Yingui Li Leads Final Three in Event #20: $1,500 Badugi
Thirteen players came into Day 3 of Event #20: $1,500 Badugi at the 2023 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas expecting to play down to a winner. After ten 60-minute levels, however, the tournament director called time with three players still remaining.
Leading the final three is China's Yingui Li (4,900,000), barely ahead of Michael Rodrigues (4,600,000) in second. Start of day chipleader Serhii Popovych (3,350,000) has the shortest stack but still has every chance of rallying to claim victory.
At the start of the day, there were three tables of players but with the elimination of John Bergendahl in 13th place, the field condensed down to two tables. From that point on it took quite some time before the final table was set but eventually in Level 29, two-time bracelet winner David "ODB" Baker fell to fellow bracelet winner Danny Tang after failing to outdraw Tang's dealt king badugi.
2023 WSOP Event #20: $1,500 Badugi Final Table Results
| Position | Name | Country | Prize/Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yingui Li | China | 4,900,000 |
| 2 | Michael Rodrigues | Portugal | 4,600,000 |
| 3 | Serhii Popovych | United States | 3,350,000 |
| 4 | Matt Vengrin | United States | $40,996 |
| 5 | Danny Tang | Hong Kong | $28,270 |
| 6 | Owais Ahmed | United States | $20,557 |
| 7 | Lee Horton | United States | $15,102 |
Final Table Action
Lee Horton came into the final table as the significant short stack and quickly fell by the wayside when he ran right into the perfect four badugi of Owais Ahmed.
Next to go was Ahmed himself, unable to improve his three card hand against Rodrigues.
At that point, play continued five-handed for an incredible four hours before one-time tournament chipleader Tang finally succumbed to Li in fifth place.
Unlike many of the other players at the final table, Matt Vengrin never took the chip lead, instead finding various ways to stick around and outlast his competitors. His run did, however, come to an end in fourth place after getting his last few chips into the middle against Popovych prior to the first draw.
Momentum for each of the final three players ebbed and flowed over the course of the last few levels of the night before the tournament director chose to intervene, halting play at the end of Level 35 to set up a fourth and (truly) final day of action that will see a champion crowned.
Play resumes Saturday, June 10th, at 1 p.m. with blinds of 150,000/300,000 and limits of 300,000/600,000, meaning that none of the remaining players has a deep stack.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as its live reporting team wraps up coverage of this event as well as continuing to provide updates of all bracelet events at the 2023 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.