Sean Winter Leads Pack of 45 Survivors in $250K Super High Roller
The biggest buy-in event of the 2024 World Series of Poker, Event #55: $250,000 Super High Roller No-Limit Hold'em, kicked off today inside the festival's home at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
Today's session saw 58 entries, besting last year's Day 1 total of 44. The final figure at the 2023 WSOP rose to 69, and that number is likely to be eclipsed as late registration remains open through the first two levels on Day 2.
The 58 entries in this edition of the $250K came from 51 unique players, all of whom took their seats today except for Phil Ivey. The poker icon will take his spot at the table when Day 2 gets underway at 12 p.m. local time on Saturday, June 22.
As it stands, the field is competing for a slice of the $14,442,000 prize pool, with Sean Winter in pole position to claim the lion's share along with the WSOP bracelet. Winter, one of the best players without a piece of WSOP hardware, has cashed for more than $3 million under the WSOP umbrella but has yet to make it over the finish line.
Winter has made six WSOP final tables, notching a runner-up finish in 2018 as well as taking third in 2022 and 2023. Is this finally Winter's time to shine?
Adrian Mateos and Aram Oganyan round out the top three chip counts, with the likes of Jonathan Jaffe, Leon Sturm and Chance Kornuth on the top ten leaderboard.
Payouts are yet to be confirmed, but should the entry tally surpass the total from 12 months ago, the winner should expect to take home more than $5,000,000.
End of Day 1 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blind |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sean Winter | United States | 4,475,000 | 149 |
| 2 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 4,210,000 | 140 |
| 3 | Aram Oganyan | United States | 3,935,000 | 131 |
| 4 | Jonathan Jaffe | United States | 3,395,000 | 113 |
| 5 | Alex Kulev | Bulgaria | 3,020,000 | 101 |
| 6 | Leon Sturm | Germany | 2,960,000 | 99 |
| 7 | Jason Koon | United States | 2,830,000 | 94 |
| 8 | Santhosh Suvarna | India | 2,720,000 | 91 |
| 9 | Chance Kornuth | United States | 2,690,000 | 90 |
| 10 | Justin Saliba | United States | 2,670,000 | 89 |
Aces vs Kings vs Queens, Oh My!
As expected with a buy-in of this magnitude, the world's best and most well-known poker players were in attendance, along with a few VIPs looking to test their skills against the game's trailblazers.
Many of those in the upper echelons of the Hendon Mob All-Time Money List took to the felt, looking to add to their legacies. Bryn Kenney and Justin Bonomo, who occupy the top two spots, were seated next to each other.
Should Kenney go on to make a deep run, he'll create more distance between himself and his closest rival. If Bonomo catches fire, like he did today, he could very well reclaim his spot at the summit. As it stands, less than $2,500,000 separates the two luminaries.
Bonomo, who ended the day with 2,600,000, saw his stack diminish in the early goings, but being on the right side of a three-way cooler propelled him up the chip counts. Bonomo picked up aces and got it in against Isaac Haxton's kings and Jason Koon's queens to triple up. His stack remained steady throughout, and he was one of the 45 survivors to bag and tag after eight levels of play.
Daniel Negreanu also found a bag of 1,025,000, thanks to making quad kings late at the expense of Orpen Kisacikoglu, who ended the night with a single T-5,000 chip.
Several players had to stump up a second $250,000 to reenter, with Haxton and Koon being two of those. The aforementioned Kisacikoglu, Johannes Straver, defending champion Chris Brewer, and Christoph Vogelsang are the other players currently in for two bullets.
Viktor Blom, David Peters, Matthias Eibinger and Mikalai Vaskaboinikau also found themselves on the wrong side of the rail but have yet to use their single reentry and can hop back into the mix tomorrow. However, Kathy Lehne used up her two lives and will be unable to take part any further.
The 2024 WSOP $100K High Roller winner Chris Hunichen is in contention of back-to-back bracelet wins. "Big Huni" defeated Jeremy Ausmus heads-up yesterday to win his first bracelet and $2,838,389. He had his bracelet ceremony this afternoon and received a standing ovation from those in the Paris Ballroom before diving into the action. Can the former No.1 online poker player get himself another seven-figure payday?
That answer will be clearer after Day 2 at the Horseshoe Event Center.
Those looking to make the third and final day will need to survive another ten hours of play, and PokerNews will be on hand to provide you with all the coverage when this thrilling event resumes.