2024 World Series of Poker
In an interview with PokerNews, actor James Woods made a passioned plea for the Poker Hall of Fame to induct his longtime friend, "Miami" John Cernuto.
It's that time of year again for the poker community to begin discussions about who should be the next to reach poker's most elite club. The WSOP Poker Hall of Fame will begin taking fan nominations for the one-person Class of 2024 next month, and then the living members of the HOF will vote on a winner based on the top fan vote getters.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is making a move that will change the online poker game in the US with the launch of WSOP Online, a new platform that will bring players from three states together.
Poker players in Nevada and New Jersey are already competing against each other on WSOP.com, while those in Michigan have a separate single-state site. But that is changing with the trio of states being merged together on one online poker site ahead of the 2024 WSOP. Pennsylvania's WSOP site will not be part of the shared liquidity deal.
On top of the merger news, the WSOP has announced 30 online bracelet events this summer on the new WSOP Online.
In the 833rd episode of the PokerNews Podcast, Chad Holloway, Kyna England, and Mike Holtz come to you from Level 9 in Las Vegas where the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is officially underway! Find out about the first few days of the 2024 WSOP, including how Kyna and Mike got some backlash for playing in the Casino Employees event, the same tournament Chad won back in 2013!
The crew also looks at some big hands — including a wild bluff by "Texas Mike" Moncek and Doug Polk losing trips over trips — from the Hustler Casino Live (HCL) $1,000,000 Cash Game, recap Josh Reichard's big win in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, and results from Daniel Negreanu's $25,000 Fantasy Draft.
As for the 2024 WSOP, it kicked off with Event #1: $5,000 Champions Reunion in which 22 former Main Event champs competed including "Action" Dan Harrington, who hadn't cashed a WSOP event in a decade. Surprisingly, he didn't even know about the tournament and only learned of it when he was in Las Vegas for another reason. Find out that story and some of the other former champs who competed in the first event of the summer!
Finally, Robin Poker tours this year's new PokerNews Daily DeepStacks tournament area.
A new PokerNews Podcast will drop twice a week during the 2024 WSOP every Tuesday and Friday at 8a PT / 11a ET / 4p UK time. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you do not miss an episode!
Welcome back to PokerNews, the official media partner of the 2024 World Series of Poker and home of live updates from all bracelet events.
Today sees the Day 1b of Event #5: $1,000 Mystery Millions No-Limit Hold'em here at Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas. Live coverage of this event will start from Day 2.
This event has been on everyone's radar since the schedule was released, with the top bounty as well as the first place prize are guaranteed to be $1,000,000.
The second of four starting flights gets underway at 10 a.m. local time, with late registration open for 12 levels. There will be 20-minute breaks every four levels, with a 75-minute dinner break at the end of Level 16 (~7:00 p.m.).
The starting stack is 40,000 chips, with the plan for Day 1b to play 22 30-minute levels. Payouts start on Day 1, and for the surviving players, Day 2 resumes on Monday, June 3, at 11 a.m.
Last year's event saw a field of 18,188 players generate a prize pool of $4,587,950. The winner was Tyler Brown who defeated Guang Chen heads-up to win a cool $1,000,000.
“I took almost two years off poker," Brown told PokerNews. "I decided to come back at the end of last year, early this year, and it’s been unbelievable in these last six months.”
The event also saw two $1,000,000 bounties up for grabs, with Shant Marashlian the first player to pull the grand prize bounty early on Day 2. He was followed by Patrick Liang shortly after.
| Year | Entries | Winner | Country | Payout | |
| 2023 | 18,188 | Tyler Brown | United States | $1,000,000 | |
| 2022 | 14,112 | Quincy Borland | United States | $750,120 |
Day 1a saw 2,246 players gather in the tournament area, with only 118 having chips to bag and tag at the close of play. Pete Chen performed the best, turning his 40,000 starting stack into a tournament-leading 3,150,000. Will someone surpass that total today?
End of Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pete Chen | Taiwan | 3,150,000 | 63 |
| 2 | Uri Reichenstein | Israel | 2,225,000 | 45 |
| 3 | Akinobu Maeda | Japan | 2,080,000 | 42 |
| 4 | James Erickson | United States | 1,805,000 | 36 |
| 5 | Wojciech Barzantny | Austria | 1,500,000 | 30 |
| 6 | Milfred Sageer | United States | 1,500,000 | 30 |
| 7 | James Maita | United States | 1,500,000 | 30 |
| 8 | Zhao Xin | China | 1,395,000 | 28 |
| 9 | Andrew Moreno | United States | 1,370,000 | 27 |
| 10 | Arin Youssefian | United States | 1,345,000 | 27 |
Planning on playing this event? PokerNews activates MyStack for every WSOP event, regardless of that tournament's buy-in, allowing you to directly adjust your chip counts in our live reporting.
MyStack is a free poker tool that puts you in control of your chip counts on our live reporting pages. Once you have created a free PokerNews account, you can use MyStack to update your chip counts in real time; hopefully, your stack will continue increasing throughout the event!
Event #5: $1,000 Mystery Millions No-Limit Hold'em
Jour 1b a débuté