WSOP Day 10: Fashakin Leads Final 7 in BIG 50; Millionaire Maker Begins

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Jun 07, 2019 9 min read Last updated Dec 19, 2019

Yesterday's Day 9 of the World Series of Poker featured eight events with two more players winning their first bracelets.

American Daniel Strelitz won the first bracelet of the day after besting a field of 400 entries in Event #11: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em to win the $442,385 top prize. A few hours later, Yuval Bronshtein outlasted a field of 296 entrants to win the $96,278 top prize in Event #13: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw.

Meanwhile, Event #15: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship is taking a day off with a live stream scheduled at PokerGO on Saturday, June 8 with three-time WSOP bracelet winner Ben Yu, two-time bracelet winner Keith Lehr, bracelet winner Cord Garcia, and Sean Swingruber playing the semi-finals and finals for the $186,356 top prize.

In addition to the five continuing events on Day 10, two new events make their debuts, including the much-anticipated Millionaire Maker and the first of five Stud events, to provide another day full of action at the Rio Convention Center.

Here's what's on tap today, in the daily What to Watch For on PokerNews, sponsored by 888poker.

Event #3: BIG 50 - $500 No-Limit Hold'em

The BIG 50 will go down in poker history books as the largest poker tournament in history with 28,371 runners generating a $13,509,435 prize pool.

The tournament began on May 30 and is finally coming to a close today as yesterday witnessed the remaining field of 126 entrants dwindle down to just seven after the eliminations of American David Rasmussen (ninth - $109,922) and Singapore's Morten Christensen (eighth - $141,126) at the unofficial final table. Also not surviving the day was five-time WSOP bracelet winner Allen Cunningham who bowed out in 47th place for $22,383.

Each of the seven remaining players will be battling it out for their first WSOP bracelet. A pair of Americans lead the way heading into today's action with Femi Fashakin (314 million, lead photo) and Walter Atwood (297 million) holding a gap on the rest of the table, with over 1.8 billion (!) chips in play.

Israel's Rafi Elharar (227.5 million), Canada's Daniel Ghobrial (101 million), and Americans Paul Cullen (191.5 million), Nicholas Chow (170 million), and Adrian Curry (126 million) are also all still in contention.

Event #3: BIG 50 - $500 No-Limit Hold'em Final Table Seat Draw

Event #3: BIG 50 - $500 No-Limit Hold'em Final Table Payouts

Each of the remaining seven players is guaranteed a huge return on his $500 buy-in with seventh place awarding $182,192. The prizes move quickly up from there with the eventual bracelet winner taking home a $1,147,449 top prize.

Today's action kicks off at noon PST with PokerGO hosting a live stream around the world starting at 1 p.m. PST. Of course, PokerNews will be on hand to report the final day hand-by-hand until the winner is crowned.

Event #14: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.

The H.O.R.S.E. event attracts limit mixed game enthusiasts battling it out in a rotation of games including Limit Hold'em, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better, Razz, Seven Card Stud, and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better.

• Limit Hold'em
• Razz
• Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better
• Seven Card Stud
• Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better

After two days of play, the field of 751 players was trimmed down to a more tidy field of 28 with a pair of Jasons on top of the leaderboard; Jason Acosta (754,000) and Jason Stockfish (646,000). Rounding out the top five are Sergey Altbregin (485,000), Danny Woolard (434,000), and twelve-time WSOP gold ring winner Valentin Vornicu (421,000).

Several WSOP bracelet winners are among the final 28 with Chris Klodnicki, Phillip Hui, Yueqi Zhu, Ron Ware, Andre Akkari, and two-time winner Tony Ma all hoping to add another piece of hardware to their collection.

Today's action will commence at noon PST and continue until there are just six players remaining. The final six will each be guaranteed a payout of $33,822 with Saturday's winner walking away with a much larger prize of $207,003.

Event #16: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed

Yesterday's penultimate day featured 289 players out of the original 1,852 entrants battling it out for 10 hour-long blind levels with 21 players eventually bagging chips.

Today's final day of action kicks off at 2 p.m. PST with each player guaranteed at least a 21st place payout of $16,643. The action will continue until a player wins the bracelet along with the $407,739 top prize. It will be the first bracelet for whoever wins as none of the remaining players have yet found WSOP gold in their careers.

France's Romain Nussmann is in the pole position entering the final day with a chip leading stack of 8,095,000. He is closely followed by Singapore's Ong Dingxiang with 7,080,000. There is a more than 2 million chip gap after that with American Pierce Mckellar sitting on a stack of 4,990,000. Mckellar is 2 million chips ahead of his nearest followers with Kai McCue-Unciano entering the final day with 2,760,000 followed by France's Nicolas Careme with 2,400,000. United Kingdom's Richard Hasnip, who entered Day 2 with the chip lead, is also still in contention with 1,615,000.

The action begins at 2 p.m. PST with blinds at 20,000/40,000 with a big blind ante of 40,000. Like yesterday, blinds will increase every hour.

Event #17: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout

The goal of this event is to be the last survivor of each table before advancing to compete the following day at a new table against other table winners.

Yesterday's Day 1 attracted 917 runners for a small increase over the 908 that battled it out last year when American Preston Lee claimed his first WSOP bracelet along with the $236,498 top prize.

A total of 100 table winners emerged from Day 1 to battle it out on a fresh table today starting at noon PST in hopes of making the final table of ten on Saturday, June 8.

Players will bring forth their stack from yesterday and begin the action with blinds at 1,000/2,000 with a big blind ante of 2,000 and levels of 40 minutes each.

The final 100 is a star-studded field headlined by many former WSOP bracelet winners including Eric Seidel (eight bracelets), 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada (four bracelets), Greg Mueller (two bracelets), Loni Harwood (two bracelets), Upeshka De Silva (two bracelets), Athanasios Polychronopoulos (two bracelets), 2016 WSOP Main Event champion Qui Nguyen (one bracelet), Denis Timofeev (one bracelet), and Jennifer Tilly (one bracelet).

Other big names to advance to Day 2 included Cary Katz, Nicholas Manion, Bill Klein, and Kane Kalas.

Event #18: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship

Day 1 of this four-day event attracted 173 entrants. This is the largest in five years when Brock Parker defeated a 178-player field and won his third bracelet in 2014 to collect the top prize of $443,407. The record field in this event was 212 players when back in 2010 three-time bracelet winner Sammy Farha triumphed for $488,241.

The event still has a chance to grow bigger than in 2014 with late-registration open to the start of today's Day 2 action at 2 p.m. PST. Those that join in the action late will receive 50,000 in starting chips and blinds starting at 2,000/4,000 with limits of 4,000/8,000.

They will join the ninety Day 1 survivors for seven blind levels of 90 minutes each with surviving players battling it out for two more days until a winner is crowned with the final table live streamed at CBS All Access in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and at PokerGO in the rest of the world.

Yarron Bendor heads into today's action in the chip lead with 378,000 in chips followed by WSOP bracelet winner David Benyamine (291,500), four-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb (263,000), and Delmiro Toledo (258,000).

Derek McMaster, who already won a bracelet this series after outlasting a field of 853 runners in Event #4: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better for $228,228, is in a decent position to become the first two-time winner at the 2019 WSOP heading into Day 2 with a fifth-place stack of 240,000.

Many other WSOP bracelet winners bag chips into today's action including David "Bakes" Baker, Tom Koral, Sam Higgs, Mike Wattel, John Racener, Perry Friedman, Mike Matusow, Owais Ahmed, Nick Schulman, John Monnette, James Obst, Ben Lamb, Dan Zack, Chris Vitch, Ray Dehkharghani, Chris Ferguson, Brandon Shack-Harris, and defending champion Paul Volpe.

Event #19: Millionaire Maker - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em

Since its inception in 2013, the Millionaire Maker is one the most popular events on the schedule with first place guaranteed at least a $1 million payout for just a $1,500 buy-in.

Whether or not the BIG 50 or other smaller buy-in events takes away any of the luster of this event remains to be seen but big numbers are expected to come out for each of the two opening flights starting with today's Day 1a at 10 a.m. PST.

Players will start off with 25,000 in chips, a sizeable increase of the 7,500 from last year's event. Each opening flight allows for one re-entry and players will bag chips after eleven hour-long blind levels of play. Surviving players will compete for four more days until a winner is crowned on live stream at PokerGO on June 12.

Previous Millionaire Maker Winners

The event began with Benny Chen outlasting a field of 6,343 to collect the $1,199,104 top prize in 2013. The following year attracted the biggest field of 7,977 entrants when Jonathan Dimmig shipped the event for $1,319,587.

The first four years featured Americans winning the event with Adrian Buckley banking the $1,277,193 top prize in 2015 followed by Jason DeWitt collecting $1,065,403 in 2016. The last two years, the bracelet left the country with Canada's Pablo Mariz claiming the title in 2017 for $1,221,407 and Germany's Arne Kern outlasting a field of 7,361 entrants to win the $1,173,223 last year.

Event #20: $1,500 Seven Card Stud

The first Seven Card Stud event kicks off today at 3 p.m. PST and will feature four action-packed days and will play down to a winner on June 10. Today's opening day will feature ten blinds levels of an hour each with players starting with 10,000 in chips.

Four other Stud events litter the schedule giving seven-card poker fans plenty of chances to win a WSOP bracelet.

• June 7 - Event #20: $1,500 Seven Card Stud
• June 10 - Event #27: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better
• June 17 - Event #41: $10,000 Seven Card Stud
• June 30 - Event #67: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better

American musician and producer Steven Albini won his first bracelet in this event in 2018 after outlasting a field of 310 entrants to win the top prize of $418,500.

2019 WSOP Video of the Day

2019 WSOP Bracelet Winners

The American dominance yesterday continued with Daniel Strelitz shipping his first WSOP bracelet, but a new country also witnessed its flag raised for the tenth time in WSOP history after Israel's Yuval Bronshtein found gold for the first time.

Americans have shipped ten of the first twelve bracelets with one player each from the United Kingdom and Israel also winning WSOP events in 2019. Here's a look at all of the bracelet winners:

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