WSOP 2024: Davis and Xiao Neck And Neck, Foxen and Song Survive Day 6 of Main Event

The march to crown a new WSOP Main Event champion continued on Day 46 of the 2024 World Series of Poker, with the field whittled down to double digits by night’s end. A lone WSOP gold bracelet was handed out on Friday, and five more events were on the docket as the final weekend of play began for the WSOP at Horseshoe and Paris casinos in Las Vegas.

Davis Leads, Foxen Shines in Main Event

Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event brought back 160 players, all of whom had locked up a $70,000 payday, and 101 of them would see their dreams of an eight-figure score dashed by day’s end. Kevin Davis started the day as one of the big stacks, and more than tripled his chips en route to a 26,250,000 chip bag and the Day 6 chip lead. Shundan Xiao (23,925,000) and Malo Latinois (22,375,000) round out the top three, but only Davis will return with a 100+ big blind stack for Day 7.

Kristen Foxen (14,500,000) spend the day under the bright lights of the feature table, and navigated her way to a top stack through the day, including winning a flip in the last level with against the of Tyler Montoya to score a knockout. Foxen kept any drama in the hand to a minimum with a flop, leaving Montoya dead to a chop. Foxen improved to a full house after the turn, rendering the river moot, and Foxen capped her day with the last 1.225 million from Montoya’s stack.

Day 5 chip leader Stephen Song (2,175,000) got caught making a big bluff into Guillermo Sanchez Otero (21,975,000), but still managed to survive the day, albeit with under ten big blinds. Orson Young (18,350,000) and online poker phenom Niklas Astedt (15,800,000) bagged big, and WSOP bracelet winners Jason James (15,825,000), Joe Serock (13,175,000) and Brian Rast (12,675,000) all ended with monster stacks as well.

Arthur Morris (5,925,000), WSOP bracelet winners Alex Keating (5,250,000), Brandon Cantu (4,800,000) and Nick Jivkov (1,900,000) are just happy to be alive while sitting among the short stacks, and Randy Gattesco (575,000) will need to work some magic in a hurry at the start of play tomorrow.

WPT commentator Tony Dunst saw his Main Event dreams dashed on Day 6, as he three-bet jammed his short stack right into Julio Trimmer’s aces. Danielle Andersen hit the rail a short time later, calling off her final 14 big blinds with straight and flush draws as well as a live overcard, but bricked off against Jason Sagle’s middle pair to bust. Ren Lin, Iaron Lightbourne, Sami Bechahed, Cameron Mixson and Danny Tang also were eliminated during today’s action.

The plan for tomorrow’s Day 7 is similar to the preceding days, as action will start at noon local time and five more two-hour levels will be played. Day 8 on Sunday will see the field shrink to the final table of nine, and after an off day on Monday, the 2024 WSOP Main Event final table will kick off on Tuesday, July 16th at 1:30 local time.

Wilhelm Rides Chip Lead to PLO Mystery Bounty Title

A bonus day of play awaited the final ten players in Event #86: $1,000 Mystery Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha, and Germany’s Sascha Wilhelm started the day as the chip leader and ended it as the champion for $282,290 and his first WSOP gold bracelet. Wilhelm stayed near the top of the counts for most of the day, aided by when he busted Brandon Caputo in eighth. The German then won two huge pots off of Daisuke Ogita shorthanded, the latter a full double with Wilhelm’s turned nut straight holding against Ogita’s top set, and Wilhelm would hold the lead the rest of the way to secure the victory.

Bryce Yockey was hoping to capture his second bracelet of the summer and close the gap on current WSOP Player of the Year leader Scott Seiver, and started the day a close second to Wilhelm. Ogita took two big chunks out of Yockey’s stack early in the day, however, and the two-time bracelet winner ultimately busted in a disappointing seventh.

Anderson and Ishibashi Final Two in 8-Game Championship

Just two players will return for an unscheduled Day 4 of action in Event #88: $10,000 Eight-Game Mixed Championship (8-Handed), with Calvin Anderson (7,545,000) shooting for his fifth bracelet while Dai Ishibashi (3,905,000) hunts for his maiden piece of WSOP gold along with the $413,446 top prize. Ali Eslami was the final elimination of the day, managing to navigate one of the shorter stacks all the way through the final table for a bronze podium finish.

Only 22 players returned for Day 3 action, with Connor Drinan and Cary Katz out as early casualties. Adam Friedman started the day as chip leader, but ultimately bowed out in 11th place. Fan favorite Gus Hansen bubbled the final table in eighth, and Yuri Dzivielevski, Danny Wong and Chris Brewer also fell short of the official final table.

Big Names Remain in $3k H.O.R.S.E.

Event #91: $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. (8-Handed) brought 141 players back for Day 2 action, with just 17 making it to bag and tag. Wooram Cho (1,875,000) leads the pack, but WSOP bracelet winners John Racener (1,765,000), David “ODB” Baker (1,130,000) and Jeremy Ausmus (930,000) all piled up plenty of chips, with fellow bracelet winners Luis Velador (585,000), Arash Ghaneian (465,000) and Ismael Bojang (305,000) in the hunt as well.

Brian Hastings soft bubbled this event and has yet to cash in any mixed game events this summer at the WSOP, a rarity for the mixed game specialist. Barry Greenstein, Chris Tryba and Phil Laak were just a few of the players who earned a payday for finishing among the top 56 players.

Leah Looming in $1.5k Six-Max PLO

Two days wasn’t enough for Event #90: $1,500 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha to wrap up, and the final table of six will reconvene tomorrow to play down to a champion. Long Tran (9,990,000) will return with the chip lead, while Mike Leah (5,960,000) notched his third final table of the summer and holds the third spot out of the six remaining players. Nenad Medic, Jessica Teusl, Chris Hunichen and John Racener all found their way to the rail during Day 2 action.

Two New Day 1’s Cap Off the Action

Event #92: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em brought a total of 150 players out to pony up a big buy-in. 53 players remained at the end of the day, and Joseph Cheong (3,350,000) lapped the field, outpacing Erik Seidel (1,930,000) and David Peters (1,760,000) by more than a million chips. Cheong’s bounty came on a massive slowroll with quads against David Coleman’s queens-full, and while Coleman seemed miffed at first, Cheong noted that Coleman “won a million dollars yesterday” according to the PokerNews reporting, and the duo were laughing about the slowroll in short order. While it wasn’t quite a million, the $730,300 score for shipping WPT Alpha8 Trifecta III likely eased the pain for Coleman a little bit.

Finally, the final flight in Event #89: $3,000 Mid-Stakes Championship added a total of 2,811 players to the ranks, with 593 remaining at press time. 

With thanks to PokerGO for their official WSOP photography. The 2024 World Series of Poker is available to watch exclusively on PokerGO. Subscribe today and watch all the drama play out in Las Vegas.