WSOP Update: Star-studded stud final in the $10K Championship

The 127-entry $10K Seven Card Stud Championship’s unofficial final table is packed full of champions already. Only chip leader Chino Rheem (pictured) and short stacks Dave Rogers and Poker Hall of Famer Mori Eskandani do not already own WSOP bracelets; five of the other six remaining competitors already have multiple. Second in chips Qiang Xu is going for his second. To say this will be a tough final might be the understatement of this year’s series so far.

Day 2 chip leader and mixed-game superstar Adam Friedman remains firmly in contention, as does Dan Heimiller, fresh from claiming his third bracelet in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud. The last player to ‘do the double’ – take down the $1,500 and the $10K versions of the same event in one series – was Chad Eveslage, winner of the two Dealers Choice events in 2023.

Mike Matusow made a late surge to finish the day fourth in chips, while Paul Volpe and Nick Guagenti round out the final table.

Another deep run for Daniel Negreanu ended in 11th place after some short-stack ninja moves saw him double back from fumes a couple of times, negotiating the thinning field as Bryce Yockey, Yueqi Zhu, Philip Sternheimer and Tom McCormick fell before him. That bracelet #8 will have to wait. 

Play resumes Sunday at 1pm local time; the winner will take home $295,008.

Make it low, make it rainbow, make it rain: Badugi glory for Dourado

Brazilian Aloisio Dourado has claimed his first WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Badugi, topping a record-breaking field of 534. The lowball draw game has previously been the quiet cousin at the WSOP party, but it’s taken to the stage big time for 2025, with Dourado’s victory bringing with it $138,114 in prize money.

Aloisio Dourado finally betters second place.

It’s a win for both Dourado and non-hold’em events, which have seen a steady increase in popularity over the last few years (see this year’s $1,500 Big O, which has attracted 1,499 entries). The new Badugi champion noted that there’s a conviviality to these games that’s often lacking in NLHE tournaments, and his results reflect his preference – his cashes have been mainly in mixed games at the Brazilian Series of Poker (with a WSOP Main Event deep run last year that netted him $200,000).

Dourado came close to winning a WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 8-Game Mix two years ago, denied at the last by Shaun Deeb; now that last-man-standing box has been ticked. With an outpouring of emotion, he celebrated his win after seeing off final opponent Dominick Sarle heads up (and denying him a second bracelet); rounding out the final table opposition had been James Newberry, Jonathan Glendinning, David Margolis, and Anthony Arvidson. 

The circle of high stakes life: One High Roller ends, another begins

It’s not surprising that many of the 300 entrants (so far) in Event #26: $25K High Roller were last spotted in Event #22, the $25K 6-Max version. 

Kristen Foxen, for example, finished 13th in the latter for $87,971 and has bagged an above average Day 2 stack in the former. David Peters (15th in Event #22) is currently lying third overall in this fresh High Roller, just behind 2022 GPI Female Player of the Year Cherish Andrews. Chip leader Fahredin Mustafov also made it into the money (just) in the 6-Max. 

Cherish Andrews has one WSOP online bracelet and would like an offline one, too.

Two players notable by their absence from the Day 2 chip counts are the winner of that $25K High Roller 6-Handed, Blaz Zerjav, and the runner up, Chris Moorman (third place finisher Jared Bleznick, however, is lying 31/98 overnight). Moorman’s huge heads up chip lead evaporated over two crucial hands and a certain level of frustration must have accompanied his exit. He does, however, have $1,129,608 in prize money as consolation; Zerjav took home $1,734,717 after one of the more unusual and controversial hands of the series so far.

More notables returning for Day 2 at noon local time include Joey Weissman, Alex Foxen and Punnat Punsri (all with top ten stacks), Joao Simao, Stephen Chidwick, John Juanda, Martin Kabrhel and Joe McKeehen.

COLOSSUS’ losses are others’ gains?

For 1/50 of a High Roller buy-in, players have been pouring into the 2025 $500 COLOSSUS (capitals WSOP’s own). With the entries up to an unofficial 16,301, it’s not quite as colossal as 2024’s edition, which brought 3,000 more to the felt. Perhaps the buy-in increase from $400 to $500 is responsible – or the aforementioned rise in popularity of the lower buy-in mixed game events. Three COLOSSUS bullets equal one $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Double Board Bomb Pot ticket, after all.

16,301 take on COLOSSUS.

Speaking of which, this inaugural 1,452-runner PLODBBP (as no one calls it – yet) is down to its final 13, led by Xixiang Luo. The plan may have been to play down to five players, but two boards make for two winners per hand (most of the time) and two tables remain for Day 3. Six prior bracelet winners are in the mix, including chip leader Luo, Robert Nehorayan, Danny Wong and 2023 WSOP Player of the Year Ian Matakis.