It was a jam-packed Friday of action on Day 25 of the 2024 World Series of Poker, as the Millionaire Maker and the $250k Super High Roller both kicked off, promising massive paydays and tons of action for fans to salivate over. Another trio of WSOP gold bracelets were also doled out as a total of nine events were in action at the Horseshoe and Paris casinos in Las Vegas.

Winter and Mateos Bring the Heat in Super High Roller

For the price of a small house, you could find yourself sitting with some of the elite minds in poker in Event #55: $250,000 Super High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, and a small sub-division’s worth of entries (58, to be exact) ponied up the cool quarter-million dollars to take a shot at what likely will be the second-biggest payday behind the Main Event in this year’s WSOP.

A total of 45 players made it through to Day 2, with Sean Winter (4,475,000), Adrian Mateos (4,210,000) and Aram Oganyan (3,935,000) taking the podium positions into Day 2 action. Winter earned a big chunk of his chips getting three streets of value with on an runout against Matthais Eibinger, while Mateos picked off a big bluff from Ben Tollerene to accumulate his wealth of chips.

“KidPoker” Daniel Negreanu (1,025,000) made it through the night with under a starting stack, but still has over 30 big blinds to work with. Jason Koon (2,830,000), Chance Kornuth (2,690,000), Alex Foxen (2,610,000), Justin Bonomo (2,600,000), Michael Moncek (1,930,000), and Isaac Haton (1,570,000) and $100k High Roller champ Chris Hunichen (895,000) all bagged up chips, while 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey registered at the end of play and will bring a fresh stack of 1,500,000 to tomorrow. 

Only one player, Kathy Lehne, has been fully eliminated from the tournament, as she used up both her initial buy-in and her re-entry during Day 1 action. Viktor Blom, who’s had an exceptional WSOP thus far with three final tables, busted a single bullet, as did the aforementioned Eibinger, David Peters, and Chris Brewer, among others. Those players who didn’t use their re-entry can choose to fire a second bullet tomorrow, along with any potential newcomers, as the field seems exceedingly likely to break past last year’s 69 entrants.

Pisarenko Rides Off With H.O.R.S.E. Championship

An unexpected Day 4 in Event #45: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship (8-Handed) brought back two close stacks between Mike Leah, seeking his second WSOP gold bracelet, and Maksim Pisarenko, looking for his first. In a battle between Russia and Canada, it was Pisarenko who skated away with his maiden bracelet after a three-and-a-half hour heads-up showdown. The man who self described himself as “Mr. Min-Cash” to PokerNews after his victory now has big bragging rights with his friends, along with his ninth cash of the 2024 WSOP and $399,988 to go along with the bracelet.

With each player wielding nearly twenty big bets at the start of play, a long grind to determine a champ was expected and observed, as the duo traded the chip lead back and forth multiple times through the first two levels of the day. A pivotal hold’em hand was the beginning of the end for Leah, who turned three deuces with only to find he was outkicked by the of Pisarenko after three bets went in on the river.

Leah was left with just under four big bets after the hand, and while he managed a few doubles, he never sniffed the chip lead again, finally succumbing to Pisarenko in Seven Card Stud when Pisarenko made aces-up on seventh street to best Leah’s kings-up.

Alexander Denies Urbanovich in Razz Championship

Sometimes, the journey makes victory that much sweeter. 

For George Alexander, his 15th sojourn to the WSOP finally led to the gold at the end of the rainbow in Event #50: $10,000 Razz Championship. The $282,443 top prize is nice, but for Alexander, it clearly was more about achieving the dream of putting all the pieces together to earn his first WSOP gold bracelet on what turned out to be his last event of the summer.

One last WSOP bracelet shot for this year before flying out. 2nd place/12 left in 10k Razz Championship. Ivey and Negreanu at my table.

Officially using my “one time” for this one. 🤞🤞 pic.twitter.com/YWuknsNFwj

— Jordi Alexander (@gametheorizing) June 21, 2024

To get to that victory, he had to contend with some highly touted names in the poker realm, with Brian Yoon (12th – $20,702), Daniel Negreanu (11th – $21,737), and Robert Campbell (10th – $21,737) all missing out on the final table. Phil Ivey arrived at the final table with crumbs and was dust shortly after play began, and Denis Strebkov and Jared Bleznick fell soon after. John Racener was next to go after getting it in with a 9-7-5 after the first three cards. He ended up with nines-full by seventh street, a great hand if you’re playing Stud…not so much in Razz.

The stacks were mostly even after Racener’s elimination, and it took a chunk of time before Brandon Shack-Harris finally fell to a suddenly hot Alexander. Hal Rotholz and Ren Lin both fell to the Alexander buzzsaw soon after, and Dzmitry Urbanovich had some work to do to notch his first WSOP bracelet. Alexander wasted little time in chipping Urbanovich down, and on the final hand Alexander made a ninety-eight to best Urbanovich’s queen-nine to earn his long-awaited WSOP gold bracelet.

Melsom Spins Up a Victory in $3k Freeze

Erlend Melsom came to the WSOP to play his preferred game, PLO. But with no PLO on the docket, the Norwegian decided to plunk down $3,000 to fire a bullet in Event #49: $3,000 Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em. This turned out to be a wise decision, as he pushed through the final 13 players and claimed victory, along with $523,195 and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

A flurry of bustouts at the start of play sped the proceedings to the final table of nine in under an hour, with Melsom holding a slight chip lead over Day 2 chip leader Ben Hoy. Morgan Petro started the final table as the short stack and was the first to go, but a full two hours would pass before Uri Reichenstein, Joseph Carden and Maxx Coleman joined Petro on the rail in quick succession.

Another long lull began, until David Stamm lost a three-way dance with Melsom and Jonathan Schwartz to bust in fifth. Schwartz managed to triple up in that hand, but didn’t last much longer, bleeding back down to crumbs and busting to Hoy’s pocket threes. At this point, Nikolay Yosifov had a monster chip lead, but Melsom eliminated Hoy in a big flip, narrowing the gap down to a roughly 3:2 lead for Yosifov heading into heads-up action.

Melsom managed a double with the early, cracking the of Yosifov on a dramatic runout to flip the stacks around. It didn’t take long for Yosifov to end up committed for his last few big blinds with , but Melsom’s held firm to secure the victory and bracelet for the man from Norway.

Wolpert Leads, Seif Lurks in Seniors

Event #46: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship continued the march to the final table during Day 3, as a field of 208 returning seniors was whittled down to just 26 for Day 4 action. Marc Wolpert (17,900,000) brings back a stack of more than 70 big blinds, and holds a comfortable lead over Andrew Bradshaw (14,700,000) and Shawn Stuart (12,275,000), while Khang Pham (10,000,000) is the only other player with an eight-figure stack.

Mark Seif (3,525,000) will have some work to do with just 14 big blinds to work with, but does so as the only WSOP bracelet winner left in the field, outlasting fellow bracelet winners Tamas Lendvai (28th – $23,077), Greg Raymer (40th – $18,860), Julio Belluscio (42nd – $18,860) and Ivo Donev (98th – $6,565) in the process.

Nguyen and Blanco Lead $5k Six-Max

It was a neck-and-neck race for the overnight chip lead after Day 2 of Event #52: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed, and Turbo Nguyen (2,700,000) squeaked past Lucas Blanco (2,645,000) to claim bragging rights over the 37 surviving players. Jake Schwartz (1,690,000), Iaron Lightbourne (1,500,000), and David Coleman (1,045,000) all also managed to bag nice stacks. 

A total of 817 entrants ponied up the dough to play in the fast-paced six-max action, and after Pete Chen bubbled in a Big Slick versus Aces cooler, plenty of prominent names like Bin Weng (40th – $16,257), Joseph Cheong (49th – $12,479), Leo Margets (57th – $11,351) and Scott Seiver (86th – $9,963) all managed to earn a chunk of the prize pool before departing.

Friedman Seeking Sixth Bracelet in Nine Game Mix

While Ashish Gupta (2,629,000) holds a healthy lead in Event #53: $3,000 Nine Game Mix, Adam Friedman (1,814,000) sits in second and is a serious threat to earn his sixth piece of WSOP gold among the 16 remaining players. There’s plenty of WSOP gold bracelet wielders (a total of 25 earned between them!) remaining among the survivors, with Scott Bohlman (1,538,000), Yuri Dzivielevski (1,361,000), Bradley Jansen (1,337,000), Richard Ashby (750,000), Phil Hui (700,000) and Korey Aldemir (552,000) among the survivors.

Two New Events Cap Off a Full Friday

There will be another poker millionaire minted after Event #54: $1,500 Millionaire Maker No-Limit Hold’em reaches its conclusion, and 2,802 hopefuls fired a bullet in today’s Day 1a flight to try and achieve that dream. Ori Elul (673,500) entered the clubhouse as chip leader, with Landon Tice (308,500), David Jackson (223,000), Barny Boatman (183,000) and Martin Jacobson (169,000) all bagging up deep stacks.

For those looking for a taste of something different, Event #56: $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) (2-7, A-5, Badugi) offered a total of 371 entrants the chance to pitch cards and make wheels with the best of them, and Ryan Ko (343,000) bagged the Day 1 chip lead. Shaun Deeb (254,000) and Chad Eveslage (243,000) hold top ten stacks, and Julien Martini (221,000), Ari Engel (181,000), and Allen Kessler (135,000) all made it through the day, with 103 players returning for Day 2 action. 

With thanks to PokerGO for their official WSOP photography. The 2024 World Series of Poker is available to watch exclusively on PokerGO. Subscribe today and watch all the drama play out in Las Vegas!