Upeshka De Silva tested positive for COVID-19, and won’t be competing in Monday’s U.S. WSOP Main Event final table.
Joey Ingram posted an early Monday morning tweet explaining that De Silva had contacted him in an effort to get the story out to the public. The rules of the 2020 Main Event dictate that any player unable to physically attend the final table due to a positive COVID-19 test would automatically be disqualified and earn the ninth-place payout.
With those rules in place, De Silva earns $98,813. He would have entered the final table eighth in chips out of the final nine, with 2,151,969 in chips (14 big blinds).
Harrison Dobin, ninth in the chips counts at the end of Day 2 (1,581,392, 10 big blinds), now moves up one spot on the payout ladder before the final table even begins.
The eight remaining players are scheduled to play out the final table in Las Vegas at the Rio Monday.
De Silva’s DQ revealed by Ingram before official WSOP announcement
Ingram tweeted a video breaking the news of the De Silva disqualification early Monday morning, appearing to scoop any kind of announcement from the WSOP:
“Final Table starts tomorrow at NOON so had to get this story out tonight. 9th place is $98,000 and 1st is over $1,500,000. @PadawanPesh also made a WPT FT earlier this year that’s been delayed due to Corona,” read Ingram’s tweet.
Ingram explains in the video that De Silva had tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in a disqualification from Monday’s final table. According to Ingram, De Silva reached out to him in an effort to prompt Ingram to break the news of the positive test and elimination from the Main Event.
“Maybe the players will agree to postpone the event? It’s certainly possible,” Ingram says in the two-minute video. “Maybe the World Series of Poker decides to postpone the event. Not likely.”
“Maybe they play the event online. Obviously they’ve already had this lined up with ESPN.”
De Silva tests negative Dec. 26, positive Dec. 27
De Silva responded to Ingram’s video with a tweet questioning the WSOP COVID-19 protocols:
“Thx joey, this whole experience has been an absolute shit show, I know I'm drawing slim for options but I want to get the story out at the least about how this was handled and the protocols that were put in place. I have insight on how both wpt and wsop have handled covid fts,” De Silva tweeted.
De Silva continued with a statement that he tested negative for COVID-19 in a Dec. 26 nasal swab test, but came up positive for the coronavirus in the official WSOP-mandated mouth swab test Dec. 27:
“I tested negative on a nasal swab pcr test saturday the 26th, but positive on the official mouth swab pcr test at the rio on the 27th,” De Silva tweeted.
De Silva’s disqualification somewhat mirrors a situation that saw Peiyan ‘fish3098’ Sun eliminated from the GGPoker Main Event final table before the beginning of play. Like De Silva, Sun was eighth in the chip counts going into the final table.
Sun decided not to travel from China to the Czech Republic for the final table, however, which played out live at King’s Casino in Rozvadov. As a result, Sun took home the ninth-place payout of $75,360.
Featured image source: Flickr/World Poker Tour
