WSOP 2024: Main Event Reaches Day 6 as Song Continues to Play the Tune, Ivey and Mateos Busted

A thrilling day of action on Day 45 of the 2024 World Series of Poker concluded with six bracelet events in action, and none of them reaching a conclusion. Chief among them was, of course, the WSOP Main Event, where just 160 players survived on Day 5, several of those players being female stars of the game.

Stephen Song Top, Kristen Foxen in the Main Event Hunt

When 464 players returned for Day 5 of the WSOP Main Event, none of them could have foreseen the drama that was to come. By the end of the day’s play, just 160 of them remained in seats as the last day where more than 10 tables of player would gather at the close of play to fill bags surmised their chip-stacks. Leading the Main Event and hoping to win the $10 million top prize from a record-breaking field of 10,112 is bracelet winner Stephen Song (12,310,000) who sits just ahead of Portuguese players Carlos Caldas (12,110,000) and Diogo Coelho (9,950,000).

Plenty of other big names made the cut, with Swedish online poker sensation Niklas ‘Lena900’ Astedt starting the day on 385,000 chips and ending it on a spectacular top 10 stack of 7,900,000. With the Poker Hall of Famer Brian Rast (6,325,000), high roller crusher Ren Lin (5,660,000), former Player of the Year Kristen Foxen (5,400,000), bracelet winner Brandon Cantu (4,600,000), and WPT legend Tony Dunst (3,190,000) all still chasing the title, it could be one of the highest standard final tables in many years.

Along with Kristen Foxen, three other female players are still hoping to become the first-ever female winner of the Main Event. No female players have made the final table in 29 years since Barbara Enright’s fifth-place finish in 1995, but this year features four players who are in with a good chance of doing so, with Foxen joined by Ma Li (4,050,000), Shundan Xiao (3,205,000) and Danielle Andersen (1,725,000) in the Day 6 counts.

One player who won’t be in the mix tomorrow is Spanish poker legend Adrian Mateos. After losing some of his chips in a hand where he correctly hero-folded pocket kings against pocket aces after a queen-high flop, Mateos then played pocket aces perfectly himself, only for his opponent in the hand to win with the worst hand, as a suited ace-king made a runner-runner flush to take Mateos out of the running.

Others to bust on Day 5 included the 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey, the World Poker Tour Main Event monster Bin Weng, poker professional and coach Jonathan Little, Argentina’s Nacho Barbero, Canadian online poker boss and PokerStars Team Pro Parker Talbot, and the Main Event star of recent years, Alejandro Lococo.

Wilhelm Winning in Mystery Bounty, Yockey Chasing

After a mammoth 4,280 entrants in the $1,000 Mystery Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha Event #86, Day 2 featured only 463 starting players. At the close of play, only 10 remained in with a chance of taking home the bracelet and top prize of $282,290. Top of the pile with 10 left is German player Sascha Wilhelm (36.25m), with Bryce Yockey second in chips on 33.95m.

Yockey’s rise to prominence in the event came at the expense of both Rajendara Dhar and Scott Bohlman after Yockey won a massive three-way all-in, taking out both players when three tables remained in the event. Plenty of other players joined Dhar and Bohlman on the rail on Day 2, with Matt Glantz (434^th for $1,390), Ryan Leng (336^th for $1,500), Toby Lewis (218^th for $2,030), Chance Kornuth (174^th for $2,290), and 2013 Main Event Winner Ryan Riess (105^th for $2,610) all cashing.

Gus Hansen Going for Gold

Event #88, the $10,000-entry Eight-Game Mixed Championship saw  the penultimate day of the event conclude with Adam Friedman (1,098,000) ahead of Tom Koral (1,055,000) and poker legend Gus Hansen (948,000) in the top three. On a day where players such as Daniel Negreanu, Robert Mizrachi, Stephen Chidwick, Josh Arieh, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Weinman and Scott Seiver all busted, Viktor Blom bubbled the event, leaving everyone else chasing the top prize of $413,446, with Hansen a headline-grabbing player with a terrific chance of victory.

Three More Day1s See Big Fields

In three other bracelet events, players battled to make progress and stay in the hunt for gold. In Event #89, the $3,000-entry Mid-Stakes Championship, a total field of 1,161 was whittled down to 317 after Day 1 with Jonathan Newman (573,500) the chip leader, followed by French player Herve Gouzil (505,000), poker legend Michael Moncek (357,000), Adam Hendrix (166,500), Samuel Laskowitz (156,000) and Poker Hall of Famer Billy Baxter (86,500) in the chipcounts.

Event #90 saw1,304 starting entries reduced to 89 survivors in the $1,500-entry 6-Max PLO event, with a prizepool of $1.74 million gathered in and a top prize of $269,530 on the line tomorrow. David Shaw (1,028,000), leads the race for the bracelet with other big names such as Pedro Neves (456,000), Mike Leah (410,000) and David Docherty (338,000) all chasing gold too.

Finally, in Event #91, 357 entries played the $3,000 buy-in 8-Max H.O.R.S.E. event, with just 141 of them making Day 2. Leading the remaining field at the close of play was David ‘ODB’ Baker (353,500), with Paul Campbell (251,000), Ariel Mantel (215,500), Dario Alioto (212,500), John Racener (189,000), Scotty Nguyen (155,500), Jeremy Ausmus (147,500) and Phil Ivey (129,500) all surviving at the expense of busted stars such as the 2023 world champion Daniel Weinman, Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow, Weinman’s fellow ‘Team Lucky’ member Shaun Deeb, high roller Dan Shak, 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth and PokerStake’s own Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler.

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.