The 2024 WSOP Paradise festival is officially underway after the first online Day 1 flight ran on GGPoker for the $25K Super Main Event.
The innovative online flights mean that a number of players will already be in the money when the live players sit down in the Bahamas to play the bracelet event with the world's biggest guarantee – an incredible $50 million.
The first of these ran last night on GGPoker with a $26,000 buy-in. It needed 200 runners to hit the $5,000,000 guarantee, and it nearly got there, ending with 193 entries. Daniel Negreanu contributed three of those without finding a bag, and there were 165 unique players.
Big names locked in for Day 3
30 players made it through to Day 3 of the live event in the Bahamas on December 17, and they can travel in the knowledge that they've got a min-cash locked up and don't have to worry about the bubble.
They also got a free package of 14 nights' accommodation, a seat in a $1M freeroll and complimentary meals, snacks and merch.
Roman Hrabec (64.5BBs), Adrian Mateos (54.6BBs), Michael Addamo (32.5BBs), David Miscikowski (17.5BBs), Leon Sturm (17.4BBs), Dzmitry Urbanovich (11BBs) and Michael Watson (9.4BBs) were among the notables who found a bag.
They can go again if they're not happy with their stack. Players can play as many Day 1s as they want, but only their largest stack will be carried into Day 2. All of those names will be in the mix, though, and you can watch all of the action on a livestream ahead of the Christmas break.
We're sure that Negreanu will be back to fight on another Day 1, where he can potentially fire another three bullets. It all helps towards that monster guarantee. More online Day 1s are planned but not confirmed yet.
Negreanu goes for another bracelet tonight
Things might not have worked out for Negreanu last night, but he's livestreaming again in a few hours, from Day 2 of the $10M guaranteed GGMillion$ High Rollers.
Aleksejs Ponakovs is the chip leader with 145 big blinds. Michael Watson (65BBs), Ole Schemion (55BBs) and Sergio Aido (40BBs) all have bigger stacks than Negreanu, who is in the middle of the pack with a stack of 941,657 (37BBs). Bryn Kenney, Daniel Dvoress and Roman Hrabec are all looking for a spin-up.
The tournament resumes at 2pm ET on Monday and Negreanu will be streaming all the action (at least until he busts) on his YouTube channel. Action will pause at the final table and play down to the bracelet winner on Tuesday.
