge hit, losing a preflop race with A♠K♦ against Richard Pipe's J♥J♠, Jessica Cai was down to just 22,000 chips. Two hands later, she was back in the mix.
She won the first hand with 7♣7♠ against Joe Hindry's A♦7♦ and the board came 2♠10♥10♠Q♥J♦. On the second hand, she went all in against Hindry again, this time as a huge underdog.
Jessica Cai: 5♠5♥
Joe Hindry: K♠K♣
Cai, who is on her third cash of the series, improved immediately on the flop, as the door card gave her a set, and that was the winning hand through the runout of 6♣3♥5♣4♥9♠.
Day 2 of the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Event #53: $1,500 Millionaire Maker has concluded at the Paris and Horseshoe Las Vegas. The event attracted a record field of 11,996 entries, amassing a total prize pool of $15,924,690.
The day started with 2,618 contenders, which was whittled down to 357 players after ten 60-minute levels of intense poker action. Sitting atop the leaderboard is Collin Ball with 3,245,000. Following closely in second is Artem Tuliupa with 3,135,000, and completing the podium positions, is David Rees with 2,830,000 in the bag.
All returning players are guaranteed a payout of $6,800. Still, with three more days of battling it out to find the next millionaire, the mission is to build one’s stack and make it to the next day, to ultimately last long enough to grab the WSOP bracelet and the top prize of $1,255,180.
Top Ten Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Collin Ball
United States
3,245,000
130
2
Artem Tuliupa
Ukraine
3,135,000
125
3
David Rees
United States
2,830,000
113
4
Carl Carodenuto
United States
2,500,000
100
5
Lucca Nascimento
Brazil
2,310,000
92
6
Chris Moorman
United Kingdom
2,295,000
92
7
Yang Zhang
China
2,260,000
90
8
Clayton Kalisek
United States
2,240,000
90
9
Alexander Savchenko
Russian Federation
2,215,000
89
10
Vinicius Lima
United States
2,145,000
86
Other notables who qualified for Day 3 are two-time WSOP bracelet winner Chris Moorman (2,295,000), Yang Zhang (2,260,000), Matt Glantz (2,015,000), Stephen Song (1,290,000), and Aram Zobian (1,045,000).
Only 1,800 of the players who returned for Day 2 were in the money, with a guaranteed min-cash of $3,010. When hand-for-hand play was announced, everyone got excited, looking to and fro to see which table had an all in and a call.
On the second hand of bubble time, multiple tables had all-in situations, with some doubling up and others going through eliminations.
Ten players were eliminated simultaneously and they split seven payouts among them. Included in the ten were bracelet winner David Moses and 25K Fantasy Draft choice Punnat Punsri.
David Moses
Other familiar names who fell short of making it to Day 3 are David "ODB" Baker, Daniel Lazrus, Dan Heimiller, Danny Wong, and Ryan Riess.
Action resumes Monday, June 23, at 11 a.m. local time. Players will battle through another ten 60-minute levels with 15-minute breaks every two levels and a 60-minute dinner break after Level 27.
Remain tuned in to PokerNews, as we provide the latest updates and live poker action straight from the tournament floor.
