2023 WSOP Day 5: Ronnie Day and Vadim Shlez Find WSOP Gold

The 2023 World Series of Poker has been off to an amazing start at the Horseshoe Las Vegas and the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. Day 5 boasted two winners in Ronnie Day and Vadim Shlez each winning their first WSOP gold bracelets.

Meanwhile, Event #8: $25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship is producing tons of excitement with poker personality Doug Polk advancing to the final four.

Read on to learn more about these events and others in progress in our daily WSOP recap.

Ronnie Day Wins Event #4: Tournament of Champions ($200,000)

Event #4: Tournament of Champions was an invite-only freeroll with a whopping $1 million value-added prize pool. WSOP invited a select group of 989 former WSOP bracelet and ring winners with 741 players getting into the action in hopes of a nice payday and a bracelet.

Initially, this was scheduled to be a three-day affair. However, a fourth day was added due to the larger turnout when compared to the 470 entries getting into the mix last year.

Ronnie Day was on top of the world after defeating Brent Gregory en route to the title. Day won his first gold ring just a month ago in the WSOPC Southern Indiana Event #6: $400 Monster Stack which also came with a $46,374. He now has a bracelet to go along with the ring and has witnessed his live poker tournament earnings catapult past $500,000.

“It’s so surreal right now, it’s unbelievable, I don’t even know how to explain it,” Day said to the PokerNews live reporting team after the event.

Event #4: Tournament of Champions Final Table Results

Vadim Shlez Wins Event #7: $1,500 Limit Hold’em

Event #7: $1,500 Limit Hold’em guaranteed a bracelet would go to Ukraine with two Ukrainian players facing off heads-up before Vadim Shlez defeated Rostyslav Sabishchenko heads-up to win the $146,635 top prize and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

“It was unbelievable,” Shlez, who has been competing in poker for around two decades, said to the WSOP about the Ukrainian heads-up affair. “We thought it would be cool yesterday (Friday) when it went down to three tables. We hoped it was going to happen, but nobody expected this to happen. I mean, even making the final table together was great. It was unbelievable. To win it, it was unbelievable.”

Kerry Walsh managed an impressive third-place performance, while David “ODB” Baker was hunting for his third taste at WSOP gold only to bow out in eighth place shortly after the final table stream was broadcasted for free by PokerGO.

The $1,500 Limit Hold’em attracted 527 entries to create a $703,545 prize pool. This is five more entries than the 522 entries that came out to battle in this same event last year. That event was won by Michael Moncek for $145,856. Moncek added a second bracelet on Friday when he won Event #6: $5,000 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em / Pot-Limit Omaha for $534,399.

Event #7: $1,500 Limit Hold’em Final Table Results

Ronan Nally Leads Event #3: $1,000 Mystery Millions Heading Into Day 2

The three-day Event #3: $1,000 Mystery Millions – No-Limit Hold’em has been a massive success for the WSOP with a banner field of 18,188 entries getting into battle during the four opening flights. This isn’t a huge surprise as a top $1 million mystery bounty prize along with another massive $1 million top prize awaiting the bracelet winner sounds enticing to any poker player or enthusiast that is comfortable ponying up the $1,000 buy-in.

Just 1,005 players bagged chips into Day 2. However, many more made the money with each day playing past the money bubble. Ronan Nally leads the way after bagging 2,820,000 (71 big blinds) on the final Day 1d opening flight. Francis Anderson, Shaun David, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Calvin Anderson, and Tal Avivi also will kick off Day 2 starting on Sunday at 10 a.m.

The mystery bounty portion of the event will start on Day 2. Will someone pull the $1 million envelope or will this wait until the final day when we will also know who won the $1 million top prize from the prize pool? Stay tuned at PokerPro to see how the excitement unfolded.

Event #3: $1,000 Mystery Millions Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts

Will Doug Polk Win a Fourth WSOP Bracelet in Event #8: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship?

The three-day Event #8: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship attracted 64 of the biggest names in poker to compete for a $1,508,000 prize pool.

The second day witnessed the field trimmed from 16 players to just four hopefuls including three-time WSOP champion, content producer, and founder of Upswing Poker Doug Polk. We may not see a lot of Polk this year as his poker club The Lodge in Dallas takes up most of his time.

Polk isn’t the only player making the most of their time as three other formidable players in Sean Winter, Chris Brewer, and Chanracy Khun are all hungry for their first WSOP bracelet.

Polk will face off against Brewer, while Khun will test his skills against Winter. The winners of these matches will face off for the WSOP bracelet and the $507,020 top prize.

“It should be a fun one. I’ve played Chris a bunch online,” Polk said about his match according to the WSOP. “When I was prepping for my match against Daniel Negreanu, we played a good chunk of hands and I smashed him pretty good. But he played pretty well. His frequencies and stuff were quite good, quite balanced. I thought he was a good player.”

Meanwhile, the four players that lost the quarterfinals including Roberto Perez, Anthony Zinno, Landon Tice, and Eric Wasserson each min-cashed this event for $74,648.

The action will resume at 5 p.m. and if you can’t wait for our update tomorrow, you can check it out the action blow-by-blow at PokerGO who will be live broadcasting this affair until a winner is crowned.

John Monette Chasing Fifth Bracelet in Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud

Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud found 360 entries for a $480,600 prize pool. The final table of nine players is set with each player guaranteed at least a $7,706 payout with $110,800 and the coveted gold bracelet on the line for Sunday’s winner.

Four-time WSOP champion John Monette leads the way in the hopes of parlaying his chip lead into a fifth bracelet. However, there are two other world-class players equally hungry to add to their bracelet collection still in contention including five-time bracelet winner Shuan Deeb and three-time winner Nick Schulman.

A winner will be crowned on Sunday with the action resuming at 1 p.m.

Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Final Table Seat Draw

Six-Time WSOP Champ John Hennigan Leads Event #10: $10,000 Dealer’s Choice

Event #10: $10,000 Dealer’s Choice attracted many of the biggest names in poker. The event features a secondary button where a player can choose any game among a list of 20 flop, stud, and draw games to be played for an orbit.

The event gathered 114 entries during its first of three days to already add $1,060,200 to the prize pool. The prize pool will grow by a small amount with late registration still open for this event for more players to join the 58 Day 1 survivors until the start of Day 2 on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Six-time WSOP champion John Hennigan was the only player to manage to push his 60,000 opening stack into more than 300,000 in chips. However, Marco Johnson and David Bach aren’t miles behind. Many other big names bagged top 10 chip stacks including Ray Henson, Patrick Leonard, Brian Rast, and David “Bakes” Baker.

Event #10: $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Final Table Results 

June 4, 2023 WSOP Schedule

It will be a busy day for poker players at the WSOP summer camp with two new live events and two more online joining the three events already in progress. Both Event #8: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship and Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Stud will play down to a winner.

Below is a look at today’s schedule while head to the PokerPro opening WSOP article to check out the full schedule of the 2023 World Series of Poker.

Images courtesy of WSOP/PokerNews.
Article by Jason Glatzer
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