The 2016 World Series of Poker awarded two gold bracelets Thursday but was overshadowed by the record-setting $565 Pot Limit Omaha event. In other action the Dealers Choice championship and the Six Max closed out their respective Day 2s.

Alan Percal Ships Heads Up Braclet in First WSOP Cash

The Heads Up Championship is favorite event of poker’s elite and unknown Alan Percal walked away with the bracelet, $320,574 and his first ever WSOP cash. Percal defeated John Smith in the final matchup after advancing through Brian Rast, Jeff Gross and Olivier Busquet.

Following his win Percal said, “I was excited to get the bye in the first round – everyone wants the bye. The I ended up drawing Brian Rast in the second round. When I saw that, I just started laughing. There were like 100 players I would have rather drawn than Rast. But after I defeated him, that gave me a lot of confidence, and he even complimented me afterward that I played well.”

Smith is a 50-year veteran of the game but has only one other WSOP cash – he finished in the Round of 16 in 2014 in the same event.

Final Four Payouts

1. Alan Percal – $320,574
2. John Smith – $198,192
3. Alex Luneau – $123,929
4. Olivier Busquet – $123,929

Ian Johns Goes Worst to First for Number 2, Justin Bonomo Runner-Up, Again

Ben Keeline’s rags to riches story in the Colossus II gave adage to the saying “a chip and a chair” and Ian Johns has his own outhouse to penthouse story. Johns went to Day 2 as the shortest stack in the field, played his way to the final table and defeated Justin Bonomo heads-up for the bracelet.

Johns won his second bracelet and said after winning, “I came back on the second day and tripled up in Stud because the antes were high enough to amount to a full double up, and in the next hour I built my stack up to 50,000. It just goes to show you should never give up.”

Bonomo felt the sting of runner-up at the Rio a fourth time in ten final tables, while Johns won his second bracelet in three final table appearances. The final table also featured bracelet winners Andre Akkari, Svetlana Gromenkova and Scotty Nguyen.

Final Table Payouts

1. Ian Johns – $212,604
2. Justin Bonomo – $131,412
3. Christopher Vitch – $92,374
4. Noah Bronstein – $65,866
5. Georgios Sotiropoulos – $47,651
6. Andre Akkari – $34,984
7. Svetlana Gromenkova – $26,070
8. Scotty Nguyen – $19,724

Budget Pot Limit Omaha Event Sets Records

The WSOP offered Pot Limit Omaha at a record low buy-in and unlimited re-entries for six levels with hopes of drawing a monster field and they drew 2,483 entries. Just 80 players survived the action across 18 levels of action.

Alexander Ahmed leads the field as the only player to cross the 500,000 mark, with David ODB Baker and Darryll Fish landing in the top ten counts. Nick Jivkov, Brent Roberts, Sam Chartier, Andy Hwang and Robert Mizrachi advanced as well.

The field nearly doubled the $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha event ran in 2015 which was the largest non-Hold’em field (1,293 entrants) at the time.

On average four players were eliminated every minute across a total of nine hours of play. The field generated a $1,241,500 prize pool to pay out the top 373 finishers. The top 12 players earn five-figures with the winner pocketing $190,328.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Alexander Ahmed – 517,000
2. David ‘ODB’ Baker – 482,000
3. Adil Khan – 471,000
4. Kyle Bowker – 372,000
5. Carlos Pina – 358,000
6. Kenneth Kemple – 348,000
7. Darryll Fish – 321,000
8. Casey Carroll – 320,000
9. Christopher Delgrande – 309,000
10. Christopher Renaudette – 295,000

Event 10: $1,500 Six Max No Limit Hold’em

The Six Max event drew a massive field of 1,477 entrants and returned 183 players to Day 2. After a full day of action 21 players advanced to the final day of play. Javier Garcirreynaldos leads the field with 1.44 million.

The field is loaded with talent for Day 3 – Jesse Yaginuma, Pierre Neuville and Fedor Holz are all looking for their first bracelet.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Javier Garcirreynaldos – 1,440,000
2. Daniel Streiltz – 1,258,000
3. Mike Cordell – 1,085,000
4. Oliver Weis – 864,000
5. Robert Hankins – 765,000
6. Shaheim Sheridan – 611,000
7. Alen Bilic – 600,000
8. Paul Hoefer – 539,000
9. Carlos Colon – 442,000
10. Lutz Klinkhammer – 438,000

Event 11: $10,000 Dealers Choice Six Max Championship

The event spreads a daunting 19 games and 118 players registered with 41 players returning to Thursday’s Day 2. Most of the day’s action was spent grinding the way to the money bubble, which burst in Level 16, set at 18 players. Jean Gaspard leads the field after bagging up 814,000.

Dan Smith sits second in chips, Monnette is fresh off his runner-up finish on Wednesday, Andrew Brown took third the $1,500 buy-in of the same game and Randy Ohel just missed out on Brown’s final table.

Day 3 Chip Counts

1. Jean Gaspard – 814,000
2. Dan Smith – 707,000
3. Mikhail Semin – 680,000
4. John Monnette – 640,000
5. William O’Neil – 633,000
6. James Obst – 592,000
7. Alexander Kostritsyn – 508,000
8. Andrew Brown – 418,000
9. Randy Ohel – 388,000
10. Viacheslav Zhukov – 330,000

Event 13: $1,500 Razz

The late afternoon event kicked off at 3 pm and drew 461 entrants who juiced the prize pool to $622,350. At day’s end 117 players remained and Sebastian Pauli finished on top of the leaderboard as the only player over the six-figure mark and holds and average stack lead over second in chips Fabrice Soulier.

Allen Kessler, Stephen Chidwick, David Benyamine, Shaund Deeb, Anthony Zinno and Daniel Negreanu all advanced on to Day 2.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Sebastian Pauli – 103,100
2. Fabrice Soulier – 70,700
3. Dutch Boyd- 67,100
4. Peter Brownstein – 65,000
5. Rodney Springs – 58,800
6. Neil Harvey – 58,700
7. Eugene Castro – 58,700
8. Brendan Taylor – 54,600
9. Dean Kerl – 54,500
10. Steve Gee – 52,200

Looking Ahead – Milly, Milly, Milly

The original door buster event introduced a few summers ago has gotten lost a bit since the Colossus, Monster Stack and Little One for One Drop all found their way on the WSOP schedule. But Friday kicks of the single re-entry Flight A at 10 am with Flight B on Saturday – players may not play twice in each flight.

A much different crowd is expected at 3 pm for the $1,500 Eight Game Mix event. Players should monitor social media for possible delays or rerouting of starting tables.