Closing In On The Main Event - Poker Industry News

CLOSING IN ON THE MAIN EVENT (Update)

02nd July, 2025 at 05:47:47

Source: bluffed.net

Women's No-Limit Hold'em Championship started Friday

At the World Series of Poker in Vegas the anticipation of the main event is rising as the last few competitions run their course, with event 53, the women's NLHE championship, starting Friday and attracting a full roster of well-known female poker stars. Thus far the 2025 Series can best be described as successful despite the profits of doom following Black Friday, with entry lists well patronised and in many cases larger than was the case last year.

Event 48: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em finally concluded late Friday night in its "extra time" fourth day, with Athanasios Polychronopoulos emerging triumphant after a tough heads up against Simon Charette. The win gave Polychronopoulos his first bracelet and a bumper first place prize of $650,223, leaving his opponent with a second placing check for $404,235.

Polychronopoulos, along with Charette, Peter Ippolito and Yevgeniy Timoshenko all returned for the fourth day action Friday after Sebastian Winkler was the eliminated as the last player to fall in Day 3. Earlier, day 3 started with 30 survivors from a massive entry field of 2,713, with Winkler on top of the chip counts, a position he had held for most of the first two days of the contest.

Going into the fourth day Polychronopoulos was chip leader with 3.68 million, followed by Timoshenko on 3.46 million, both well ahead of Peter Ippolitio and Charette. Although the other three contestants swapped positions several times, the leader generally held on to his advantage throughout.

Leonard Martin proved to be just too good for Justin Bonomo in event 49: $2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, although Bonomo gave a good account of himself and the lead changed several times in the heads up Friday night.

Martin walked away with his fifth World Series of Poker career cash, but this time it was with a winner's bracelet and the first prize of $189,919.

Jason Mercier was the fave to win when the final day of this competition started with just 13 players left in the running; he held the chip lead and looked set to win his second bracelet in the current Series, but it was not to be. He was bundled out at sixth place, whilst Martin was unobtrusively manouevring into an ever stronger position that took him through to the heads up.

Two-handed, Bonomo held a 2 to 1 chip lead, but Martin never let up. Eventually the lead changed several times before Bonomo was finally eliminated, taking the runner-up prize of $117,305.

Well past midnight Friday night Vegas time, the third day field for event 50: $5,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold'em was down to just 5 players, all that remained from a first day entry list of 817.

By the beginning of day three on Friday 34 players had presented themselves for the re-start, headed by Vanessa Peng and with tough opponents like Eric Froehlich, David "Bakes" Baker, Wesley Pantling, and Barry Greenstein all still active.

Still playing at level 30 in the early hours of Saturday morning were Adam Geyer in the chip lead on 2,500,000, hotly pursued by Antonin Teisseire on 2,400,000 and followed by Darryl Ronconi (2,250,000), Vanessa Peng (2,050,000), Eric Froehlich (1,850,000) and Narendra Banwari (1,275,000).

Event 51: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo was into its last five hands of the second day's action in the early hours of Saturday morning, with level 20 reached and 11 players still in contention, led by David Sands on 1,350,000, comfortably ahead of closest adversary Igor Sharaskin on 438,000.

On the first day of this competition 946 players took their seats, an increase of 99 players over the previous year, but by the end of it only 134 players remained.

They were lled by William Speir, but many top players were still active, including Alexandre Gomes, Kathy Liebert, Alex Wice, Alexander Kostritsyn, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Mitch Schock and Joe Hachem - all fell by the wayside on Day 2.

Event 52: $2,500 Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No-Limit) started with a field of 580, but a mere 153 were still competing at the start of the second day Friday, with Nikolay Losev holding the lead, chased by Chris Bell, Chris Moorman, Scott Montgomery, Max Pescatori, and Jimmy Fricke.

Going into the small hours of Saturday morning Vegas time the field was down to 11 following the most recent bust-out by Max Pescatori at 12th position.

Still competing fiercely at level 18 on the second day were Brandon Meyers (chip leader on 690,000), Aalok Arora (673,000), Noah Boeken, Matt Matros, Matt Hawrilenko, Brian Smith, Nikolay Losev, Adam Sanders, Dylan Drazen, Jonathan Lane and Pieter De Korver.

Event 53: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship started Friday, attracting an entry field of 1,055 and generating a prize pool of $949,500.

Ace-spotters reported seeing many big names taking their seats at the start, including Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, Kara Scott, Melanie Weisner, Leo Margetts, Jennifer Tilly, Lauren Kling and Maria Ho, Vanessa Hellebuyck, Karina Jett, Almira Skripchenko and Celine Bastian.

Play was halted at ten levels in the early hours Saturday morning with many of them still active among the 137 first day survivors, but the following were sent to the rail: Linda Johnson, Barbara Enright, Cyndy Violette and Susie Issacs.

Ruby Du tops the first day chip counts with 67,800, chased by Carol Tomlinson on 63,800.