From a record-setting field of 10,043 players, just 49 players will walk into the ballroom at the Horseshoe in Las Vegas on Thursday with a chance to win the 2023 World Series of Poker Main Event and the $12.1 million first-place prize. Joshua Payne has the best chance of that group after bagging up 47,950,000 for the chip lead.
There are 13 different countries represented in the remaining field; 27 are from the United States, seven are from Great Britain, three from Italy, two each from Canada and Spain, with Austria, India, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and Israel each having one player flying their flag.
What We Saw on Day 6
After hiding it under a hat for most of the tournament, Ryan Tamanini broke out his ‘circle beard’ hair and beard cut, and something about it must have clicked. Tamanini surged up the chip counts and ended the night in 10th place, with 17,325,000.
There aren’t many worse ways to end a day than what happened to vlogger Masato Yokosawa on the final hand of Day 6. His turned set of deuces ran head-first into Carlos Da Silva’s flopped pair of sixes in a pot worth over 10 million.
Yokosawa wasn’t the only player to run into that scenario on Day 7. Earlier in the day, FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver was knocked out in 87th place when his flopped set of sixes was no match for Henry Chan’s flopped set of sevens.
Who are the Day 6 Chip Leaders?
1. Joshua Payne – 47,950,000 – This time last year, Joshua Payne was probably feeling pretty content after cashing in the WSOP Main Event for the first time. Payne finished 553rd for $25,500. Payne, who hails from Berkley Lake, GA, only has three other career live cashes and has never made a final table.
2. Juan Maceiras Lapido – 40,500,000 – Representing Spain, Juan Maceiras Lapido has just one other WSOP Las Vegas cash: a 775th place finish in the 2023 WSOP Millionaire Maker. That might hide the fact that he has over $1 million in lifetime earnings thanks to cashes in Spain and throughout Europe. A bulk of his that $1 million comes from his fifth-place finish at the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Madrid in 2011 where he earned $467,532.
3. Daniel Weinman – 24,375,000 – Easily the most decorated player still in the field, Daniel Weinman has a WSOP bracelet from the 2022 $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and a World Poker Tour title from the 2017 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open. He turned that win into a WPT Tournament of Champions title the same year. He has more than $3.7 million in lifetime earnings.
4. Richard Ryder – 22,650,000 – Ohio native Richard Ryder has barely enough lifetime earnings to cover the WSOP Main Event buy-in. Ryder is guaranteed a significant increase over his $10,766 earnings mark, most of which came from his $4,480 score in the 2023 WSOP Millionaire Maker.
5. Tim Van Loo – 21,700,000 – Tim Van Loo has had four WSOP cashes this summer and eight over the course of his career. Last summer, Van Loo – who is from Germany but calls Austria home now – picked up a min-cash in the WSOP Main Event. His only WSOP final table appearance came in 2021 when he finished in fourth place in the $1,000 PLO event for $54,320.
Who’s In, Who’s Out
Beyond the top five, there are some interesting names in strong contention. Alec Torelli hasn’t recorded a live tournament cash since 2016, but he’s made a number of appearances on Hustler Casino Live’s cash games. When he was a regular on the tournament scene, Torelli made four major final table appearances – two at the WSOP, and two on the World Poker Tour. He’ll start Day 6 in sixth place with 21,075,000.
Toby Lewis, who was on the wrong side of a memorable bluff on Day 5, is in 14th place overnight with 15.25 million. He’s three spots behind Daniel Vampan, who made that bluff, and Vampan has 17 million on the dot.
Ryan Tosoc (29th with 9,450,000) is one of four WPT Champions Club members still in contention for this title, along with Weinman, Andrey Pateychuk (32nd with 8,050,000), and Matthew Wantman (41st with 4,425,000). Jan-Peter Jachtmann, who won the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship in 2012, is 15th with 14,975,000. Sam Stein, a WSOP bracelet winner in 2011 with more than $5 million in career live tournament earnings, sits in 33rd with 7,875,000.
Fifteen-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Maurice Hawkins (40th with 4,475,000) and Yokosawa (45th with 3,175,000) have considerable work to do in order to fight back. When play begins on Day 7, blinds will be 125,000/250,000 with a 250,000 big blind ante.
On the opposite side of that coin, 100 players saw their 2023 WSOP Main Event dreams evaporate on Day 6. That included Tony Dunst, who was eliminated in 66th place when his opponent rivered a straight flush. Estelle Cohuet of France, the last woman standing, went out in 68th. Both received $130,300 for their efforts.
The chip leader at the start of Day 6, Zachary Hall, went out late on Wednesday in 51st, banking $188,400. The last remaining player in the field with WSOP Main Event final table experience, John Racener, was eliminated in 53rd, also earning $188,400.
Amit Makhija, who has several major final tables on his resume including a runner-up finish in the 2008 WPT Legends of Poker, took 57th for $156,100. Nicholas Rigby, who eliminated Phil Hellmuth early in this main event and spent considerable time on the featured streaming table, was knocked out in 131st for a $67,700 payout.