Bubble chaos at WSOP Super Main Event as Hellmuth, Negreanu bust on Day 2B

He was right. Moncek skipped all Day 1 flights but made up for it by firing seven bullets on Day 2A and another seven on Day 2B. His 14th and final attempt stuck.

Stephen Chidwick and James Hopkins fired 13 bullets each. Unlucky for both of them – neither made it to Day 3. 

Jesse Lonis fired 12, Michael Watson did 11, Negreanu just the 10, one ahead of Shaun Deeb on nine. 

Add these seven players together, and their buy-ins totaled over $2 million. 

This was the two-tier system of poker in plain sight, with recreational players like 60-year-old Nan Min nursing her one bullet and telling us that a min-cash would be “gigantic” for her. 

17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth only fired one as well – and he left it super late before committing to playing. Deeb said Hellmuth would never win another bracelet. He didn’t give himself the best of chances here, against a field that was gambling for stacks, but said of the $72 million prize pool, “It’s amazing, really great for poker.”

Let’s make it clear – bullets aren’t inherently bad (at least in the poker sense). But, for the sake of this write-up, we’re going to lump multi-bulleters as the heels and one-bulleters as the faces in a one-off WSOP Paradise Survivor Series. It means, for one tournament only, Hellmuth gets to be the good guy. 

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Super Main Event Survivor Series 

Michael Moncek – team captain of the Multi-bulleters.

Multi-bulleters

• Michael Moncek (14)
• James Hopkins (13) 
• Stephen Chidwick (13)
• Jesse Lonis (12)
• Michael Watson (11)
• Daniel Negreanu (10)
• Shaun Deeb (9)

Nan Min – team captain of the One-bulleters.

One-bulleters

• Nan Min
• Phil Hellmuth 
• Ari Engel
• Lexy Gavin-Mather
• Roberto Romanello
• David Benyamine
• Hila Klein

Late registration officially closed at 4pm. The first Survivor Series bustout was Hellmuth at 5:21pm, followed in a flurry of eliminations by Chidwick, Deeb, Hopkins, and Watkins, all before 6pm. Hila Klein followed at 6.30pm and the rest of the combatants made it to the dinner break.

Stephen Chidwick fired 13 bullets but couldn't convert them into a min-cash.

Watch out for the bubble

We were six off the bubble at that point, and the decision was made to go hand-for-hand. 

It took 35 minutes to lose the first player, Sergio Silva. Sergi Reixach, Diego Zeiter, and Dominykas Mikolaitis followed him to leave us one off the stone bubble. 

It was deja vu for Kristen Foxen, who was forced all-in from the big blind for her last 200K. She’d already survived one bubble as a short stack in this same tournament on Day 2A. 

Could she do it again?

It wasn’t looking great, as Alexander Zubov raised to 200K UTG from a stack of 700K. 

And Zubov did turn over aces. Kristen flipped a king and an eight but couldn’t find any help on the runout, which was filmed by Zubov for posterity.

Two players drop on stone bubble

Matthias Eibinger (who won his first WSOP bracelet here in Event #2) was next to be forced all-in on the big blind. Raffael Pereira hadn’t looked at his cards yet either. 

They took turns flipping cards. Pereira showed the and Eibinger was behind with the . Incredibly, Pereira flipped the next while Eibinger kept himself in it with the . The flop was no help for Eibinger, but the on the turn showed why they pay him the big bucks on the Triton tour. He doubled to safety.

Michael Dwyer folded his big blind to leave himself with 40k after Kayhan Mokri had moved in from the button with Xuan Liu in between them saying, “I don’t care, and I’m very lucky.”

That ended up earning him $50K, as Robert Cowen and Aylar Lie were both eliminated on the next hand, splitting the $50K min-cash to get their money back, minus the $1K in rake. 

If you're going to go out on the bubble, you might as well enjoy a massage while you're waiting.

Back to the Survivor Series, and everyone else was still in. Nan Min had secured her “gigantic” cash and was delighted, as you can see below. Romanello made the money but went out in 173rd.

Survivor Series: State of play at midnight  

Multi-bulleters

• Michael Moncek – Still alive
• Jesse Lonis – Still alive
• Daniel Negreanu – Still alive
• Stephen Chidwick – Busted, 5:28pm
• Shaun Deeb – Busted, 5:40pm
• James Hopkins – Busted, 5:47pm
• Michael Watson – Busted, 5:50pm

One-bulleters

• Nan Min – Still alive
• Ari Engel – Still alive
• Lexy Gavin-Mather – Still alive
• David Benyamine – Still alive
• Phil Hellmuth – Busted, 5:21pm
• Hila Klein – Busted, 6:29pm
• Roberto Romanello – Busted 11:55pm ($50,000)

Players were flying to the rail now. 20 minutes after the bubble, another 43 players had been eliminated, including Seth Davies, Matthias Eibinger, Bryn Kenney, Viktor Blom, Aleks Ponakovs, and Jeremy Ausmus. 

Nacho Barbero played a monster pot that put him to the top of the chip counts. 

James Caputo had and had flopped top two, but Barbero turned a straight with his and held through the river to take him to 15 million chips. He would lose more than half of that by the end of the night.

At the other end, Daniel Negreanu was desperately short-stacked, and he dropped in 134th for $55,000.

Daniel Negreanu added another WSOP cash but fired 10 bullets to leave with $55K.

It took until 2:30am to lose Nan Min in 97th, and she laddered up to a $60,000 cash. 10 minutes later the elimination of Xiaoyao Ma got us to the magical 94, who will join the 108 players who progressed through Day 2A, led by Martin Karbhel with 22.7 million.

Some familiar names ended at the top today, with Jean-Noel Thorel claiming the Day 2B chip lead, with Faraz Jaka and Jesse Lonis in second and third. None of them matched Kabrhel's stack, and he'll start as overall chip leader on Tuesday. 

Day 3 is scheduled to start at 12pm ET and will play down to 24.  

Survivor Series: End of day

Multi-bulleters

• Jesse Lonis – 16,800,000
• Michael Moncek – 11,665,000
• Stephen Chidwick – Busted, 5:28pm
• Shaun Deeb – Busted, 5:40pm
• James Hopkins – Busted, 5:47pm
• Michael Watson – Busted, 5:50pm
• Daniel Negreanu – Busted, 1:01am ($55,000)

One-bulleters

• Lexy Gavin-Mather – 5,200,000
• David Benyamine – 5,025,000
• Ari Engel – 4,025,000
• Phil Hellmuth – Busted, 5:21pm
• Hila Klein – Busted, 6:29pm
• Roberto Romanello – Busted 11:55pm ($50,000)
• Nan Min – Busted, 2:30am ($60,000)

That's a victory on points to Team One-bulleters! 

WSOP Super Main Event Day 2B top 10 stacks