The thirty-seventh day of the World Series of Poker saw incredible action on the felt, with the $10,000 Main Event’s largest flight kicking off and the $1,000 Million Dollar bounty coming to a conclusion in jam-packed Bally’s and Paris Casinos in Las Vegas.
Day 1d Brings 4,350 New Entrants to the Main Event
The final flight of the $10,000 Main Event at the World Series of Poker always marks the largest of the Day 1 flights, and this year’s was no exception, as a whopping unofficial total of 4,350 players joined the 3,580 entrants from the first three flights to bring the combined total after all Day 1 flights to 7,930, which is pushing the record of 8,569 with registration still open for the first two levels of both Day 2abc and Day 2d. In all likelihood, it’s not a matter of if the record will be broken, but by how much.
Vince Vaughn, the WSOP’s Master of Ceremonies, finally made his maiden appearance on the year, replete with a decked-out Caesar costume. He was brought into the room along with multiple armor-clad centurions, all while holding the WSOP 2022 Main Event gold bracelet. He led the room in the traditional “Shuffle up and deal!” before the massive Day 1d flight began.
Master of Ceremonies for the @WSOP, Vince Vaughn, made a grand entrance #LikeACaesar to start Day 1D. ♣️✨ #WSOPMainevent
There’s still time to play through 3:40pm on Friday ➡️ https://t.co/befI97hvuP pic.twitter.com/RKUC4iWFJR
— Horseshoe Las Vegas (@HorseshoeVegas) July 6, 2022
Randall Heeb bagged up the Day 1d chip lead, with his 339,000 chip stack sitting third out of all four flights, among the huge field of players who bagged up chips for Day 2d. Mathieu His (316,000) and Joe Bold (299,600) fill out the podium of top three finishers, while Christoph Vogelsang (273,500), former Main Event champ Johnny Chan (218,800), last year’s runner-up George Holmes (181,100), fellow former Main Event champs Damian Salas (125,000), Chris Moneymaker (108,800), and Greg Merson (103,700), and defending champ Koray Aldemir (71,800) all enjoyed success on the felt during the final Day 1 flight.
With a massive throng of players at the start of the day, there were certain to be big casualties along the way, and one of the biggest was none other than Phil Ivey, who spent some time at the PokerGo featured table with an above average stack for the start of the day. The wheels started to fall off when he rivered a straight with 
on a 
board, but was up against 
for the higher straight, and paid off a 6,000 chip river bet. Ivey’s stack dwindled as the day progressed, and he lost his last 17,000 with just a few hands left before bagging and tagging, removing one of the most dangerous names in the game from contention.
Ivey wasn’t the only big name to hit the rail during the day, as both Allen Kessler and Barstool Sports’ Owen Roeder both met their end at the hands of a wild board, as shared by Kessler:
Busted the main.
I open utg 88.
Barstool Owen 3bets too small an amount and gets one caller plus me.
Flop comes T44.
I check, Owen bets like 20% pot, we both call.
Turn is an 8. Owen makes a pot sized bet.
Other guy raises, I shove and Owen calls off Aces.@StakeKings pic.twitter.com/fLsqdCrItx
— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) July 7, 2022
Other players who won’t be making it to Day 2 action include Landon Tice, Kyna England, poker vlogger Brad Owen, and WSOP bracelet winners Adam Friedman and Brandon Adams.
WSOP 2022 Event #70: $10,000 Main Event Day 1d Top Ten Chip Counts
- Randall Heeb – 339,000
- Mathieu His – 316,000
- Joe Bold – 299,600
- Bjorn Stoweno – 289,000
- Jared Hyman – 285,000
- Dan Hachem – 283,700
- Alexandros Kolonias – 278,000
- Sergio Coutinho – 277,000
- Christoph Vogelsang – 273,500
- David Finkel – 273,500
Borland Brings a Bounty Bracelet Back to Minnesota
Day 3 of Event #68: $1,000 Million Dollar Bounty brought 33 players back to play down to a winner, with the majority of the big bounties having been claimed during Day 2 action, including the biggest bounty of them all when Matt Glantz snagged the $1,000,000 bounty. After just over nine hours of play, Minnesota’s Quincy Borland, who didn’t manage to hit a single big bounty all tournament, instead settled for his first WSOP gold bracelet and a healthy $750,120 payday for his efforts.
Florian Duta’s elimination in 26th place saw Ramon Kropmanns bink the final six-figure bounty remaining in the tournament, worth a cool $100,000. Adam Grandmaison, creator and host of the popular “No Jumper” podcast, would follow next in 25th, and both he and Duta pocketed $31,200 for their deep runs, along with their accumulated bounties. Natalie Hof Ramos made a deep run, but fell short of the final table in 13th ($48,180), as did Christopher Doan in 10th ($60,440) to bring the field down to a final table of nine.
Kropmanns would be the first to fall at the final table, jamming his last ten big blinds with a weak ace and running into the ace-ten of Kevin Hong. Wojciech Barzantny took up the reigns of executioner next, getting a two-for-one by waking up with kings and flopping top set and turning kings full against Daniel De Almeida and Arash Asadabadi in a preflop all-in confrontation to send both players out in one fell swoop.
Nellie Park started the final table near the bottom of the counts, but was able to ladder up until she got her last five big blinds in preflop with queen-nine and ran smack into the Big Slick of Michael Smith to fall in sixth. Smith’s good fortune came to a screeching halt soon after, however, when his 
was outflopped by the 
of Hong on a 
flop, and no spade or ace would come to prevent Smith from being coolered out in fifth. Barzantany would go next, his big stack whittled down until he jammed on the button for ten big blinds with a suited king-four, but Borland was waiting in the small blind with queens and held to eliminate the chip leader at the start of the final table.
After David Timmons fell in third, Hong began heads-up play with just shy of a 2:1 chip lead over Borland. With just seventy-five big blinds in play shortly after heads-up commenced, Borland was able to swing the tide in a hurry, before the final hand where Hong raised the button, then four-bet shoved for around 24 big blinds with 
after Borland three-bet. Borland was waiting with 
, and called and held to eliminate Hong and claim the lion’s share of the prize pool and the final two bounties of the tournament.
WSOP 2022 Event #68: $1,000 Million Dollar Bounty Final Table Results
- Quincy Borland – $750,120
- Kevin Hong – $463,610
- David Timmons – $351,800
- Wojciech Barzantny – $268,550
- Michael Smith – $206,250
- Nellie Park – $159,380
- Arash Asadabadi – $123,910
- Daniel De Almeida – $96,940
- Ramon Kropmanns – $76,316
- Christopher Doan – $60,440
Phil Hellmuth is trying to blunt expectations for his normally grandiose WSOP Main Event entrance tomorrow, but hints that next year’s may be his most epic yet:
Don’t be too excited for my @WSOP entrance this year. It’s JUST me. Just one guy in a costume (w some cool music). We didn’t have time to hire 16 models, or an entourage. At 2023 WSOP Main Event we will hire models, entourage, the whole works. #JustAGuyInACostume #POSITIVITY
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) July 7, 2022
A closer look at the most prestigious of all the WSOP bracelets courtesy of The Action Network’s Darren Rovell.
This year’s @WSOP Main Event Bracelet has 500 grams of 10 karat white & yellow gold, with 55.5 karats of 2,767 precious stones including rubies, black and white diamonds. A removable golden poker chip sits in the center of the bracelet which can be used as a cardholder. pic.twitter.com/j1PSV55wCY
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) July 7, 2022
Barstool Mintzy spreading the hype about making it to the main stage with Phil Ivey:
Phil Ivey & my @WSOP Main Event table live stream on @PokerGO YouTube at 7:30 EST!
First hour of stream or free. Sign up for @PokerGO w/ code MINTZYMAIN for $30 off to follow @wsop Main Event w/ @jeffplatt! pic.twitter.com/DKSo3UESYZ
— The Destroyer (@BarstoolMintzy) July 6, 2022
The floor can be called for all sorts of reasons at the WSOP, but this might be a rarity; maybe the guy thought the 100 denomination chips were lucky?
Floor has been called to the table behind me in #WSOPMainEvent. The reason being:
A guy is hogging all the 100 chips and is completely refusing to make change for anyone at the table. Absolute legend.— Henrik Hecklen (@hhecklen) July 7, 2022
Official photographs courtesy of PokerGO, the home of live-streamed action throughout the 2022 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
