There were just two events on tap for Day 39 of the 2024 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris casinos in Las Vegas, but the biggest day of this year’s Main Event (so far) was on everyone’s minds with somewhat muffled numbers from the first two flights to make up. Did Day 1c live up to the hype and keep the 10,043 player record in sight? And who managed to snag the only bracelet up for grabs in Day 2 of the Independence Day Celebration?

Pardo Takes Overall Chip Lead After Day 1c of the Main

For the second straight day, numbers were down compared to last year’s Main Event, with 2,504 players taking their seat for Day 1c action, a sharp drop from the 3,080 who competed in last year’s Day 1c. 4,250 entries have been fired so far, with Day 1d expected to be the largest flight of the quartet. It would take a field of over 5,100 entrants to keep up with the record-setting pace of last year, but with more players looking to enter on Day 2 to lessen the grind, there’s still some hope that a late bloom could occur to set a new record.

The chip leader out of the 2,094 surviving players was Robert Pardo, who put an absolutely massive 441,000 chips in his bag to take the overall chip lead and wield the only current stack over 400k. Zyad Qasem (390,300) also managed a monster bag, with Leonard Herrmann (306,000) rounding out the podium positions. Romanian pro Alexandru Papazian (235,000) also enjoyed a fruitful day, as did Arthur Morris (211,800), Justin Bonomo (174,000), Arden Cho (169,000), and Chris Brewer (156,800).

It wouldn’t be a WSOP without a cadarie of colorful characters, and Phil Hellmuth chose Day 1c as his flight to make his annual grand entrance. Accompanied by Dan Cates, Shannon Elizabeth, and Scotty Nguyen, Hellmuth entered the feature table in karate gear, turning the Thunderdome into Phil’s Dojo with a flash mob of karate connoisseurs along for the ride. The karate theme didn’t keep Phil’s chi in order, however, as he showed a new gear in adding the four-bet bluff to his televised resume with the ol’ nine-deuce offsuit, and had a trademark blowup or two for fans to feast on via the proceedings on PokerGo. Hellmuth managed to slightly increase his starting stack up to 66,700 by the end of the day, after a swingy day from the 17-time bracelet winner.

A total of eight former WSOP Main Event champs survived the day along with Hellmuth, as Jamie Gold (111,100), Joe Hachem (72,000) and Chris Moneymaker (64,300) added to their starting stacks, while Robert Varkonyi (58,000), Scott Blumstein (53,800), Damian Salas (50,800) and Johnny Chan (45,000) saw a slight dip in their fortunes. Other notables to survive include Ben Lamb (129,000), Isaac Haxton (124,400), Mike Matusow (121,500), Ryan Depaulo (80,100), Santhosh Suvarna (60,600), and Daniel Negreanu (37,900).

A total of 597 players would fall short of a Day 2 bag, one of which being the fast talking Martin Kabrhel. The two-time bracelet winner tried to get creative in Level 1, calling a four-bet to 10,000 with from Jared Hemingway, then making an overbet of 24,000 after action checked to the river of a board. Hemingway made the call with for a rivered set of queens, and Kabrhel saw more than half of his stack disappear in a flash, with the rest following shortly thereafter. Shaun Deeb, Chino Rheem, Gus Hansen, Sylvain Loosli and Dan Bilzerian also will not be winning the Main Event this year after busting out on Day 1c.

Anderson Navigates Another Big Field to Win Independence Day Celebration

In 2022, Francis Anderson nearly notched his first career bracelet, falling two spots shy to Michael Jukich in another large field event, the $1,500 Monster Stack. He wouldn’t be denied in his second shot at WSOP glory, besting a field of 4,263 entrants in Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration No-Limit Hold’em for a career-best score of $501,040 and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

A total of 356 players returned from the two starting flights, and with stacks short, it didn’t take long for heads to roll, with Ben Yu (268th – $2,840), Arthur Zabronsky (155th – $3,620), Kenny Hallaert (126th – $4,150), Mark Seif (41st – $13,350) and Ari Engel (35th – $16,300) all making their way to the payout desk in short order. After 11 hours, the official final table was reached with the elimination of Changle Lin (10th – $39,110) in tenth.

The largest stack as the final table commenced wielded just over 32 big blinds, so it didn’t take long for Jaskaran Brar, Regina Vega Sevilha, and Martin Zamani to hit the rail. Some time would pass before Tom Cohen got his kings cracked by Bamshad Azizi and his sixes to fall in sixth, but despite taking the chip lead after the hand, it would take just two hands for Azizi to meet his demise, with the final hand seeing his nines run into the jacks of Brent Lee. Donnie Barnard and Taylor Williams also fell victim to Lee shortly after, and Lee had a commanding chip lead heading into a showdown with Anderson.

Anderson won a flip against Lee to get into striking distance, before the most pivotal hand of the tournament commenced. Anderson opened with a min-raise to 10 million on the button, and Lee defended his big blind. Anderson bet 9 million on a flop, and Lee check-raised to 20 million. Anderson called, then called bets of 25 million and his last 56.5 million on the turn and river respectively with , which had Lee’s for top pair on the flop crushed. Lee was left with just ten big blinds, and a few hands later, Anderson sealed the win and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

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!