The 2019 World Series of Poker Main Event allowed late registration up to the start of Day 2 (ABC) and 444 runners took advantage of the extended time. A total of 8,569 are in this year's field, which marks the second highest of all time. The 2019 champion will bank $10 million with all final table players winning at least $1 million. Only 2,880 players advanced to Day 3 with Julian Milliard sitting on the big stack with 948K.
So, yeah... the naked guy is a thing of the past because this year's WSOP Main Event Champion will take home $10,000,000 this year. Holy apeshit batman! I hope whomever wins has a full 100% of themselves.
The 2019 World Series of Poker is also the 50th Anniversary of Benny Binion's brainchild. It will also be the last one at the Rio, so the fact that the Main Event attracted the second-largest crowd ever... and biggest since the peak of the online poker boom... is a heck of a way to cap off this year's corporate poker Olympics.
$10M is a sick haul anyway you cut it. In about 8+ days we'll find out who will be the last player standing. They already survived the brutal opening flight and Day 2. It now comes down to who can maintain the stamina over the next week or so where the pressure increases exponentially each day.
This year's numbers were the second highest in the history of the WSOP. Jamie Gold's year, during the apex of the glorious and redonkulous poker boom, attracted the all-time record of 8,773. Although 2019 fell short of the all-time record, a couple of earnest prognosticators thought they had a shot at breaking the number this year when a large segment of runners showed up on Day 1A, which had been historically one of the lowest turnout days. Alas, the July 4 Holiday on Day 1B might have had something to do with it, but who knows for sure.
The WSOP tweaked their late reg for this year's 10K Main Event. They decided to keep it open until Day 2. That meant an extra 444 players were late arrivals... including Phil Hellmuth... who waited until Day 2AB/Day 2C to take a shot the glory and a mountain of cash.
The prize pool topped $80.5 million. Only the top 1,286 places get paid out with a min-cash worth $15,000. Ninth place banks at least a cool million.
The top 3 places pay out 25% of the total prize pool or $20M total with $10M set aside to the champ, $6M to the runner-up, and $4 million to third place.
The juiced 2019 Main Event numbers definitely cracked last year's Main Event number of 7,874. John Cynn won the 2018 title in what is now the third-largest field in history. At the time, Cynn won his title in the second-biggest donkfest but he's been downgraded by the swell of 2019 participants.
Speaking of Cynn... the defending champ still has a title to defend. He is one of the 2,880 players who made the cut and will return on Monday for a full field of combined players in Day 3 action.
At the end of Day 2C, Julian Millard bagged with the lead with nearly 948K.
Vlastimil Pustina also had a fantastic Sunday at the Rio with 930K, followed by author/podcaster/pro Andre Brokos and 895K on third place. Aleska Pavicevic and Nai Hu round out the Top 5.
A couple Main Event champs survived included Cynn, Johnny Chan, Jesus, and Jim Betchel.
Also surviving with healthy stacks at the end of Day 2C included... Tom Cannuli, Kevin Saul, Kathy Liebert, Adam Freidman, Fan Fan, Dario Sammartino, Sam Greenwood, Mike McDonald, Jeff Madsen, Mark Teltscher, Brandon Cantu, Cal Anderson, Bart Lybaert, ElkY, ODB, Johnny Bax, Mike Noori, Steve Gross, Joe Cheong, Alexander Pope, Ralph Perry, Eoghan O'Dea, SteveSung, Ajay Chabra, Chris Hunichen, Jack Salter, Jonas Lauck, China Rheem, Scott Bohlman, Andrew Barber, Ronnie Bardah, James Mackey, Nick Schulman, Nancy Whang, Jeff Williams, Johnny Chan, Mark Gregorich, Seth Davies, Max Lykov, Aditya Agarwal, Mike Matusow, Jake Cody, John Phan, Tommy Vu, Dzmitry Ubranovich, Vitaly Lunkin, Dan Heimiller, Alex Difelice, Jim Collopy, Allan Le, Eric Hershler, Eric Froelich, Bart Hanson, Blair Hinkle, Alex Winter, Josh Arieh, Lee Childs, Tim West, James Carroll, Leif Force, Esther Taylor-Brady, Fardi Jattin, Vinny Propcopio, Davidi Kitai, TJ Cloutier, Tony Coisineu, Gus Hansen, Alex Fitzgerald, and Ben Pollak.
Survivors with under 100K in chips inclded... Steve Karp, An Van Tran, Max Silver, Maria Konnikova, Kelly Kim, Rob Peacock, Did Not Report, Jeff Gross, Tom Marchese, Jake Schindler, Matt Affleck, Jeff Shulman, Dong Ji, Josh Prager, Kristy Arnett, Jesus Ferguson, Richaed Seymour, JC Tran, Max Greenwood, Chris Bel, Kenny Nguyen, Kahle Burns, Ian Johns, Cary Katz, Tony Miles and Jason Mercier.
A couple of Main Event champs busted on Day 2C including Phil Hellmuth, Joe McKeehen, Robert Varkonyi, and Scott Blumstein.
Notables players who went busto on Day 2C include.... Jesse Martin, Fedor Holz, Hellmuth, John Racener, David Einhorn, Barry Greenstein, Shannon Shorr, Matt Berkey, Jamie Kerstetter, Sean Azzariti, Men the Master, Bryce Yockey, John Monnette, Ylom Schwartz, Ana Marquez, Will the Thrill, Pat Mahoney, Stu Rutter, Don Zewin, Ted Lawson, Wook Kim, Nicolas Dumont, John Caldwell, Tex Barch, Natalie Teh, David Steicke, DJ MacKinnon, Arnold Spee, Randy Ohel, Viet Vo, John Little, Antoine Labat, Jeff Smith, Phil Laak, Sam Soverel, Talal Shakerchi, Lee Watkinson, Mo Hawkins, Matt Gianetti, Gene Todd Bro, Angel Guillen, Mike Dentale, Steve Billirakis, Ben Lamb, David Singer, Maning Loeser, Victor Chopeaux, Maria Lampropulos, Sam Trickett, Eddy Sabat, Chris Klodnicki,
2019 WSOP - Main Event
Entrants: 8,569
Remaining: 2,880
Prize Pool: $80,548,600
Payouts: 1,286
Final Table Payouts:
1. $10,000,000
2. $6,000,000
3. $4,000,000
4. $3,000,000
5. $2,200,000
6. $1,850,000
7. $1,525,000
8. $1,250,000
9. $1,000,000
