Sebastian Schulze Soars to the Top on Day 5 of the 2025 WSOP Main Event

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Jul 11, 2025 5 min read

It was moving day in the 2025 World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event and another four and a half levels brought the 9,735 entry strong field one step closer to crowning a champion, yet the conclusion is still one week away at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas with the biggest slices of the $90,535,500 prize pool still up for grabs.

After the tense bubble period and ensuing cacophony of eliminations on Day 4, the atmosphere was different. For once, the entire field came back to just one tournament area inside the Horseshoe Event Center with all three live stream tables in play. The eliminations were still coming at a rapid pace and never really slowed down, but the excitement in the room was not only by the players, but also the growing rail certainly had another vibe.

Only 522 hopefuls returned, all with at least $32,500 locked up for their efforts, but that figure was cut in more than half, with 202 players bagging up chips at the end of level 24. All of them have boosted their guaranteed payout to $60,000, with each upcoming pay jump becoming more significant.

The honor of chip leader after Day 5 belongs to Austria-based Sebastian Schulze, who skyrocketed to the top of the ranking right after the dinner break in exhilarating fashion. Michael Hawker had won a massive pot prior to taking the lead but lost all of the chips in back-to-back hands against Schulze. The first clash was a setup when both held a full house, whereas Hawker then turned a straight to run smack dab into a flopped flush. Guy Leathley then lost with ace-jack against the ace-queen of Schulze, who cemented his top spot and bagged up 12,745,000.

Not far behind, albeit not with an eight-figure stack yet, are Chad Power (9,540,000), Braxton Dunaway (8,600,000), and Sergio Veloso (8,200,000). The overnight top ten also features one of Brazil's top online players in Pedro Padilha, who advanced with 6,835,000 in chips. Each contender in the current top ten has more than 100 big blinds at their disposal for the next tournament day, showcasing once again the very deep structure of live poker's annual flagship event.

Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 5

During the first hour of play, two former champions were sent to the rail, both of whom made pivotal steps towards their title at the King's Resort in Rozvadov. Max Neugebauer lost a portion of his stack in a flip with pocket jacks against ace-queen, and the 2023 WSOP Europe Main Event champion couldn't recover from that. During the global covid pandemic, Damian Salas won the live final table of the hybrid Main Event in the Czech Republic back in 2020 before defeating Joseph Hebert in Las Vegas but he couldn't spin up his shorter stack either.

The 2019 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Alexandros Kolonias was fighting a short stack until the end of the second break before he was sent to the payout desk, which left only Greg Merson as former champion still in contention. More than one decade after his win in 2012, Merson finds himself in the middle of the pack with 2,960,000.

Several former Main Event finalists are still in the mix to try and follow into the footsteps of Merson such as POkerStars ambassador Kenny Hallaert (5,745,000), Michael Mizrachi (4,025,000), Alex Lynskey (1,575,000), and Zhen Cai (1,475,000). Mizrachi was one of several top pros to win his seventh gold bracelet during the ongoing festival and further etched his name into the WSOP history books with his fourth triumph in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.

Add to that a vast array of WSOP gold bracelet winners, poker pros and enthusiasts from all over the world, the son of Celine Dion – Rene-Charles Angelil (3,165,000), and the always talkative Will Kassouf (6,900,000) as well as Eric Afriat (4,250,000) to provide plenty of exciting stories for the next few days.

Speaking of Kassouf, he was talking up a storm throughout the day and jumped to more than two times the average during the final hands of the night when he five-bet preflop against David Swift, including minutes of chatter before flashing the ace of hearts only. The Brit ended the night with a knockout when he looked up the severely short-stacked Jonathan Azoulay with trey-deuce versus ten-nine, flopping a pair and rivering a straight before giving up the final hand of the night to bag up a nice stack of more than two times the average.

Surrounded by the Winamax production crew, Leo Margets advanced with an average stack of 2,810,000 and she will joined by PPC third-place finisher Esther Taylor (2,100,000), Thi Xoa Nguyen (2,000,000), and Lindsey McDougall (420,000).

Notable casualties throughout the day included Scott Margereson, Viktor Blom, Matt Affleck, 888poker streamer Aaron Barone, Henrik Hecklen and Josh Reichard.

Isaac Haxton sent Stephen Chidwick and Jeremy Kottler to the rail when his pocket kings improved to a full house. Nate Silver saw his hopes vanish with a missed combo draw while the start-of-the-day chip leader Harold Lam was coolered via set versus straight.

In the final level of the night, Brian Hastings turned top pair with ace-queen but was drawing dead against the flopped set of sixes for Braxton Dunaway, propelling the latter to one of the top stacks.

Day 6 will be featuring opening blinds of 30,000-60,000 with a big blind ante of 60,000 – as many chips as all of the remaining contenders each sat down with at the start to put things in perspective, except that only two percent of them are still in. They have the prospect of playing at least four two-hour levels as of noon local time, and another three tournament days remain to reach the nine-handed final table with a seven-figure payday on the horizon.

As usual, the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all of the action, and cards-up coverage will also be available on the PokerGO platform.

• Tags WSOP25 Aaron Barone Alex Lynskey Alexandros Kolonias Brian Hastings Damian Salas Matt Affleck Kenny Hallaert Josh Reichard Michael Mizrachi Scott Margereson Sergio Veloso Stephen Chidwick Viktor Blom Will Kassouf
• Related Players Michael MizrachiMatt AffleckViktor BlomKenny HallaertStephen ChidwickBrian Hastings