While America celebrated its Independence Day during Day 38 of the 2024 World Series of Poker, there was still plenty of action to be had inside the Paris and Horseshoe casinos in Las Vegas. The WSOP Main Event had its second flight take off (and had yet another memorable first hand elimination!) and two more WSOP gold bracelets were doled out in another day of exciting action before what could be yet another record-setting weekend for the granddaddy of all poker tournaments.

Day 1b Sees Dolofan On Top 

The “Shuffle Up and Deal!” from 2004 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Raymer kicked off Day 1b of Event #81: $10,000 Main Event, where a total of 830 runners joined the 916 from yesterday’s Day 1a in search of poker immortality. At day’s end, a solid 616 remained from the original field, a testament to the slow pace players enjoy in the pinnacle of tournament poker. The chip leader out of the pack turned out to be George Dolofan, who bagged up 314,000, a few chips higher than Joshua Feiger’s 311,900 from Day 1a to earn Dolofan the current overall chip lead. 

The biggest push to Dolofan’s chip lead happened in Level 4, when Dolofan flopped a full house on a board, and managed to get a total of 60,000 chips in value from an opponent who turned the nut flush. That helped Dolofan cruise to the only 300k+ stack, but other players such as Vladas Tamasauskas (268,300) and Frode Alfredsen (221,200) also spent much of the day near the top of the counts.

Established pros enjoyed great success on the day as well, as Daniel Neilson (214,900), Erik Seidel (183,000), Artur Martirosian (166,300), 2019 Main Event champ Hossein Ensan (166,000), Dan Shak (153,500), David “Bakes” Baker (145,200), and Ben Yu (125,600) all more than doubled their starting stacks. John Duthie (119,300), Niklas Astedt (114,000), Andy Black (95,300), 2021 Main Event champ Koray Aldemir (94,300), Vivian Saliba (87,100), Seth Davies (73,900), and Jean-Robert Bellande (66,900) also managed an uptick in their chip stock, while Anthony Zinno (47,500), Patrick Leonard (19,800) and Jared Bleznick (16,900) trended down by the end of play.

Just like yesterday when two players crashed and burned on hand number one, there was another unfortunate soul who paid $10,000 and got just one hand’s worth of Main Event experience. Tony Guglietti had bet a flop with pocket nines, and John Gutierrez made the call. The turn didn’t deter Guglietti, who check-called a 3,000 chip bet from Gutierrez despite the flush coming in. An eight peeled off on the river, and armed with a straight, Guglietti massively overbet the pot and jammed, only to run smack into the of Gutierrez, whose nut flush sent Guglietti out the door one hand into Day 1b.

Another casualty of Day 1b was the aforementioned Raymer, who never got much going on the 20th anniversary of his Main Event triumph. He got his last 33,300 in with jacks, but was in bad shape against the aces of Gabriel Penescu. A short-stacked Adam Curchak held nines and ended up turning one to secure the main pot, but Penescu got the signature fossil from Raymer when no jack arrived on the board. Joining Raymer on the Day 1b rail was none other than Head of PokerStake Josh Arieh, along with Kevin Rabichow, Michael Moncek, Jeremy Wien, Erick Lindgren, Juha Helppi, and David Einhorn.

With the July 4th holiday past, the two biggest flights of the Main Event loom, with tomorrow’s Day 1c flight expected to pick up the pace with around 3,000 entrants expected to hit the felt if last year’s 3,080 player Day 1c flight is any indication.

Perkusic Makes First Cash Count With $50k High-Roller PLO Victory

For most players who venture to the WSOP in the modern era, their cashing resume usually includes some smaller buy-in min-cashes and maybe a deep run or two sprinkled in. Daniel Perkusic of Germany decided to take the road less traveled, and made his maiden WSOP cash a seven-figure payday with a victory in Event #79: $50,000 High-Roller Pot Limit Omaha for $2,100,325 and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

Five players returned for the final day of action, and Hustler Casino Live veteran Santhosh Suvarna couldn’t hustle up any short stack magic, hitting the rail just two hands into the day. A massive pot would take place soon after, with the top two stacks at the start of the day involved. Ronald Keijzer made a bold all-in bluff on the river with blockers to a full house, but Danny Tang held the second nuts and called to bust Keijzer in fourth. Jim Collopy started the day as a short stack, and never managed much traction before running his kings into Perkusic’s aces to fall in third.

Perkusic started heads-up action with a slight lead over Tang, and while Tang did manage to briefly reclaim the chip lead, it quickly went south from there for the poker pro from Hong Kong, as Perkusic ground Tang down to under ten bigs before the final hand. Tang flopped bottom set against Perkusic’s top two pair, and Perkusic was able to add a few outs with a higher third pair on the turn. The river was one of Perkusic’s pairs, giving him a higher full house and denying Tang his second career WSOP gold bracelet.

Emotional Skarparis Wins Mini Main For Fallen Friend

It was a battle of the haves and have nots in Event #78: $1,000 Mini Main Event No-Limit Hold’em, as two players out of the final five players controlled nearly 80% of the chips in play among the final five. One of those players, Georgios Skarparis, managed to accumulate all the chips in the end, earning his first WSOP gold bracelet and honoring the memory of his late friend Kyriakos Oxinos, who tragically died in an automobile accident.

Dirk Bruns failed to spin his six big blinds up, busting right off the bat to fellow short stack Alexandre Barbaranelli. Despite starting the day as the chip leader, Kyle Williamson had a rough day at the final table, losing a large pot to Skarparis soon after Bruns departed, before busting in fourth when his was outflopped by the of Skarparis. Mikhail Zavoloka was the beneficiary of Williamson’s ouster, as he held just over half a big blind in his stack at the time. No miracle would come for Zavoloka when he put those scant few chips in the next hand, and Skarparis entered heads up with a nearly 4:1 chip lead over Barbaranelli.

Barbaranelli got those last 16 big blinds in immediately, committing his stack with the . Skarparis held and faded a chop after a flop, with the turn and river cementing his place in history with a victory in the Mini Main Event.

Zaiss Leads Day 1b of Independence Day Celebration

Another 3,928 players fired Day 1b of Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration No-Limit Hold’em, bringing the total field up to 6,792 players. Only 206 survived the day, with William Zaiss (2,280,000) holding the chip lead, while Nipun Java (1,925,000), Benjamin Ector (1,690,000), Jeffrey Copeland (1,135,000), and Grayson Ramage (905,000) all bagging up stacks. The remaining 356 players will return tomorrow to play down to a champion.

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