Dropping Like Chandeliers

The WSOP Main Event has made it into the money on Day 3 since 2015. In 2014, play stopped on Day 3 just short of the money (2014 was the last year just 10% of the field was paid). Despite that, a number of people with far more experience than myself with the Main Event were predicting the tournament wouldn’t hit the money until early in Day 4. Not the folks behind the Vegas-Poker-Schedule.com site, or me (in the Day 3 PNW player roundup.

Another “truism” I heard a lot of in the post-bubble analysis was that action was moving at a hitherto-unseen speed as action approached the bubble. Was that true? I charted out the number of players (combining Day 1s and Day 2s) as a percentage of the total number of entries.

I wasn’t in the room, so I can’t attest to the feel of things, but even with the larger field this year—the 2nd largest in WSOP Main Event history—fewer people busted on Day 3 this year than in 2018. As a percentage of the players entering the day, more people finished Day than than stated it than in any year from 2014 to 2018.

You can see above that Day 1 used to be a lot harder to get through with less than 70% of the field entering Day 2. This year looks a bit harder than the past three years (which are almost even), but when you add in the 350 or so players who entered Day 2 directly, it’s about the same (near 75% of the total entries).

All in all, it looks like the adjustments made to the structure to accommodate the increase of chips for the 50th edition of the Main Event have maintained the balance that allows the staff to dial in things like getting to the bubble without hours of hand-for-hand play.

PNW Poker Players: 2019 WSOP Main Event Day 4

Congratulations! You’re all in the money!

Play ended as the clock counted down the last minutes of Level 15 and the money bubble popped with 1,286 players remaining from the field of 8,569. The remaining PNW group includes 11 from Oregon, 4 from Idaho, and 20 from Washington.

More or less.

The wild story of the day belongs to a nominally PNW player, Preban Stokkan, who has a US flag and listed hometown of Corvallis on reports and the WSOP player database, but whose Hendon Mob profile lists as a Norwegian living in London with over $1.7M in live tournament earnings. He was down to a single 5K chip at the first break of the day but he’s in the chip lead now.

It’s not unusual for the WSOP player database to have incorrect or just old info, or for non-US players to claim a US hometown because they were in the US when they first played the WSOP or tax reasons (or even for players from different states to have not updated their info: looking at you, Nick Getzen). That’s why Annie Duke and Esther Taylor-Brady are still at the top of the Oregon leaderboard on Hendon Mob.

EOD RANK | NAME | CITY | CHIPS

1 | Preben Stokkan | Corvallis | 2,184,000 ** DAY 3 OVERALL CHIP LEADER

108 | Allen Nielson | Mercer Island | 909,000

138 | Jacki Burkhart | Boring | 819,000 ** DAY 2AB PNW CHIP LEADER

159 | Ian Pelz | Eugene | 773,000 ** DAY 2C PNW CHIP LEADER

300 | Shane Abbott | Seattle | 596,000

312 | Glenn Ward | Salem | 579,000

318 | Christopher Wolfe | Lake Tapps | 570,000

333 | Dien Le | Bellevue | 556,000

490 | Trong Danh | Bellevue | 402,000

===== AVERAGE CHIP STACK START OF DAY 4: 400,000

501 | Tyler Patterson | Everett | 393,000

521 | Brandon Cantu | Ridgefield | 382,000

539 | Scott Eskenazi | Mercer Island | 374,000

560 | Kevin Law | Mill Creek | 361,000 ** DAY 1A PNW CHIP LEADER

574 | Mans Montgomery | Boise | 351,000

619 | John Stauffer | Shoreline | 329,000

===== MEDIAN CHIP STACK START OF DAY 4: 316,000

717 | Michael Faulkner | Viola | 273,000

721 | Jeffrey Farnes | Dallas | 271,000

751 | Bradley Zusman | Gresham | 255,000

773 | Donald Schiavone | Brookings | 243,000

791 | Thomas Kornechuk | Auburn | 229,000

825 | Eric Kepper | Seattle | 211,000

830 | Jason Antonelli | Sammamish | 208,000

889 | Rittie Chuaprasert | Portland | 180,000

890 | Aaron Ogus | Redmond | 179,000

952 | James Frank | Stayton | 151,000

992 | Theodore McNeely | Myrtle Point | 130,000

1004 | Jacob Davis | Tigard | 125,000

1005 | Steven Josephson | Bothell | 125,000

1079 | Jeffrey Dewitt | Redmond | 105,100

1117 | Ryan Stoker | Spokane | 89,000

1129 | Adam Barker | Bonney Lake | 85,000

1163 | Terik Brown | Mercer Island | 74,000

1252 | Glenn Larson | Olympia | 34,000