It was a battle throughout the Day Two festivities at the 2023 WPT World Championship on Saturday, but it was well worth it – for at least 480 people. It wasn’t until the final hand of the night that the money bubble was popped and, with that, those 480 fortunate souls will come back on Sunday and claim at least $18,700 for their efforts. Crowned the “king of the mountain,” at least for Day Two, was Alessandro Siena, who bagged up over three million chips for battle on Sunday.
1375 Players and a Dream
For the first time on Saturday, the field came together for Day Two of the 2023 WPT World Championship. After four Day One flights established the field (but came up short of the $40 million guarantee), 1375 players came back with the dream dancing in their heads of winning the WPT World Championship. At least a third of the players who stepped up on Saturday would have that dream dashed, as only 480 runners would partake of the $40 million prize pool.
Leading off the action for the day were Kyle Ho (1.211 million) and Chance Kornuth (1.13 million), but it was still too soon to sit back and live off the laurels of the Day One efforts. By the time the first break for the day came, 300 players had been sent to the rail and it appeared that the money bubble would pop rather quickly. In reality, it was just the short stacks busting out from the Day One field, as the play gradually slowed down and the crème began to rise to the top.
Once the second break of the day came, there was a new list of contenders on the tournament leaderboard. Chris Moorman devastated the stack of Vlad Darie after Darie attempted to bluff Moorman on an A-3-2-8-2 board. After firing nearly all his roughly 600K stack (he only left 25K in reserve), Darie had to show his 10-9 for a complete bluff against Moorman’s A-J.
That would push Moorman up over 1.3 million in chips, but it was not enough to even reach the chip leaders at the second break. Kiat Lee (1.969 million), Alex Papazian (1.74 million), and Artur Martirosyan (1.545 million) were at the top of the board as some big names were taken down. Alex Livingston, Mike Matusow, and Kyna England saw their tournaments come to an end before the second break started as the field went under the 900-player mark.
Eliminate Half the Field? Not a Problem…
Players got serious after the end of the second break of the 2023 WPT World Championship as, with no dinner break, they would be playing only five levels on the day. They took the numbers from roughly 900 to 528 by the start of the fourth level of action, and the reality that the money bubble might pop on Day Two was moving closer. There was a bit of confusion, at least on one player’s part, as to how the WPT events proceeded once they approached the money bubble.
When the tournament reaches the last three tables before the money bubble (usually 27 places), the WPT puts their Action Clock into play, which forces players to make their decisions within thirty seconds or use one of their “Time Bank” chips that gives them an additional thirty seconds of deliberation. Top professional Davidi Kitai, not used to the Action Clock, had to burn several of these chips as he thought that the dealer was supposed to announce when the clock was running down (the dealer is not).
The confusion did not stop Kitai from making it into the money. Only four hands into hand-for-hand play, four all-ins were on the felt, and three of them were able to become double-ups. The fourth one, however, saw the money bubble pop. A J-4-4 flop saw the remainder of Tyler Hirschfeld’s chips enter the center against Maryline Valente. The news wasn’t good for Hirschfeld as the cards were turned up:
Hirschfeld: pocket Aces
Valente: pocket Jacks
The pocket Jacks of Valente catapulted her past Hirshfeld and left him looking for one of the two remaining Aces in the deck or running fours to counterfeit Valente’s full house. A seven on the turn eliminated the chances of runner-runner quads and, once a ten came on the river, Valente had secured the knockout and Tyler Hirschfeld left Wynn Las Vegas in 481st place ($0).
1. Alessandro Siena, 3.035 million
2. Mateus Carrion, 2.615 million
3. David Levy, 2.605 million
4. Jacob Ferro, 2.6 million
(tie) Julien Martini, 2.6 million
6. Ade Olonoh, 2.52 million
7. Raphael Blouet, 2.45 million
8. Michael Gathy, 2.4 million
9. Aditya Sadhu, 2.395 million
10. Julio Belluscio, 2.385 million
Lurking under the Top Ten are several familiar names. Igor Kurganov (2.34 million), former World Champion Hossein Ensan (2.315 million), Kornuth (2.26 million), and Ren Lin (2.2 million) are all over the two million chip mark. On the short stack, however, are such notables as Ronnie Bardah, Martins Adeniya, and Phil Laak, who will all have to make early moves to get more than the $18,700 minimum payday.
The plan for Sunday is to play six, sixty-minute levels, which should whittle the field down to a manageable level to allow for Monday’s action to settle the final table. The eventual champion of the 2023 WPT World Championship earns a nifty little treat for the holiday season in the form of a $5.678 million stocking stuffer, plus the right to live in immortality on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions’ Cup.
