WPT World Championships 2023

WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas Day 1a Update

By Jonathan Raab

16 Jul 2024

Jonathan Raab 16 Jul 2024

Share this article

202 of 609 day 1a players have made it today 2 of the WPT World Championship
Jeff Hakim holds the chip lead on 998,000
Irish legend Andy Black scrapes through to day 2

Photos Courtesy of WPT

WPT World Championship Day 1a Report

Day 1a, the first of four starting days in the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas is now a thing of the past. And for 407 of the 609 players who took to the felt, their dreams of making the final table are also a thing of the past.

But hang on, that’s not entirely true, the event does allow players to fire one bullet per flight and quite a few players will exercise this option. However, with a $10,400 buy-in, the vast majority of players will be treating this as a freezeout.

Busted

One of the players who failed to make it past Day 1a was Erik Seidel. Fresh from picking up his 10th winners bracelet at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas, Erik was eliminated just before the half-way point of the day. But as one of the most successful tournament poker players of all-time, he is confidently expected to re-load his barrel for another starting day.

Last year's runner up Benny Glaser also failed to make his first bullet stick, but he'll also undoubtedly back for another crack at the whip today.

Big Stacks

Jeff Hakim leads the way as the day 1a chip leader, bagging up a chip stack just shy of 1m. He is one of three players to make it over 900,000, three times the average for the remaining players.

Amongst those that made it through the day with above average chip counts were the UK’s Patrick Leonard, David “The Dragon” Pham, Gus Hansen and Maria Konnikova.

Andy Black Scrapes Through

Meanwhile, at the other end of the chip count spectrum, Ireland’s Andy Black sneaked into day 2 with just 40,000 chips, 199th of the 202 survivors. With over $7m live cashes to his name, Andy “The Mad Monk” Black is the most successful Irish poker player of all-time.

He is best known for his 2005 5th place finish in the WSOP main event for a $1.75m payday, which remains his biggest cash to-date.

Poker Wired caught up with Andy after play ended.

“It was a torrid day, I’m into day two with just six and a half big blinds and never got much above starting stack”

adding

“Big stack or small stack, the objective of day 1 is to make it to day 2 and that goal has been successfully achieved”

Even with a short-stack, it would be churlish to write off his chances at this stage, especially as he has form as a short-stack ninja. Actually, as a former Buddhist monk (hence his nickname), it might be more appropriate to call him a short stack Zen Poker Warrior.

In 2008 he made it to day two of the WPT $25k World Championship with just 11,000 chips to his name, rebuilt a stack and eventually finished in 16th place for a six-figure cash. More recently, he made the final of last month’s Irish Poker Festival main event, despite being short-stacked throughout the latter stages of the tournament.

WPT World Championship End of Day 1a Survivors

Top 10 chip leaders and other notable survivors of Day 1a of the $40m guaranteed WPT World Championship

Position	Player	Chip Count
1st	Jeff Hakim	998,000
2nd	Adekunle Olonoh	972,000
3rd	Alan Keating	957,000
4th	Arden Cho	798,000
5th	Jeremy Joseph	773,000
6th	Jon Borenstein	745,000
7th	John Myung	712,000
8th	Patrick Leonard	706,000
9th	Tjan Tepeh	695,000
10th	George Tomescu	676,000
16th	David Pham	612,000
24th	Gus Hansen	558,000
38th	Maria Konnikova	458,000
90th	Steve Zolotov	297,000
128th	Nick Petrangelo	200,000
137th	Kenny Hallaert	182,000
176th	Jason Somerville	111,000
181st	Cliff Josephy	99,000
190th	Bruno Fitoussi	82,000
199th	Andy Black	40,000

Day 1b begins at 11am local time on Wednesday 13th December when many more hopefuls will start their journey to possible glory. Amongst them is WPT Global package winner Matthew Pitt, known online as Yorkypuds. Check back on PokerWired.com tomorrow for details of his progress and the overall story of the day.