A brilliant advert for poker played out across the Horseshoe and Paris casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada as 3,080 hopefuls set aside $10,000 and entered the WSOP Main Event in a bid to win a likely $10 million top prize. With Sam Soverel taking gold too on a dramatic day at the felt, legends of the game took their seats and battled to make the next day in Las Vegas.

Main Event Day 1c Fills the Floor

The 3,080 players who took on Day 1c of the WSOP Main Event ranged from hopeful amateurs who have qualified for hundreds of dollars in local leagues to poker legends who have won millions already in their illustrious careers. All-in-all, a total of 5,217 players have entered during the Day 1a, Day 1b and Day 1c flights and with just over 4,000 survivors, over a thousand have busted along the way.

Day 1c starred many big names, but no-one ended up with a bigger stack than British poker professional Christopher Brammer as he bagged up 386,100 chips on his way to holding a big lead over his closest challengers Anthony Ibrahim (298,000), Sreekanth Nistala (260,200) and Tom Cannuli (248,000) in the chipcounts.

Behind those players, several legends bagged up huge stacks with the 2021 WSOP Player of the Year Josh Arieh (181,200) is positioned dangerously inside the upper limits of the leaderboard, with Michael Wang (158,600), Phil Laak (146,100), Mustapha Kanit (142,400), Ronnie Bardah (121,400), Stephen Chidwick (105,000), and Todd Brunson (88,200) all racking up more chips than the 60,000 they started with.

Another superstar who bagged profit on the day is used to being the biggest name in the room. In Las Vegas, however, Sergio Aguero is a lesser-known player. The former Barcelona, Manchester City and Argentina soccer star has only won $6,000 in his fledgling poker career, but totalled 87,000 by the close of play to make sure his next appearance at the felt will come in Friday’s Day 2abc.

Several former world champions made the cut, such as Joe McKeehen (111,500), Scott Blumstein (71,900), Espen Jorstad (62,000), and Ryan Riess (68,100). They will join other previous Main Event winners such as Johnny Chan, Martin Jacobson and Jamie Gold in the seat draw for two days time, but another busted, as the 2021 world champion Koray Aldemir slid out of contention with his pocket kings crushed by pocket aces.

Despite so many stars making the grade, other star names fell short, with legendary poker commentator and stand-up comedian Joe ‘Stapes’ Stapleton busting on the day, leading to him quipping to one fan hoping he’d make Day 2, that he was “hoping to make dinner break”. Stapes was joined on the rail by close friend Maria Ho, returning legend Vanessa Selbst, nine-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel, Belarussian crusher Mikita Badziakouski and four-time WPT winner Darren Elias, but there was a Day 2 seat for Daniel Negreanu, who scraped into the next day with 25,900. Kid Poker will be hoping for a fast start to Friday’s action. If anyone has the nous to climb the leaderboard quickly, it’s the six-time WSOP title holder.

Sam Soverel Wins ‘Hybrid’ Event for $393,000 as Bronshtein Bricks  

In the 13^th Online Event of the summer, a live felt showdown heralded the second bracelet win of American Sam Soverel’s career. Ethan Yau was the first player to hit the rail, after his lost to Gergely Kulcsar’s on a board tragically free of any rockets for Rampage’s many supporters. Yau was followed from the felt by his friend Lingkun Lu, who was unlucky to bust with when Kulcsar’s hit Broadway on the board of .

Next to go was the Latvian Aleks Ponakovs, who had a heads-up win against Phil Ivey to claim a bracelet in his impressive back catalogue. Ponakovs was potted when his couldn’t catch Soverel’s with the chips committed pre-flop. Soon after, Israel’s Yuval Bronshtein lost his stack to a rampant Kulcsar when the Israel player’s lost to the Hungarian’s . A board of only ever gave Bronshtein hope of a gutshot and that was ended on the river to see him whiff the final duel.

Heads-up, Kulcsar had 5,690,000 chips to Soverel’s 4,510,000, but the American quickly took the lead, rivering a full house to establish a 3:1 chip lead. The final hand saw Soverel’s hold against Kulcsar’s when the chips went into the middle pre-flop and the board came .

Phil Hellmuth isn’t just the Greatest Showman by reputation, but on tomorrow’s Day 1d, he’ll be the same via outfit. We’re as excited to see Jungleman as anything else.

Spectacle! @WSOP Main Event entrance: tomorrow at 4 PM: 17 models (hopefully w Lion makeup), @junglemandan coming in as a lion, and me coming in as “The Greatest Showman!” We will drop Jungle at his table w 2 models, then go to my table #POSITIVITY #PHNiceLife pic.twitter.com/IdsfYRRN0Z

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) July 5, 2023

Joe Stapleton was playing his first-ever Main Event and couldn’t fault the structure… kind of.

The cool thing about the WSOP main is that the structure is so good, you get to lose pots for eight hours instead of just four or five.

— Joe “Legacy Blue” Stapleton (@Stapes) July 6, 2023

Shelby Wells ran deep last year. In 2023… not so much.

this is fr just so embarrassing i cannot believe i played decent all day then in 3 hours of play i go from 140k to 0 with no serious coolers. i cantttttt. i don’t wanna have to go back to work and talk to people about this LOL

— Shelby Wells (@lorenshleby) July 6, 2023

Justin Young showed off about how long he’s been taking on the World Championship. It’s 20 years!

20 straight Mains for @Justinyoung07, still has his credential from 2004! pic.twitter.com/ZPxqRRmBf7

— Jeff Platt (@jeffplatt) July 6, 2023

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