Welcome and get settled in for Event #66: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em. This is the fifth and final installment of the $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournaments on this year's World Series of Poker schedule, and it gets going at 11 a.m. as the series races towards its conclusion.
When play commences today, players will play ten 60-minute levels and get a 20-minute break every two levels. Dinner break will take place after Level 6, around 5:40 p.m., and will be 90 minutes long. Players will be given 7,500 in chips to use at their discretion while battling their way towards the coveted WSOP gold bracelet.
This year, four events of this type have already taken place. David "The Dragon" Pham won Event #12, besting a field of 1,739 players to take home his third WSOP bracelet and $391,960. Then, in Event #33, Chris Frank was able to grind his way through, topping a field of 1,698 players to take home $384,833 for his efforts.
Event #52 was conquered by Mohsin Charania to give him the triple crown of poker. He bested a field of 1,580 players to take home $364,438. And most recently, Event #58 was the time for Artur Rudziankov to have his bracelet coming out party after he bested a field of 1,763 players to take home $395,918.
PokerNews has activated the My Stack App for this event, allowing you to directly adjust your chip counts in our live reporting blog using your iPhone or Android phone.
You can download the app for iPhone or Android now to get started. Then, create a new PokerNews account or update your current one to start updating your status immediately. Your followers can see all the live action that you're involved in.
Click here to download the My Stack app for iPhone, or click here to download the My Stack app for Android.
Stay tuned to catch all of the action and excitement brought to you by the PokerNews team.
Former WSOP Main Event Champions Joe McKeehen (2015) and Jerry Yang (2007) are in the starting field for Event #66.
McKeehen added a second WSOP gold bracelet this year to a WSOP résumé that includes two circuit rings, 36 cashes, and over $10-million in tournament winnings. McKeehen has also won around $3 million in non-WSOP tournaments.
Yang has nine WSOP cashes and hasn't cashed a WSOP event since the Colossus in 2015. He has $8.5 million in WSOP earnings (most from that Main Event win) and about $200,000 in non-WSOP earnings.
Alan Widdman might be brand new to the World Series of Poker, but he is no stranger to competition. Widdman is a popular Twitch streamer and YouTube content creator who made his name streaming World of Warcraft.
Widdman might have his work cut out for him with Vojtech Ruzicka, the third-place finisher in last year's Main Event, at his table. He is also sitting with Mario Prats who recently finished runner-up to Artur Rudziankov in Event #58: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em.
Widdman is best know by the handle "Hotted89" and carries the support of more than 130,000 YouTube subscribers and 230,000 Twitch followers. As far as his poker resume, he won the eSports Battle Royale Poker Tournament in February.
So far we know he has won at least one pot.
Just won an all in pot! 3.5k above starting stack!
A player in early position raised to 1,000. The small blind three-bet to 3,000 and Phil Hellmuth called in the big blind. The player in early position folded.
The flop was and both players checked. The turn was the . Hellmuth bet 4,600 and the small blind called.
The river was the and Hellmuth thought a moment after his opponent checked. He then reached back and fired out a bet of 11,400. The small blind quickly released his hand and the 14-time WSOP bracelet winner took down a nice-sized pot, increasing his already healthy stack.
This event attracted 1,956 players, creating a prize pool of $2,640,600. The top 294 players will be paid out, with first place winning $428,423 and the WSOP gold bracelet. A full listing of the payouts will be posted as soon as available.
A player in late position raised to 2,000. Chris Ferguson was in the big blind and moved all in for roughly 15,000. The player in late position moved all in, as well, for roughly 11,000.
Chris Ferguson:
Opponent:
The flop was , putting Ferguson well behind. The powers that be were having none of it, though, as the was produced on the turn. That gave Ferguson trips and left his opponent drawing dead as the dealer tabled the on the river.
Darren Elias and Daniel Zack have been battling it out next to each other for the past couple of hours and have been in several confrontations. On this latest hand, Elias was on the button and raised to 2,200. Zack was in the small blind and three-bet to 6,600. Elias thought for a couple minutes and called.
The flop was and Zack checked. Elias fired out a bet of 6,000 and Zack called.
The turn was the and Zack checked again. Elias moved all in for his remaining 22,200 chips, sending Zack into the tank. After about just under two minutes another player at the table called for a clock. The tournament director came over and Zack had 40 seconds to decide. As the ten second count down closed in on zero, Zack elected to fold.
Elias then asked if someone had called a clock as even he appeared to be a bit surprised by the short amount of time. In the end, Elias added some valuable chips to his stack and these two will continue to battle on.
The players have bagged and headed home from Day 1 of Event #66. Five of the top ten players in the WSOP Player of the Year race advanced to Day 2 with Ben Yu (5th in POY) bagging the biggest of the current POY contenders with 93,700.
John Racener, who leads the POY race, bagged 34,000. Chris Ferguson (2nd in POY, 25,100), John Monnette (7th in POY, 20,000), and Pablo Mariz (9th in POY, 18,000) all made it through as well. This event's 1,956 entries makes this one of the biggest point-getters left on the WSOP schedule before the Main Event.
While the POY race is definitely taking center stage, Tommy Tran (187,000) and Nikolas Zawadzki (171,200) bagged two of the biggest stacks of the evening. Not to be outdone, Sam Grafton made a splash on the final hand of the night. Jerry Yang, Peter Murphy, and Grafton were all in and another player was in the tank for almost the full amount of the clock. Grafton had jacks against ace-king and ace-seven and flopped a full house. Yang still had four-of-a-kind outs but missed and hit the rail with Murphy on the final hand of the evening. Grafton chipped up to 97,000 to end the day.
Alan Widmann, aka "Hotted89", bagged on Day 1 of his first-ever WSOP event. With only 308 players returning and 294 set to make the money, there is a decent chance Widmann will make the money in his first shot at WSOP glory.
Play resumes Thursday at noon. Stay up to date with all the WSOP action right here on PokerNews.