WSOP Bracelet Winner Andres Korn Leads Final Eight in Event #69: $1,000 Mini Main Event
After almost 20 levels of fast-paced action, the inaugural Event #69: $1,000 Mini Main Event has been cut down to the final eight players out of a massive field of 5,521 and it is an international mix of poker pros and recreational players that will be back on the Amazon feature table tomorrow at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino to determine yet another bracelet winner at the 2019 World Series of Poker.
Seven different nationalities will be represented and it Andres Korn that enters the final day in the lead with 75,000,000. Korn already knows what it feels like to lift a gold bracelet for the winner photos in Las Vegas after taking down Event #56: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em in 2017 for his first gold bracelet and a payday of $618,285.
Sitting in second place on the leaderboard is French poker pro Jeremy Saderne with 64,000,000, China's Yi "Cameron" Ma is in third with 62,600,000. Koji Takagi will aim to win the third WSOP bracelet for Japan and enters the eight-handed showdown with a stack of 44,000,000. Lula Taylor, who led the field after Day 1, continued to entertain the table opponents and rail alike with her unorthodox playing style and straight forward chat on the way to claiming 30,500,000 chips.
The remaining finalists are Stefan Widmer (28,400,000), Ben Alloggio (13,900,000) and Philip Gildea (12,400,000). Action resumes at 12 noon local time with 17 minutes remaining at blinds of 1,000,000/2,000,000 and a big blind ante of 2,000,000. The button will be on Saderne with a dead small blind and Alloggio as the single big blind.
All eight hopefuls are already guaranteed at least $71,199 for their efforts, but one of them will walk home with the coveted gold bracelet and a top prize of $628,654 that comes along with it.
Event #69: $1,000 Mini Main Event Final Table
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ben Alloggio | United States | 13,900,000 | 7 |
| 2 | Andres Korn | Argentina | 75,000,000 | 38 |
| 3 | Stefan Widmer | Switzerland | 28,400,000 | 14 |
| 4 | Yi Ma | China | 62,600,000 | 31 |
| 5 | Koji Takagi | Japan | 44,000,000 | 22 |
| 6 | Philip Gildea | Ireland | 12,400,000 | 6 |
| 7 | Lula Taylor | United States | 30,500,000 | 15 |
| 8 | Jeremy Saderne | France | 64,000,000 | 32 |
Action of the Day
What started with 546 hopefuls returning to their seats in the Pavilion White section soon turned into an all in festival as 100 players headed to the payout desk in the first 30-minute level of the day. The seat open announcements came so frequently that a line of several dozen people emerged at the payout desk in the first few hours of the day.
Among those waiting in line were the WSOP bracelet winners Yuval Bronshtein, David Peters, Barry Greenstein, Chris Ferguson and Adrian Buckley to name just a few. Ferguson saw his hopes of an even deeper run destroyed when he ran with tens into the pocket queens of Truong Nguyen.
Other big names that fell before the dinner break were Tim Finne, Nick Pupillo, Stephen Song, and Aleksandr Merzhvinskii. With rapidly increasing blind limits, the casualties continued to pile up and Nipun Java was among those to bow out before the dinner, too. Only 33 still had chips to their name and Yi Ma was at the top of the leaderboard after he had scored a triple knockout and entered a three-way all in the very next hand.
Blair Hinkle, Jamila von Perger, and Jamees Dempsey were among those to bow out shortly after returning to their seats as the chips went flying left and right with the redraw of the last three and two tables a matter of levels and not hours. Jeff Madsen was among the shorter stacks and mounted an impressive comeback with a double, triple and another double up in quick succession. However, the four-time WSOP bracelet winner busted in unfortunate fashion in 14th place when his king-jack suited with clubs flush draw ended up second-best against the queen-ten of Andres Korn.
Jeremy Saderne went from shorter stack to chip leader by doubling through Juan Endara, sending Endara to the rail and also winning a flip with sevens against the king-queen suited of Atrayon Trevino. Korn would beat Saderne to the top spot after forcing a fold from Lula Taylor and James Stewart failed to hold up in his second consecutive all in showdown to become the final casualty of the night.
With 165 big blinds in play and 30-minute levels until a champion is crowned, the action will remain fast-paced on the final table and you can follow the live stream action and all updates from start to finish right here on PokerNews at the same time as Day 1a of the $10,000 Main Event kicks off.