The UK is in second place as the 48th WSOP hits the halfway mark.
With two bracelets in the bag – Liv Boeree in the $10k Tag Team event (with boyfriend Igor Kurganov) and online legend Chris Moorman winning the $3k six-max – it’s been a pretty good World Series for Brits players so far.
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Both Boeree and Moorman secured their first ever WSOP gold bracelets with their victories but several other Brits – and Irish players – have also had big scores.
Charlie Carrel has won over $300k after finishing 15th in the High Roller for One Drop and third in the $10k Heads-Up Championship.
Howard Smith was runner-up in the $1,500 PLO event for $119,524 at what, he says, will be his last ever WSOP. The former financial trader is taking up a post as a high school maths teacher from September; he tweeted: “I'd love to find a way back, but in September I'll start a new job as a high-school maths teacher. UK School terms clash with the WSOP!” UKIPT London champion Usman Siddique finished fifth in the same event for $39,565.
UK final tables!
A clutch of British players have already made final tables. Unibet London champion Pratik Ghatge was eighth in the $2,620 Marathon for $70,590 while Bagshot poker dealer Vincent Russell made the final of the casino employees tourney, the first event of the series. Stuart Rutter and Benny Glaser both final tabled the $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Draw tournament, finishing 6th and 7th respectively. Darren Taylor was fourth in the $1k PLO for $4,412 and Max Silver was sixth in the $3k Six-Max for $73,510 (the event won by Chris Moorman). Scott Margereson, who finished fifth in the WSOP $5k last year, just managed to make the final of the $2,500 NL, finishing ninth for $33,087.
Irish results
Players from Ireland have also done well at this year’s series. Marc McDonnell won $420,804 in the WSOP $1,500 Milly Maker, finishing fourth out of 7,761 entries while Yuriy Boyko was sixth in the same event for $241,303.
So far, there are four UK & Irish players with four cashes to their name: Sam Grafton, Toby Joyce, Barny Boatman and Sadan Turker while 13 players have visited the cash desk three times including our our very own MainEventTravel.com CEO Fraser MacIntyre, WPT Caribbean champion Niall Farrell, Ben Dobson, Stephen Woodhead, Chris Moorman, Stephen Chidwick and Tom Hall.
The total amount won by British players this year is already over $2.7m – with a total of 213 cashes. That’s above Germany, France and Russia – but below leaders USA and second-placed Canada.
WSOP history
Since the WSOP first began, British players have won a total of 41 bracelets with Benny Glaser snagging three, and two apiece for Praz Bansi, Barny Boatman, John Gale, John Kabbaj, JP Kelly and Matt Perrins. Britain’s most successful WSOP player to date is UK #1 Sam Trickett who has cashed 14 times and won over $11m at the Series, the vast majority of that coming from his runner-up finish in the Big One for One Drop in 2012.
The Main Event starts in just over two weeks with three start flights on July 8, 9 and 10. Other key dates remaining for this year’s WSOP include the Monster Stack (June 24-25) Crazy Eights (July 1-2), The Giant (June 23, 30, July 7) and the charity Little One for One Drop tournament from July 11-13.
With 37 of 74 events done and dusted, a record 61,616 entries have been clocked up with this year’s series so it’s looking like last year’s 107,833 record could be beaten. Players from 97 countries have already competed with $81,480,871 awarded in gold bracelet events so far. Age-wise, the WSOP proves there are no barriers to competing, with the youngest players at the legal age of 21, the oldest player so far was 94.
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The current leaderboard winner is Australia’s James Obst who has bagged one WSOP gold bracelet and cashed a further six times with a 2nd, 7th and 8th place finish on his 2017 WSOP resume thus far.