2023 WSOP Day 40: Maurice Hawkins Leads Record-Breaking Main Event

The 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) will be one to remember with attendance and prize pool records smashed left and right. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Main Event set a new record for not only the biggest WSOP event but the biggest tournament in poker’s history. The surprise is how much the record was broken with a massive field of 10,043 entries create an earth-shattering $93,399,900 prize pool.

This is nearly a 16% increase year-over-year when compared to the second-biggest WSOP Main Event ever with 8,663 entries won by Espen Jorstad in 2022 for $10,000,000. Meanwhile, this is also a more than 14% increase from the 8,773 runners attracted during the previous record event won by Jamie Gold for $12,000,000.

The controversial Maurice Hawkins leads the way heading into Day 3 of the Main Event while two other bracelet events trucked on at the Horseshow Las Vegas and the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.

Read more about what went down on Day 40 of the 2023 WSOP:

Controversial Maurice Hawkins Leads WSOP Main Event Entering Day 3

Maurice Hawkins is a well-accomplished player known throughout the USA thanks to winning a record 15 WSOP Circuit gold rings. Some like his brash personality. Meanwhile, others take offense that he reportedly had issues with his backers including a court order issued a few years ago by Randy Garcia, where Garcia was awarded more than $115,000 in 2019, which wasn’t paid as of last year.

Despite the issues away from the felts, Hawkins is a force to be reckoned with at the tables and now is thrust into the international spotlight as he managed to bag the overall chip lead on Day 2d in Event #76: $10,000 Main Event No-Limit Hold’em World Championship over the 3,663 players remaining in the field with a 376 big blind stack of 941,000.

Day 1d chip leader Nicholas Rigby, also known as “Dirty Diaper” thanks to his love of trey-deuce as demonstrated during the 2019 WSOP Main Event where he took 52^nd place for $136,100. He is in a good spot in second place with 921,500, however, there are still nine days of action to go and things can change at any point in time as any poker player can attest to.

Hawkins and Rigby are the only players ahead of Christopher Brammer who bagged the Day 2abc chip lead on Friday with 879,000 when the action resumes for Day 3 at 12 p.m. for five more blind levels of two hours each.

Event #76: $10,000 Main Event No-Limit Hold’em World Championship Day 2 Top 10 Leaderboard

Reports were coming in late from the WSOP and PokerNews after the conclusion of Day 2d which can be understandable with approximately 1,900 players surviving the day. Here is a look at the top 10 reported chip stacks entering Day 3 with the possibility that a player was missed in the top 10:

Record Top Prize of $12.1 Million to the Main Event Winner

The payouts for the 2023 WSOP $10,000 Main Event were announced on Saturday and ‘surprise, surprise,’ a new record was broken here as well as this year’s world champion will go home with a record $12,100,000 top prize or $100,000 more than Jamie Gold won in 2006 for the previous record.

The top 1,507 players will go home with at least a $15,000 min-cash with all nine players at the final table locking up at least $900,000. Some poker players took to social media including Allen “The Chainsaw” Kessler complaining that not all final table members were guaranteed at least $1 million. To this author, this is just cosmetics. We imagine that any final table member will be unhappy finishing in ninth place regardless of whether the prize is $900,000 or $1,000,000 as their minds will be on how close they were to becoming the prestigious world champion with a much bigger prize.

Other Events

The three-day Event #77: $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit Hold’em 7-Handed is one of the more fun events as it boasts three opening flights with a reasonable buy-in for most players along with unlimited re-entries. The theme of sevens isn’t just in the buy-in and name as the top prize in this popular event is guaranteed to be $777,777. Day 1b witnessed 2,386 entries battle it out to bring the total field up to 3,856 for a prize pool of $2,636,580 with still one more opening flight to go with Day 1c scheduled for Sunday at 10 a.m. Just 164 players bagged chips during either of the opening flights led by Day 1b chip leader Stepan Vinokurov with a 83 big blind stack of 3,315,000. Two-time bracelet winner and all-around baller David Peter is just behind him in second place with 2,775,000.

The three-day Event #78: $1,500 Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha is down to just 15 hopefuls when the final day kicks off on Sunday at 2 p.m. from the original field of 1,214 entries. Each player has locked up $8,215 from the $1,620,690 prize pool with the hopes and prayers of winning the coveted bracelet and the $171,741 top prize. Satar Al-Sadoun is in the driver’s seat for his first bracelet but it likely won’t be easy sailing for the American with WSOP bracelet winners Noah Schwartz, Jeff Madsen, and Diogo Veiga hungry to add more WSOP hardware.

July 9 WSOP Schedule

Most of the attention on Sunday, July 9 will be on the Main Event with Day 3 kicking off at noon with five more blind levels of two hours each. Players likely will not be in the money on Day 3 with players expected to be in the money on Day 4.

Event #78: $1,500 Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha will crown a bracelet winner on Sunday while Event #77: $77 Lucky 7’s continues with its third and final opening flight.

Today is also ‘Sunday Funday.’ So, although there are no new live bracelet events launching today players will have a chance to win one on the virtual felts with the one-day Online Event #16: $600 Online Deepstack Championship kicking off at 4:30 p.m. at WSOP.com in New Jersey and Nevada.

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 and hand details courtesy of WSOP/PokerNews.