WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas Day 2 Update

The second day of the 2023 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas took place on Saturday 16th December in the Encore Ballroom. In fact, at the start of the day, 1,375 of the original 3,835 players remained, which meant that there was not enough room to accommodate them all in the main ballroom, therefore several hundred players started the day on tables in other rooms within the Wynn Convention Center. But with a fast rate of attrition early on, it was not long before all remaining players were sat in the same room.

The unfortunate player who missed out on the prize money by just one place was Tyler Hirschfeld, who was taken out in 481st by Frenchwoman Maryline Valente, with a huge crowd of players and media surrounding the table prior to his unfortunate walk of shame. Hischfeld’s two red aces were cruelly neutralised by two black jacks when a third jack fell on the flop. The day ended just when 480 players remained, all of whom are “in the money” and guaranteed a minimum payout of $18,700. The average stack of the remaining players is now just below 800,000

The overnight chip leader is Alessandro Siena on 3,035,000 who is the first player to creep over the 3m mark. Mateus Carrion, who posted the largest stack from day 1d has also maintained his status as one of the chip leaders, sitting in second place on 2,615,000. He is marginally in front of David Levy, Julien Martini and Jacob Ferro, who all have exactly 2,600,000 cookies. Kyle Ho, who led the field after day 1 is also still in the running, now commanding an above average stack of 1,665,000.

Early casualties included two Irish players, Andy Black and Chris Dowling. Black had entered the day as one of the shortest stack left in the tournament and was all-in within a lap of the table, reporting that he got it in good, but his hand didn’t stand up. Dowling also hit the rail within the first level of the day. Having lost a significant chunk of his stack with nines in the big blind versus a button shove with tens, he was eliminated two hands later when shoving with Ace-3 on the button, but failing to improve against pocket fours.

The WPT trio of Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger (1,000,000), Brad Owen  (310,000) and Lynn Gilmartin (215,000) are all still live in the event, however colleagues Andrew Neeme and Tony Dunst did not manage to join them in day three. Lyle Berman, who had announced shuffle up and deal at the start of day 1d is also still in with a chance of making a deep run with just under 1m chips in his pile.

At this stage, there are still four WSOP main event champions left who could potentially add a further World Champion title to their CVs. Joe Hachem, on 345,000 will have to make an early impact on day 3 to remain in the running, however, Joe Cada (1,160,000), Huck Seed (1,485,000) and Hossein Ensan (2,200,000) all got through with above average chip counts.

There are however no less than 30 WPT main event champions still vying for another tour victory. No less than one of every 16 remaining players in the field already has their name on the Mike Sexton Trophy. It looks quite likely that at least one former WPT champion will grace the final table, but there’s still a further four days of play until the last six will contest the televised final table. Chance Kornuth leads this legion of former champs on 2,260,000 while UK pro Chris Moorman is also well above average on 1,525,000.  Welshman Roberto Romanello, another former WPT champion, also remains in play with 420,000 to his name.

End of Day 2 chip counts of selected players

The third day begins at 12pm local time in Las Vegas. With a lot of players barely scraping into the money with very short stacks, the first few levels of the day will be a bloodbath, with a significant percentage expected to lose their tournament lives within the first level of the day. Shot clocks are now in full use in the tournament, having been introduced shortly before the prize money bubble.