WSOP Update, including ONE DROP

The World Series of Poker continues, and the updates from Thursday evening through Saturday night are as follows:

WSOP Event 51: Nearing Final Table

One of the few five-day tournaments was the $1,500 NLHE Monster Stack, which started with a massive field of 7,862 players and a $10,613,700 prize pool.

Day 2 thinned it from 3,826 players to 576, and Day 3 took it down to 62 survivors.

Day 4 was Sunday and sent numerous players to the cashier cage. Names like Jessica Meir, Chris Bolek, Jason Duval, and Mark Allen exited throughout the day. By 9pm, only 16 remained, payouts were at the $62,726 level, and Zachary Gruneberg was the chip leader.

WSOP Event 53: Zhang Wins

The $10K NLHE Ladies Championship was really a $1K buy-in for women but excluded men with a much larger price tag. The tournament was down quite significantly from last year with only 793 players and a $713,700 prize pool.

Day 2 took the field from 101 players to just the final nine, and Makiyo Aoki was the chip leader.

The final table began on Sunday, and action was fast, as players like Patricia Cahill and Stacey Sullivan led the bustouts early in the afternoon. Patty Landis, personal assistant to Daniel Negreanu, finished in fifth place. Aoki held a strong lead three-handed but went into heads-up play against Haixia Zhang with a slight deficit. It only took a few rounds for Zhang to soar and capture the title and bracelet.

1^st place: Haixia Zhang ($142,470)

2^nd place: Mikiyo Aoki ($94,800)

3^rd place: Meikat Siu ($61,114)

4^th place: Elizabeth Montizanti ($44,770)

5^th place: Patty Landis ($33,279)

6^th place: Persia Bonella ($25,072)

7^th place: Kendra Wray ($19,120)

8^th place: Stacey Sullivan ($14,752)

9^th place: Patricia Cahill ($11,504)

WSOP Event 54: Final Table Begins

The $3K PLO Hi/Low Split-8 tournament brought 474 players to the tables to create a $1,294,020 prize pool.

Day 2 took the field from 152 players to just 20, and Day 3 brought them back with Jonathan Depa in the chip lead. Players like Lee Markholt and Eoghan O’Dea exited early, and others like Fabrice Soulier, Paul Volpe, and Ted Lawson missed the final table.

The tenth place elimination of Tobias Hausen for $18,491 set the final table of nine as follows:

Florian Langmann (1,336,000)

Woody Deck (758,000)

Jonathan Depa (415,000)

Shiva Dudani (350,000)

Doug Baughman (327,000)

Zach Freeman (319,000)

TJ Eisenman (296,000)

Dylan Wilkerson (249,000)

Antony Lellouche (145,000)

WSOP Event 55: Thinning It Out

The only new tournament on Saturday was a $1,500 NLHE event, which attracted 2,396 players for a $3,234,600 prize pool.

Day 2 brought 268 players back and burst the money bubble early in the afternoon to start paying the top 243 players. The evening hours saw the bustouts of players like Bryan Dillon and Andrea Dato.

Only about 72 players remained at the dinner break with Aaron Massey in the chip lead.

WSOP Event 56: Another Big Field

The noon tournament on Sunday was a $1K NLHE event, and the final numbers were announced late in the evening. There were 2,525 players and a $2,272,500 prize pool. The top 270 players would be paid, with $1,840 as the minimum and $403,483 for the winner.

WSOP Event 57: ONE DROP

The big attraction for fans on Sunday was the start of the Big One for ONE DROP tournament. It kicked off at 1pm with 37 players, much fanfare, and ESPN cameras rolling.

Vanessa Selbst became the first woman to play the $1 million buy-in tournament, and new players joined like David Sands, Rono Lo, and Rick Salomon. Erik Seidel also took a late seat.

Tobias Reinkemeier and Daniel Cates took to some verbal sparring at the start but calmed down as the event wore on. Cates later got into a name-calling war with Doug Polk.

David Einhorn was the first player to exit early in the day, as his pocket jacks went up against the 5-4 suited of Sam Trickett on a 2-J-6-3-Q board. Stanley Choi departed later, just before the dinner break.

At said dinner break, Sam Trickett was the chip leader. No final tournament numbers had yet been announced.