Stud Games: 1,000 Ante, 2,000 Bring-In, 5,000 Completion 5,000-10,000 Limits
No-Limit & Pot-Limit: 2,500/3,500 Ante, 1,000-2,500 Blinds
A late-night double knockout propelled Matthew Schreiber to the chip lead after Day 1 of Event #8: $1,500 Dealers Choice here at the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas.
Schreiber showed down a flopped set of tens and held on against Mark Roland and Thomas Taylor to earn a massive Pot-Limit Omaha pot and move himself up to the top of the leaderboard. Schreiber ended up with 463,500 as the 2017 $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. champion leads 124 survivors into Day 2.
Christopher Vitch was also on the fortunate end of a massive pot. Vitch just missed the final table in Event #4: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better earlier today, finishing in 10th place, and immediately jumped into this field, then spiked two pair on the river to bust Nathaniel Katzoff. The three-time bracelet winner bagged up 388,000, good for third place at the end of the day. Ken Deng (400,500), Allan Le (360,000), and Andrew Park (319,000) round out the top five.
Day 1 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Bets | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matthew Schreiber | United States | 463,500 | 39 | |
| 2 | Ken Deng | United States | 400,500 | 33 | |
| 3 | Christopher Vitch | United States | 388,000 | 32 | |
| 4 | Allan Le | United States | 360,000 | 30 | |
| 5 | Andrew Park | United States | 319,000 | 27 | |
| 6 | Clint Wolcyn | United States | 314,000 | 26 | |
| 7 | Scott Jacewiczokelly | United States | 290,000 | 24 | |
| 8 | Laurent Manderlier | Belgium | 267,500 | 22 | |
| 9 | Adam Greenlee | United States | 244,500 | 20 | |
| 10 | Benjamin Ludlow | United States | 232,000 | 19 |
It was a star-studded field that gathered today inside the Paris Ballroom to test their expertise in 21 different poker variants. Among those who made it through the day were last year’s finalist Clint Wolcyn (314,000), Benjamin Ludlow (232,000), Dylan Smith (221,000), Justin Liberto (211,500), 2022 Player of the Year Dan Zack (209,500), and Eric Baldwin (205,000).
Defending champion John Hennigan didn’t make an appearance today because he was busy building a big stack in the Mystery Millions event, but 2022 champion Brad Ruben did, and ended up as a big stack with 186,000, as did Benny Glaser (175,500), Scott Bohlman (173,500), and Nathan Gamble (127,500).
Further down the leaderboard are James Obst (117,000), Dario Sammartino (104,000), Mike Thorpe (100,000), legendary actor James Woods (99,000), Huck Seed (92,500), and Terrance Reid (89,500), while Phil Hellmuth found himself as one of the shortest stacks with just 28,000 going into Day 2 Saturday.
Day 1 attracted a total of 597 entries, surpassing last year’s field of 530 and making this the largest field since the event was first introduced to the WSOP schedule in 2014. Those who failed to make it through included Brandon Shack-Harris, Viktor Blom, Greg Raymer, Adam Friedman, Norman Chad, Josh Arieh, Daniel Negreanu, Shaun Deeb, Brian Rast, Jeremy Ausmus, and 2021 champion Jaswinder Lally.
The remaining 124 players return at 1 p.m. on Saturday inside the Horseshoe Event Center. The action picks up on Level 16 with no-limit blinds of 1,500/3,000 and limits of 6,000/12,000. Levels will be extended to 60 minutes for the rest of the tournament. Only the top 90 players will finish in the money, so 34 will leave with nothing on Day 2. The eventual champion takes home $150,246 and the WSOP gold bracelet.
Stay tuned as PokerNews returns for Day 2 as the field plays on past the money bubble.
