Lebron James finally brought home a championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals but the Golden Eagle trophy (Seniors Event) will have to wait one more day to add a new. While most of the attention is steered to big bet poker, Limit Hold’em got its day in the sun.

Ian Johns Wins 2nd Bracelet of Summer, 3rd Overall

Ian Johns returned middle of the pack in chips for Day 3 as one of 17 returning players. Johns won the $1,500 HORSE event earlier this Series and after a heads-up battle with Sean Berrios he won his second bracelet of the summer for nearly $300,000 to push his summer earnings past the half million mark.

Moments after winning he said, “I’m ecstatic. It’s so far out there. I don’t even play in that many tournaments – I never dreamed of it, I never thought about it.” The cash game player added, “For me, Limit Hold’em is a super fun game because you are constantly making decisions…it’s very fast. The hands take 90 seconds instead of four minutes like in No Limit. You just have so many opportunities to make these little incremental decisions. I have spent the last 12 years of my life trying to perfect those incremental decisions and that’s why I like it.”

Johns joins Jason Mercier as the only two players to win multiple bracelets in 2016. The final table was loaded with bracelet winners in David Chiu, Bill Chen, Brock Parker and Brian Rast.

Final Table Payouts

1. Ian Johns – $290,635
2. Sean Berrios – $179,625
3. Alexander Balynskiy – $125,571
4. David Chiu – $89,810
5. Jeff Thompson – $65,752
6. Bill Chen – $49,304
7. Brock Parker – $37,888
8. Brian Rast – $29,855
9. Anh Van Nguyen – $24,140

Seniors Championship Stretches to 4th Day, Wesley Chong Leads Final Six

Day 3 of the Seniors Championship event returned 57 players and playing down to a winner in the allotted time proved to be a challenge. The field made the final table late in play, managed to lose a couple players but Wesley Chong leads the final six with a 3 million-chip lead.

Roger Sippl has the most WSOP experience with $23,763 in earnings. Chong has $400 less than Sipple and after that the cashes drop way off. Joseph Somerville and Johnnie Craig each have one WSOP cash, both in the Seniors Championship, while Paul Runge and Jamshid Lotfi both secured their first WSOP cash.

The final six have a silver lining for an additional day of play – they’re all guaranteed at least $103,366 and the winner earns $538,204.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Wesley Chong – 8,585,000
2. Roger Sippl – 5,320,000
3. Joseph Somerville – 3,085,000
4. Johnnie Craig – 2,695,000
5. Paul Runge – 2,120,000
6. Jamshid Lotfi – 790,000

David Williams Leads Loaded Field of 31 Players to Day 3

Day 2 of the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event saw 274 returning players and after ten levels of action only 31 players remain. David Williams leads the field as one of two players with million-chip counts while competing in the FOX reality cooking show “Master Chef.”

Standout pros Tony Ruberto, Justin Young and David Vamplew return with top ten stacks while Matt Stout and Vinny Pahuja return a little deeper in the counts. Konstantin Puchkov is last in chips but the Russian player is a WSOP cashing machine the past couple of years and is in line for his 41st career cash.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. David Williams – 1,209,000
2. Marino Mura – 1,035,000
3. David Juenemann – 784,000
4. Tony Ruberto – 730,000
5. Alexander Ziskin – 726,000
6. Severin Schleser – 702,000
7. Francisco Racionero – 681,000
8. Justin Young – 662,000
9. David Vamplew – 593,000
10. Craig Mason – 497,000

Event 30: $3,000 Six Max Pot Limit Omaha

Many players circled this event on the calendar as a warm-up of the huge $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha event at the end of the Series and it drew a sizable field of 580 entrants. Day 2 returned 87 players and ended with 14 players; leading the field is Viatcheslav Ortyinskiy with 1.14 million.

The short-handed event is long on talent with Barry Leventhal, Jeff Rossiter, Sean Winter, Randy Ohel and Aleksandr Denisov able to climb the counts quickly in the big action game.

All of the returning players have $18,827 locked up, but the big money comes at the final table with $46,727 for 6th place and the winner goes home with $344,327.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Viatcheslav Ortyinskiy – 1,140,000
2. Matthew Humphrey – 868,000
3. Barry Leventhal – 800,000
4. Rafael Lebron – 750,000
5. Jeff Rossiter – 740,000
6. Florent Aubert – 725,000
7. Sean Winter – 660,000
8. George Wolff – 594,000
9. Antti Nieminen – 545,000
10. Joseph Couden – 516,000

Event 31: $1,000 Super Seniors No Limit Hold’em

The Super Seniors Event, open to those 65 years and up, kicked off at 10 am and drew 1,476 entrants – many of which were in town for the Seniors Championship. The field combined for a prize pool of $1,328,400 to pay out the top 222 finishers and they made money on the last hand of the night.

Two players, Dennis Packard and Jay Tallman-Willcutt, were eliminated during hand-for-hand play on the bubble and will split the min-cash. The remaining 220 players return for Day 2 at noon with Jon Andlovec leading the field.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Jon Andlovec – 168,500
2. William Shields – 130,800
3. Ronald Giles – 113,000
4. Fred Berger – 107,600
5. Johnny Woolen – 107,500
6. Danny Duhamel – 107,000
7. Lawrence Tidswell – 101,200
8. James Moore – 95,600
9. William Hall – 93,500
10. Ablahad Salim – 90,000

Event 32: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship

The leaderboard of the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship contains some of best minds in poker with Shaun Deeb, Eli Elezra and George Danzer all in the top ten. Grzegorz Trelski leads the field with just a slight advantage over Deeb – but the pair has a huge cushion on the rest of the field.

The event drew 163 entrants and eight levels of play reduced the field to 70 survivors for Day 2. Lurking in the field are John Monnette, Daniel Weinman, Taylor Paur and Anthony Zinno. Jason Mercier is further down the counts and the South Florida pro is aiming for his fourth $10,000 event final table this summer.

The field combined for a $1,532,200 prize pool to pay out the top 25 players. The min-cash comes in at a respectable $14,954, the number doubles to $30,965 for ninth place and the winner walks with $407,194.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Grzegorz Trelski – 444,000
2. Shaun Deeb – 433,000
3. Andrew Brown – 308,000
4. Mikhail Semin – 277,500
5. Eric Kurtzman – 254,500
6. Matt Glantz – 236,000
7. Eli Elezra – 235,000
8. Esther Taylor-Brady – 230,000
9. Matthew Kelly – 215,500
10. George Danzer – 204,000

Monday Madness

Monday sees an oddity on the schedule with both new events sharing the $1,500 buy-in, but that’s where the similarities end. The Summer Solstice event, formerly known as Extended Play, kicks off at 11 am, is scheduled for five days and features 90-minute levels. The late event is first Deuce to Seven Triple Draw event of the Series.