French poker pro Arnaud Mattern enjoyed the best day of all among the thousands of players on hand for Day 2ABC of the 2023 World Series of Poker Main Event on Friday, topping 1,877 surviving players from the day's 10 hours of play.
Friday's survivors were less than half of the 3,865 players who bagged from the Day 1A, 1B, and 1C flights earlier in the week, plus an unknown number of late registrants who joined during Friday's early levels. Mattern, a former EPT Prague champion who now lives in London, powered through to his near-million stack on a day when the returning Main Event champ, Sweden's Espen Jorstad, busted from the event.
Mattern started the day with just 56,500 in chips, below his 60,000 starting stack, and his Day 2 surge pushed him just past two prior WSOP bracelet winners at the top of the day's leaderboard. UK pro and Day 1C leader Chris Brammer finished second on the day with 879,000, while Argentina's Julio Belluscio was third with 825,500. British players occupied four of the top ten spots, with Day 2ABC's top 10 looking like this:
- Arnaud Mattern (France) - 975,000
- Christopher Brammer (Great Britain) - 879,000
- Julio Belluscio (Argentina) - 825,500
- Beqir Salihu (United States) - 801,000
- John Sofillas (United States) - 780,000
- Nick Marchington (Great Britain) - 716,000
- Heitor Saraiva (United States) - 665,500
- Sachin Joshi (Great Britain) - 635,500
- Andrew Hulme (Great Britain) - 610,000
- Patrik Antonius (United States) - 584,500
Former Main Event champs did well on the day, though 2004 winner Greg Raymer endured a rough session and ended the day on the rail alongside Jorstad.
Eight other prior Main Event champs moved on to Day 3, including Johnny Chan (372,000), Jamie Gold (248,000), Joe Cada (241,500), Joe McKeehen (220,000), Scott Blumstein (192,500), Ryan Riess (151,000), Damian Salas (147,500), Martin Jacobson (128,000), and Tom McEvoy (20,000).
Just behind the top 10, numerous big-name players enjoyed their own Day 2 as well. Australia's Gary Benson flirted with the lead before bagging 572,000, and the day's top 100 finishers also included Philip Yeh (541,000), Ronnie Bardah (519,000), Stephen Chidwick (472,500), Chris Brewer (467,000), Day 1A leader Yehuda Dayan (453,000), Poker Hall of Famer Billy Baxter (434,000), Doug Polk (433,000), John Duthie (431,000), Stephen Deutsch (405,000), and Michael Banducci (386,500).
Many other stars of the game found Day 2ABC to be a tougher grind. In addition to Jorstad and Raymer, those whose 2023 Main Event run ended on Friday included Daniel Negreanu, Liv Boeree, Humberto Brenes, Jeremy Ausmus, Jamie Kerstetter, David Peters, Jeffrey Lisandro, Adrian Mateos, Brian Rast, Alex Keating, Scott Seiver, Nick Schulman, JJ Liu, Day 1B leader Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy, Justin Bonomo, John Hennigan, Isaac Haxton, and many, many others.
Saturday's Day 2D returns 3,202 players from Thursday's Day 1C flight, plus a to-be-determined number of late registrants. Overall attendance, which is already known to be a new record, should be announced sometime around the day's early-evening dinner break.
