Joe McKeehen, Bin Weng Among Bevy of Big Names in PokerStars Summer Series Finale
The third and final event of the PokerStars Summer Series is bringing out the heavy hitters to the Live! Hotel & Casino Philadelphia as pros such as 2015 world champ Joe McKeehen are getting in on the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.
Play began on Day 1a at 11:00 a.m. ET Thursday with the first 40-minute blind level (on Day 2 it will increase to 60 minutes). At the time of publishing, there were over 60 players registered in the $2,200 buy-in tournament, and registration remains open until 9 p.m. There will be a second Day 1 starting flight on Friday with Days 1c (Saturday) and 2 (Sunday) to follow.
PokerNews is on-site live reporting all the action right up through the final table on Sept. 10.
World Champ Crushing it Early
McKeehen, who won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2015, is one of the top Philadelphia crushers in history. On Thursday, the champ got off to a strong start and had more than 200,000 in his stack at the time of publishing with blinds at 1,000/2,000.
With that massive stack, McKeehen catapulted into an early chip lead, but this tournament won't even reach the money until Friday. There are many other superstars in the field already, including World Poker Tour (WPT) crusher Brian Altman and Bin Weng, who is going to win all sorts of awards for his tournament performance this year.
Weng, who had a stack just above starting size, has been the hottest player in poker all year. The Philadelphia area local has cashed for over $5.2 million so far in 2023, according to The Hendon Mob.
Prior to the start of the year, his Hendon Mob totals were at less than $2 million. The way things are going for him in poker the past nine months, you might want to just go ahead and pencil him in at the final table this weekend. Weng's 2023 accolades include a $2.2 million score for winning the WPT EveryOne for One Drop event at Wynn Las Vegas in July, a WPT Main Tour title (two final tables), and a $1 million score for winning a Borgata event in January.
Frank Funaro and Ryan McKnight were also among the crushers in attendance on Day 1a, which is slated to play down to 12.5% of the field. The first two events of the series wrapped with the prize pools reaching double the guarantees, and that could happen again in the series finale by the time registration closes at 9 p.m. on Saturday.
Follow PokerNews Live Coverage of the PokerStars Summer Series
