Sunday was make-the-money day in the $10K PLO Championship for 132 players from the 874-runner total field who at least doubled their buy-in with a min-cash. One such cash went to Player of the Year challenger Benny Glaser (finishing 102nd), leaving his nearest rival Scott Bohlman bagging chips at the end of play to close in at the front of that race.
The two of them lie around 400 points clear of their nearest current challengers Joao Vieira and Blaz Zerjav but the Series ain’t over till it’s over. If you fancy trying to work out how big a field every event from now on would have to be to give an outlier a chance, you can have a play on the points calculator over on WSOP.com.
The closing stages of the PLO Championship saw the elimination of Phil Hellmuth in 60th place as well as Seth Davies and Felipe Ramos just after him – three more fantasy players down. A total of 56 contenders will return for Day 3, led by Javier Francourt, who both started and ended the day top of the counts. Also in contention are Quan Zhou and Alex Foxen (lying second and third overall), Robert Mizrachi, Alex Livingston, Stephen Chidwick and Ryan Riess.
Okamoto retains Ladies Championship title
Back-to-back wins in the $1,000 Ladies Championship for Shiina Okamoto have put her name in the WSOP history books. Having made the final table in this event three years in a row, it’s a near certainty she will be returning in 2026 to attempt the hat trick. Having ‘been there, done that’, the bright lights of the streaming table won’t have fazed her, intense though the atmosphere might have been:
Heather Alcorn, featured in this video flopping a set of tens and prompting the cries of ‘Deuce! Deuce! Deuce!’ from the rail, went on to finish second, picking up $122,654. This represents the former Dealer of the Year’s second six-figure cash, after she took down the WSOPC Southern Indiana back in 2018.
There's a rich history of dealer-turned-crusher poker players and Alcorn made quite the run at this Championship this year, returning fifth in chips for the final table and storming through to heads up - although by this time Okamoto had built such a towering chip lead that it was literally stacked against her. Click here for the full run-down of the final.
Battle royale ahead for the last 13 Gladiators
It's been an epic journey for the remaining combatants in the $300 Gladiators of Poker. The staggering field of 24,629 has been sliced and diced, leaving just 13 battle-hardened competitors locking eyes across the arena once Day 2 had reached its close. It's likely that they have just made the final day of the second largest live event ever run.
American Yuanzhi Cao heads into Monday's final furlong out in front (to mix the sporting metaphors), ready to fight for the $429,680 first prize. With compatriot Manuel Reyes close behind, there’s work to be done before the title is his; only Roland Israelashvili holds a prior WSOP bracelet but there is plenty of experience between the last two tables.
Mini Main also...colossal
There's already a Colossus at the World Series, but both the Gladiators and the $1,000 Mini Main have attracted fields that can be described with that c-word. The Mini Main was always going to defy its name when it came to entrants, and with 4,077 for the first starting flight alone, it's going to surge easily past its 6,075 2024 entries.
Monika Zukowicz amongst the multitude in for Day 1a of the Mini Main.Brandon Morisson entered the latter stages heading the counts, only for a late surge from Duane Fernandez to leave him lying in second overall. The bumper field had been whittled down to 318 by the close – the ranks of the vanquished including Chris Moneymaker. The 2003 Main Even Champion can have a second bite at the cherry should he wish, as another horde of hopefuls pulls up chairs on Monday for Day 1b, eyeing passage to Day 2 on July 1st.
