Although many-many big names already had to say goodbye to this year’s WSOP Main Event, there is a quite strong selection of poker players steadily moving towards the November final.
574 players returned to the Rio on Day 5 of the Main Event. Tony ‘Bond18’ Dunst started as chipleader with a stack of 1,546,000, and was closely followed by Phil Galfond Theo Jorgensen, Johnny Chan and JP Kelly, just to mention the most well-known poker players.
International favorites followed each other getting busted on Day 5. Jason Mercier, Sammy Farha, Brandon Cantu and Evelyn Ng got eliminated.
Later on, Cole South, Steven Burkholder, Hoyt Corkins, Vitaly Lunkin, Andre Coimbra, Praz Bansi and Scotty Nguyen also said goodbye to the tournament.
Lauren Kling, my favorite female player this year, also dropped out on the fifth day.
After the elimination of many poker stars, there is still a very strong player base competing for the bracelet, including Johnny Chan and high stakes pros Johnny Lodden, Phil Galfond, David Benyamine and Michael Mizrachi.
Evan Lamprea will start Day 6 as chipleader, and 205 players are still in battle for the glory.
Top Ten at the end of Day 5:
1. Evan Lamprea – 3,564,000
2. Michael Skender – 3,527,000
3. Joseph Cheong – 3,357,000
4. Duy Le – 3,186,000
5. Theo Jorgensen – 3,088,000
6. Bryn Kenney – 2,902,000
7. Matt Affleck – 2,896,000
8. Alexander Kostritsyn – 2,564,000
9. Johnny Chan – 2,559,000
10. Sebastian Panny – 2,442,000
Other chip counts worth reviewing:
Michael Mizrachi – 1,793,000
Johnny Lodden – 1,625,000
William Thorson – 1,607,000
Scott Clements – 1,535,000
JP Kelly – 1,474,000
Christian Harder – 1,263,000
Phil Galfond – 1,025,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 946,000
Dragan Galic – 702,000
Juha Helppi – 555,000
David Benyamine – 353,000
Theo Tran – 322,000
Tony Dunst – 327,000
Eric Baldwin – 292,000
Jesper Hougaard – 289,000
Hasan Habib – 266,600
Matt Keikoan – 254,000
Robert Mizrachi – 224,000