Stephen Song Could Do No Wrong on Day 1 of $800 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack
Day 1 of Event #31: $800 No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack here at the World Series of Poker hosted within the Horseshoe and Paris, Las Vegas has just concluded. Registration closed with a total entry count of 4,481 entries and of those, 258 players managed to find a spot on Day 2. The final 673 earned a share of the total prize pool of $3,136,700, and $352,610 awaits the eventual winner.
Hajime Watanabe leads the way heading into Day 2, but his job is far from done, with plenty of big names and successful poker crushers on his tail.
WSOP bracelet winner and 2022 Mid-Major Player of the Year Stephen Song bagged 2,100,000 chips. Song hopes to add to his very established resume and $9,100,000 in earnings with a second bracelet in this event.
During Day 1, players were forced to quickly navigate through this monstrous field; with relatively short levels, the blinds rose fast and the players could not sit around and wait too long for their spots. This is a unique skill set few have mastered.
Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hajime Watanabe | Japan | 3,235,000 | 108 |
| 2 | Daniel Cosner | United States | 2,505,000 | 84 |
| 3 | Robert Gittelman | United States | 2,500,000 | 83 |
| 4 | Stephen Song | United States | 2,105,000 | 70 |
| 5 | Lukas Hafner | Austria | 2,100,000 | 70 |
| 6 | Jeffrey Farnes | United States | 1,990,000 | 66 |
| 7 | Jun Li | United Kingdom | 1,985,000 | 66 |
| 8 | Jeremy Wien | United States | 1,945,000 | 65 |
| 9 | Davor Bojovic | Slovenia | 1,900,000 | 63 |
| 10 | Sebastian Crema | Canada | 1,720,000 | 57 |
Michael "Texas Mike" Moncek found his way to a bag of 790,000 after registering late, along with Jeremy Wien, who bagged 1,945,000 million on his second bullet. Wien managed to find a crucial double-up on the last hand before dinner break and continued to use that momentum through the money bubble and into the late stages of the night.
The plethora of big names entering this event has been severely shaved as Brad Owen, Ryan Riess, Martin Kabrhel, Tyler Montoya, David Jackson, Joe Cada, Lirui Zhang, and defending champ Timur Margolin failed to find a ticket into Day 2.
Remaining Payouts
Day 2 play will resume on Level 23 on June 10 at 11 a.m. local time, and they will play down to a winner. Levels will be 30 minutes, with 15-minute breaks after every four levels, and a 60-minute break for dinner after Level 34.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we cover every live update from the 258 players who found a bag until we find a champion for the $800 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack!