WSOP 2024: Main Event Close to Record Attendance as Marsico Builds a Mountain, Aditya Agarwal Wins Maiden Bracelet

Four WSOP bracelet events took place on Sunday in Las Vegas as the Day 2abc flight of the WSOP Main Event welcomed yet more players into what has already been confirmed as the second-largest World Championship in poker history. The 55^th annual WSOP also saw events in No Limit Hold’em and 8-Game Mix as the Ultra Stack kicked off with excitement too.

Main Event Catches Fire, Negreanu Survives, Hellmuth Out

The first Day 2 of the $10,000 WSOP Main Event saw 3,143 players return to the felt, and they were joined by 206 new entries to bring the overall field up to 9,493 — just 550 short of the 2023 world record 10,043 attendance. With one more day (Day 2d) tomorrow where new player can put down $10,000 and enter, we may yet see a new record attendance set. Either way, it’s going to be close.

Day 2abc provided plenty of thrills and spills as players such as Daniel Negreanu, John Duthie and Anthony Marsico survived, while former world champions Phil Hellmuth, Qui Nguyen, Jamie Gold and the 2003 ‘Poker Boom’ winner Chris Moneymaker all bowed out.

Both the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas casinos were packed as Anthony Marciso, who recently came 4th in the $10,000-entry Limit Hold’em Championship, proved No Limit was fine too, bagging up a top-scoring stack of 797,000 from a start-of-day stack of 76,900. Largely helped by kings winning against ace-king, Marsico’s stack was way beyond most, his closest rival being Christopher Vincent with 772,000 chips. Third-placed Manuel Machado was way back on 680,500.

Other big stacks at the close of play included Diogo Veiga (540,000), John Hennigan (470,000), Bin Weng (350,500), Arden Cho (328,000), and EPT founder John Duthie who busted his fellow British hopeful James Dempsey late to pile up 419,500 by the close of play. Dempsey’s nut flush draw and pair lost to Duthie’s made two pair when the river came a blank to give the older man the stack and sent Dempsey, Duthie’s long-time colleague in many events over the years – to the rail.

While the Poker Brat Phi Hellmuth bowed out, other former winners did survive, with German pro Hossein Ensan (353,000) highest among them. Scott Blumstein (236,000) and Koray Aldemir (242,000) also survived to Day 3, along with Daniel Negreanu, whose early problems with a short stack eased to the point the Poker Players Championship winner and seven-time WSOP Champion bagged up a respectable 95,000.

Aditya Agarwal Wins First WSOP Bracelet in NLHE Event

The Indian poker professional Aditya Agarwal won his first-ever WSOP bracelet after conquering the $1,000-entry NLHE Event #82. At a ten-handed final table, Agarwal went into the action shorter than all except three but rose through the ranks to complete a memorable victory.

Shortly after the final table began in the event, Suhail Khan took out Nick Kocman, after Kocman’s K♣ 9♥ couldn’t catch Khan’s A♦ 10♥ across a dry board with the chips committed pre-flop. Lucas Reiger then picked the worst possible time to make a move with 10♦ 7♦, eliminated easily by Frank Lagodich’s Q♥. A king-eight was nowhere good enough for Robert Macri to beat Agarwal’s K♠ K♠ and suddenly Agarwal had chipped up with seven left.

Exits for Tengqi Zhan (7^th) and the aforementioned Lagodich (6^th) followed, before Agarwal took out Alexander Holtz in fifth for $48,313 when the unfortunate Holtz was dominated with A♦ 5♣ shot down by Agarwal’s A♣ Q♦, the latest in a long line of dominating or premium hands for the eventual winner. Khan lost out in fourth before Jesse Wigan lost a flip to Agarwal, A♥ 10♠ not catching against Agarwal’s 9♦ 9♣ which even made a set on the river for good measure.

Heads-up, that left Agarwal with a monstrous lead of 25 million chips to Augusto Hagen’s 3.8m, and the Argentinian couldn’t come back. All-in with 10♥ 8♦, Hagen had hope against Agarwal’s 8♥ 6♥, but that hope was dashed on the cruel board of A♣ 10♦ 4♥ 5♣ 7♣ that gave the Indian a miraculous runner-runner straight that sealed victory and a top prize of $189,661 that is second only to his runner-up finish in the Super Turbo Bounty runner-up result he achieved in 2021.

Johnson On Top, Seiver Chasing Record Fourth Gold

Marco Johnson has already enjoyed a profitable and consistently successful trip to Las Vegas this summer, but he is now in pole position to cap his excellent form with a well-deserved gold WSOP bracelet. In Event #83, the $1,500-entry 8-Game Mixed Event, Johnson sits atop the leaderboard as 494 players battled until just 103 were left.

Johnson may lead the way with 325,300 chips, a strong advantage, but he has illustrious company in the top 10 chipcounts alone. Swedish superstar Viktor Blom (296,600) has yet another big stack after Day 1 of a 2024 WSOP event, while Scott Seiver (253,700) will be pushing to win what would be a record fourth WSOP in a single series.

Other big names still in the hunt include Jared Bleznick (168,300), Poker Hall of Fame nominee ‘Miami’ John Cernuto (145,200) and Dylan Weisman (118,300), all of whom sit in the top half of the leaderboard. On a bustling day of action in yet another well-populated mixed game event this series, players such as Barny Boatman, Brandon Shack-Harris, David Williams, Matt Glantz, Barry Shulman and Chino Rheem all missed the Day 2 cut.

Ultra Stack Event Fills Up as Audley Harrison Knocks Plenty Out

Finally, the $600-entry Event #84, the NLHE ‘Ultra Stack’ saw 284 players make it to Day 2 from around 1500 entries. While players such as the star of American Pie, Shannon Elizabeth, busted, others such as chip leader Michael Bell (2,635,000) thrived, with players such as Lee Clark (1,620,000), Yijie Zhang (1,590,000), Bhavin Khatri (1,555,000), and Felix Weis (1,485,000) joining him in the top five.

Others who made the cut for a Day 2 that will form a final table at the very least included Steve Wilkie (1,340,000), Yucel Eminoglu (755,000), Kenny Hallaert (665,000), Daniel Smiljkovic (595,000), and Mike Leah (220,000), while the British former Olympic winner and heavyweight boxing legend Audley Harrison bagged up an impressive 595,000 after knocking out multiple opponents – strictly in the poker sense! – through a day of fun for him at the felt.

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!

This article originally appeared on PokerStake.com