The WSOP Paradise action continued at Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas as Josh Arieh and David Coleman starred on a busy day of action for PokerStake players. There was also a very big winner in the $100,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha Super High Roller event and a very popular PokerStake player became only the sixth player in poker history to top 500 ranking tournaments cashes.
Arieh Aims for Seventh Bracelet
“By far the most fun I’ve had at a WSOP final table.” ~ Josh Arieh, six-time WSOP champion.
In Event #5 of the WSOP Paradise schedule, the $25,000 Dealers Choice Championship, just four players remain in the action, with not one or two but three former WSOP Player of the Year winners hoping to extend their tremendous records in the format. With 49 entries, only seven players were paid, with Nacho Barbero winning $60,040 in seventh place, just a day after his countryman Alejandro Lococo’s Triton WSOP win earned him $12m and moved him closer to Barbero at the top of the all-time Argentinian charts.
After British mixed game player Benny Glaser busted in sixth place for $79,370, John Racener cashed for $107,000, ending the action for Day 1. With four men remaining in the hunt for gold and glory, the top prize of $353,340 is in the nearest sights of Eric Wasserson, whose stack of 3.9 million chips is more than double anyone else’s.
Behind Wasserson, the 2022 POY Dan Zack (1.97m) has the ability to battle back from any position, while the 2021 POY Josh Arieh (970,000) has more WSOP bracelets than his opponents combined as he bids to win a seventh WSOP, one more than his good friend and Team Lucky colleague, Shaun Deeb. Mike Gorodinsky, the 2015 POY, may start with only 635,000 chips but he has every chance of landing his fourth WSOP title.
“By far the most fun I’ve had at a WSOP final table,” said Arieh on X. “Playing with all guys you know and like makes for a great experience. This is first bullet for the 36 people on PokerStake that have a slice of this.”
PokerStake investors will be hoping that Arieh can seal the deal and return them as much as possible on their investments.
David Coleman in Day 2 Top 10 in Triton Main Event
The $100,000-entry Triton Main Event featured 149 total entries on Day 1, among them some of poker’s finest, including PokerStake player David Coleman. Just 80 of those players remained in contention at the close of Day 1, with the New Zealand player David Yan in charge on 1,166,000 chips, the equivalent of 117 big blinds.
Yan may lead but not far back, PokerStake’s David Coleman (752,000/75BB) lies in wait in seventh place hoping that a deep run will win him – and PokerStake investors, of course! – a huge windfall. Coleman, while having banked over $7.39 million in ranking results, has never won a WSOP bracelet, finishing in the top six no fewer than nine times without taking gold.
In some ways, the $100,000-entry Triton Main Event is perfectly suited to Coleman’s skills. The American has excelled in the past few years in rarified limits that few can master the game at and more than held his own. Coleman certainly has some tough opposition lying in wait for him when Day 2 resumes, with late entries still permissible for the opening stages of the second day.
David Yan is followed closely by Dimitar Danchev (1.1m), Eelis Parssinen (956,000) and Justin Bonomo (691,000) inside the top 10 stacks, with other big names David Peters (651,000), Bryn Kenney (600,000) and Adrian Mateos (592,000) all looking to improve their standings on The Hendon Mob All-Time Money List.
Guerra Grabs Gold, Chainsaw Breaks the ‘500 Club’
“During the whole tournament, I had the feeling like I was going to win it.”
In the $100,000 Super High Roller PLO Event #3, two men only returned for the final day’s action and a showdown for the WSOP bracelet. They were chip leader Ben Tollerene and challenger Lautaro Guerra. Tollerene’s lead of 29 big blinds to 23 was nor insurmountable as the Spanish player proved, winning his first WSOP bracelet in memorable circumstances.
“During the whole tournament, I had the feeling like I was going to win it, even before coming here,” Guerra told PokerNews “I think this is the way to approach a tournament; you have to visualize yourself winning, and you achieve it.”
Guerra, now into the top 400 players of all-time from 855th in that list, was delighted with the result of his career so far, banking $2.1 million to put his career earnings at just uder $5 million.
“[There] cannot be a better feeling than this,” he said. “To take this down was what I came for.”
In Las Vegas, the World Poker Tour may be building up to their third annual WPT World Championships but Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler is happily going about his work cashing in poker tournaments. His latest result was a landmark one.
“In the money in the Wynn Poker Triple Triple Draw,” Kessler said when he made the money, eventually finishing ninth from 202 entries. “Ari Engel informed me my next cash would be a milestone number. I honestly thought I had already passed 500 but this one is it!”
As Kessler also rightly mentions, ‘only six players in the history of poker have accomplished this feat’. Above Kessler in cashes are Randy Holland (515), Men ‘The Master’ Nguyen (523), Ari Engel himself (555), Roland Israelashvili (568) and John Cernuto, who with 597 has the most cashes in poker history. Could ‘Chainsaw’ chop him down? You heard it here first.
Headline photograph courtesy of Regina Cortina for PokerNews.
