History has been made at the 47th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). A monstrous field of 4,240 entries gathered for the third and final starting flight of Event #68: $10,000 Main Event NLHE Championship.
The record-setting field topped last years Day 1c attendance of 3,963 which had broke the previous record. With all three days complete the total entries received capped off at 6,737 creating a prize pool of $63,327,800. There will be 1,011 players paid this year which is also a record. A min-cash will be worth $15,000 but everyone will have their sites directed at the $8,000,000 first-place prize.
American Timothy Sheehan rose to the occasion leading the more than 3,000 survivors with 394,100. Adam Krach (293,800), Sergi Reixach (265,400), Benjamin Vinson (256,700), and Francois Safieddine (224,300) sit atop the leaderboard.
Montreal’s Danny Boyaci just missed the top five bagging 217,500 to earn sixth place in the chip counts. Poker superstar Andrew Chen of Mississauga also bagged a top stack sitting just outside the top ten with 205,500. A strong Canadian contingent is showing what the North is really made of. Here are the top 30 stacks among the Maple Leaf flag bearers:
| Danny Boyaci | Montreal, QC | 217,500 |
| Andrew Chen | MISSISSAUGA, ON | 205,500 |
| Panayote Alafoyannis | London, ON, | 178,000 |
| Linyang Song | RICHMOND, BC, | 173,100 |
| Sam Chartier | MONTREAL, QC | 173,100 |
| Ami Barer | Vancouver, BC, | 163,300 |
| Peter Jetten | TORONTO, ON | 155,200 |
| Derek Gibb | OAKVILLE, ON | 152,200 |
| David Cowling | TORONTO, ON | 144,500 |
| Sorel Mizzi | TORONTO, ON | 141,700 |
| Christopher Swaminathan | Brampton, ON | 136,800 |
| Jair Beltran | NORTH YORK, ON | 136,100 |
| Michael Noor | AJAX, ON | 132,200 |
| Xuan Liu | MISSISSAUGA, ON, | 131,400 |
| Thomas Archer | London, ON, | 127,900 |
| Noah Vaillancourt | COWICHAN BAY, BC | 126,400 |
| Michael Gigl | Mississauga, ON, | 125,300 |
| Kristen Bicknell | NEPEAN, ON, | 125,100 |
| Joshua Platz | TORONTO, ON | 124,100 |
| Dominick French | VICTORIA, BC | 124,100 |
| Elliot Smith | RICHMOND, BC | 123,300 |
| Jean-Pascal Savard | Saint-Augustin-De-Desmaur, QC | 119,700 |
| Thomas Popov | Richmond, BC | 119,500 |
| Angie Gelinas | CALGARY, AB | 118,100 |
| Michael Smith | SASKATCHEWAN, SK | 117,000 |
| Pavel Dyachenko | Aurora, ON | 115,700 |
| Dean Murphy | MONTREAL, QC | 115,000 |
| James Boettcher | Calgary, AB | 114,600 |
| Yong Lu | Calgary, AB | 110,200 |
| Todd Sisley | TORONTO, ON | 109,500 |
The number of Canadians to advance is huge. A few notables include WSOP bracelet winners Daniel Negreanu, Mike Leah, Sam Greenwood, Robert Cheung, Gavin Smith, Timothy Adams, and Andre Boyer, as well as Alex Livingston, Thomas Taylor, Jody Howe, Alexandre Lavigne, Michael Egan, Anthony Mar, David Ormsby, and Jiachen Gong.
A number of poker’s familiar faces will also be moving on including the legendary Phil Ivey, and WSOP Main Event champions Joe McKeehen, Ryan Reiss, Martin Jacobson, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Cada, and Phil Hellmuth.
Jason Mercier’s epic run this summer has come to an end though him winning the Player of the Year is now just a formality. Some others to hit the rail were John Racener, Brandon Cantu, Randy Lew, and Phil Laak.
Day 2 begins at 11:00 a.m. local time in Las Vegas on Tuesday with the players from Day 1a and Day 1b merging together. The players advancing from Day 1c will play on Wednesday.
The WSOP is now quickly coming to an end, but there is still hope for another Canadian bracelet. Good luck to all Canadians on their Main Event adventure in Las Vegas. Stay tuned to Canada Poker for up-to-date WSOP news and events and follow your favorite Canadian poker players throughout the series. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for live updates over the series.
