An angry poker player got into a verbal dispute with another player at the table at the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) after having his cards mucked in the big blind.
The verbal altercation between Georgia's James Heath and Maine's Darrell Blodgett took place on Sunday during Day 1 of Event #43: $800 8-Handed Deepstack No-Limit, which drew 3,903 runners for a prize pool of $2,732,100. And there was no love lost between two of those players.
The final table is the goal when 30 players return for Day 3 of Event #42: $10,000 Big O Championship at 1 p.m. local time.
Doug Lorgeree leads the group that will reconvene inside the Paris Las Vegas ballroom after navigating their way through a 456-player field over the last two days. Lorgeree takes a massive stack of 3,355,000 into the event’s penultimate day, more than 1,000,000 ahead of his closest challenger.
Day 3 Top Ten Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Doug Lorgeree
United States
3,355,000
134
2
Scott Clements
United States
2,000,000
80
3
Joshua Ray
United States
1,700,000
68
4
Daniel Aharoni
United States
1,670,000
67
5
Dan Shak
United States
1,590,000
64
6
Sean Troha
United States
1,525,000
61
7
David Benyamine
France
1,460,000
58
8
Lawrence Brandt
United States
1,445,000
58
9
Taylor Atchison
United States
1,260,000
50
10
Qinghai Pan
United States
1,200,000
48
Scott Clements has already experienced WSOP glory this year, winning his fourth bracelet in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship. He enters in second place with 2,000,000 in pursuit of some more WSOP gold to add to his collection.
Joshua Ray (1,700,000), Daniel Aharoni (1,670,000), and Dan Shak (1,590,000) complete the top five. Bracelet winners Sean Troha (1,525,000), David Benyamine (1,460,00), and Qinghai Pan (1,590,000) are also inside the top ten to begin the day.
Further down the leaderboard are Christian Harder (875,000), James Obst (800,000), Gus Hansen (735,000), Viktor Blom (680,000), Bobby James (620,000), and Mike Matusow (500,000). The short stacks include Sam Soverel (255,000) and Nick Schulman (210,000).
The action on Day 3 picks up on Level 21 with blinds of 10,000/25,000 and a 25,000 big blind ante. Levels remain 60 minutes throughout the day. The plan is to play down to the final five players today.
The 30 remaining players have all locked up $27,669 out of the $4,240,800 prize pool. A spot at the eight-handed final table is worth at least $80,773, while the champion takes home $861,287 and the WSOP gold bracelet.
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Stay tuned as PokerNews follows all the action throughout the day and provides live updates down to the final table.
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