The Muck · WSOP Daily Brief
Day 48
Two bracelets, one fairy tale, and a Main Event that has stopped being polite. Jamie Dwan, a 26-year-old from the UK whose previous best live cash was $76,254, punted his winning summer into his first-ever $50K buy-in and walked out with $2,276,691 and the bracelet, erasing a 5-to-1 heads-up deficit against Daniel Rezaei after outlasting Negreanu, Seidel, Kenney, and Foxen, per PokerNews. He did it for his sick mum, and if that doesn't get you, nothing in this game will. Italy's Sergio Benso, railless and self-described as a solitary wolf, took down the inaugural Pick Your PLO for $196,431 and his first bracelet after 20 years of trying. Meanwhile the Main Event chopped 174 players down to 62 on a Day 6 that featured an ace-king-into-ace-king freeroll execution, simultaneous set-over-set coolers, and Will Givens showing up 25 minutes late because of avocado toast. Tyler Gaston leads with 21,000,000, Hossein Ensan lurks fifth, Todd Brunson bagged 17,000,000 chasing the first father-son Main Event double, and Day 7 runs today.
Story 01 of 6
Event #90, the $50,000 High Roller, crowned the UK's Jamie Dwan its champion on Saturday night after nine hours of final-day play, per PokerNews. The 26-year-old online crusher had never bought into a $50K before; his prior live best was $76,254 and his lifetime total was $806,208 before this $2,276,691 score. He had to survive a final day featuring Hall of Famers Erik Seidel (11th) and Daniel Negreanu (8th, $226,086), Women in Poker Hall of Famer Kristen Foxen (9th, jacks into kings), and all-time money leader Bryn Kenney (3rd, $1,041,908, pushing his lifetime haul to $89,094,210). Heads-up, Daniel Rezaei started with a 5-to-1 lead, but Dwan clawed it back and closed it with ace-jack over ace-ten. Rezaei took $1,517,782 for second from the $9,595,000 prize pool. 'This was just like a big punt at the end of the series,' Dwan told PokerNews. 'My mum's not very well, and all I wanted to do this summer was come back to her with a bracelet. I've done it.'
Why it mattersThis is the shot-take story of the summer. A 202-entry field of the best players alive, a first-timer at the stakes, a 5-to-1 comeback, and a reason to win that has nothing to do with the money. Rezaei led this thing essentially wire to wire, as we noted yesterday, and still could not close, which is now two straight $50K High Roller runner-up heartbreaks avoided only by the one he won in Paradise. Negreanu's second final table of the series in a week keeps his bracelet #9 hunt warm, but the night belonged to the punt.
Story 02 of 6
The Main Event's most action-packed day yet ended with 62 players and American Tyler Gaston on top with 21,000,000, about 140 big blinds, per PokerNews. Gaston is chasing his first bracelet with $781,918 in career earnings. Behind him: Blake Barousse (19,375,000), Day 5 leader Zhao Liu still second-page-of-the-lease comfortable (19,047,000), Mario Boos (17,950,000), and 2019 champion Hossein Ensan (17,775,000). Rami Hammoud, Junjie Tang, Aussie Millions champ Malcolm Trayner, Todd Brunson, and Carlos Chadha Villamarin round out the top ten. Shaun Deeb bagged 8,725,000, streamer Patrick 'Pads' Leonard 6,100,000, Brock Wilson 12,650,000, and Romain Lewis 13,900,000. Everyone left has $150,000 locked up. Day 7 kicks off today at 11 a.m. at Level 30, blinds 100,000/200,000 with a 200,000 ante, five two-hour levels planned.
Why it mattersThe chip leader churn continues on schedule: Rossitto, Sasha Liu, the Day 4 leader, Zhao Liu, and now Gaston, five days, five different names on top. But Zhao Liu holding third after leading Day 5 is quietly the most impressive stack management in the field. The pay jumps get vicious from here, $150,000 at the bottom rung, $10,000,000 on top, and the final nine are due to be set before the 20-day ESPN hiatus. Sixty-two people are two good days from changing their lives, and one of them showed up late for avocado toast.
Story 03 of 6
Poker Hall of Famer Todd Brunson bagged 17,000,000 after Day 6, putting him ninth in chips and squarely in position to chase the title his father Doyle won back-to-back in 1976 and 1977, per PokerNews. 'It would make it that much more special,' Brunson said of completing the first father-son Main Event double. He also told his table he had not played a single hand of poker between last year's Main Event and this summer, and made clear he is no fan of the modern tournament meta: 'The tanking, the ridiculous stare-downs and all this nonsense. I had to wait seven minutes on one hand for a decision. Cash players, we are really quick and it's no nonsense.' Told about a 15-minute tank elsewhere in the room, Brunson said he might have called the clock for the first time in his life.
Why it mattersA day after Daniel Hachem carried the family-legacy storyline, the torch passes to a Brunson, and this one has a top-ten stack. The Hachem son busted on Day 6; the Brunson son bagged. A high-stakes mixed-game cash player who barely plays NLHE tournaments running deep in the biggest one on earth while openly disdaining its culture is exactly the kind of protagonist this format deserves. Doyle never won the Main Event after 1977. Fifty years later, his son is nine spots from the final table.
Story 04 of 6
Italy's Sergio Benso won Event #91, the first-ever $1,500 Pick Your PLO, beating Farhad Jamasi heads-up for $196,431 and his first bracelet, per PokerNews. Benso outlasted 857 entries and a $1,137,667 prize pool with zero rail; his wife and year-and-a-half-old daughter Joy were home in the Netherlands. He entered the final table sixth in chips with under 20 big blinds, doubled up Justin Liberto in his first hand, then methodically took it all back, scooping a double-board pot, eliminating Jon Turner and later Liberto himself, and grinding Jamasi down over almost four hours of heads-up. 'I was like the solitary wolf. Not because I think I'm not nice or friendly, but I like to focus when I play,' said Benso, who has been cashing for 20 years and attending the WSOP since 2015. 'I usually mess up on the last day, but not today.'
Why it mattersYesterday's brief flagged the Pick Your PLO as a debut format waiting on a winner; today it has one, and the story is better than the format. Twenty years of grinding Omaha variants, eleven summers in Vegas, no bracelet, then a flawless final six hours in an event that did not exist last year. Jamasi held a third of the chips in play entering the day and won, per PokerNews, just a handful of contested pots heads-up. The bracelet count hits 89 of 100, and the wolf flies home to Joy.
Story 05 of 6
The Main Event's Day 6 exit list reads like a war crimes tribunal, per PokerNews. Go Kato got his chips in with ace-king suited and ran into Lauri Saaskilahti's ace-king, then got freerolled and flopped dead. Simultaneous set-over-set coolers at different tables ended the runs of cash game star Andy 'Andy Stacks' Tsai and Espen Sandvik. Daniel Hachem, whose father-son storyline led yesterday's coverage, hit the rail along with Wesley Fei, who had already used up his miracle by un-busting earlier in the tournament. Also out: high-stakes crusher Sean Winter, Japanese superstar Masato Yokosawa, three-time bracelet winner Dutch Boyd, poker journalist turned WSOP darling Terrance Reid, bracelet winners Darren Rabinowitz, Soheb Porbandarwala, and Zdenek Zizka, content creator Caitlin Comeskey, Francisco Fragoso via a hero call gone wrong against Ralph Perry, and the player PokerNews identifies as Day 4 chip leader 'Sam Snead.'
Why it mattersThe Sweilem watch is over, sort of: PokerNews' Day 6 recap lists the Day 4 chip leader among the eliminated, though it names him Sam Snead where earlier coverage said Sam Sweilem, a discrepancy we are flagging rather than resolving. Either way, the man who held 190 big blinds on Wednesday is out before the six-figure... check that, everyone left already has $150,000 locked, which makes his fall from the top even steeper. And Kato's bustout deserves its own plaque: ace-king against ace-king is supposed to be a chop, not an execution.
Story 06 of 6
Day 6's Paris Gold section turned into theater, per PokerNews. Farid Jattin, down to less than one big blind, spun it up to nearly seven figures and celebrated a double by smacking the table with full force, twice, earning a dealer warning before doing it again. 'We are in the Colosseum,' Jattin explained. Nearby, Ralph Perry declared his dealer the 'Princess of Poker' and lobbied all eight tablemates to give her five stars in the WSOP app, a mood upgrade from his earlier complaints about Jattin's short-stack tanking, and one that coincided with Perry's own rise up the counts including a hero call against Francisco Fragoso. And Will Givens strolled in 25 minutes late with a big stack because, in his words, he went harder at the gym, meditated longer, and 'got some avocado toast and eggs, took a longer walk a different way, went outside, got some sun.' He bagged 10,175,000.
Why it mattersThe dealer rating system we covered as a pre-series controversy in May has completed its arc from 'particularly insane and actually cruel' to a table-wide five-star telethon led by a man who was complaining about everything two hours earlier. That is poker players in one anecdote. As for Givens, blinding off 25 minutes of a Main Event Day 6 for brunch and sunshine is either the worst tournament decision of the summer or elite big-stack psychology, and since he bagged top-15 chips, the avocado toast industrial complex gets the win.
Two bracelets awarded Saturday, July 11, bringing the count to 89 of 100. Event #92 T.O.R.S.E. is scheduled to finish today, July 12; no winner was confirmed in our sources at press time. See missing.
First bracelet in his first-ever $50K buy-in, overcoming a 5-to-1 heads-up deficit against Daniel Rezaei ($1,517,782). Bryn Kenney took third for $1,041,908, Negreanu eighth for $226,086, from a 202-entry, $9,595,000 prize pool, per PokerNews.
First bracelet after 20 years of cashes, beating Farhad Jamasi ($130,904) heads-up in the inaugural running of the format. 857 entries, $1,137,667 prize pool, and not a single person on his rail, per PokerNews.
Main Event counts are official end of Day 6 bags per PokerNews. 62 of 9,208 remain; everyone left is locked up for $150,000. Day 7 runs today, July 12 at 11 a.m., starting Level 30 at 100,000/200,000 with a 200,000 big blind ante, five two-hour levels planned.
Day 6 eliminated 112 players from the Main Event. Exact finishing places and payouts for Day 6 bustouts were not itemized in our sources; the remaining 62 are all locked up for $150,000. Event #90 and #91 payouts per the PokerNews winner articles.
The son of 2005 champion Joe Hachem busted a day after PokerNews profiled his title chances. The family-legacy torch passes to Todd Brunson.
Got it in with ace-king suited against Lauri Saaskilahti's ace-king, then got freerolled and flopped dead, per PokerNews. The chop that wasn't.
The cash game star fell in one of two simultaneous set-over-set coolers, per PokerNews. Espen Sandvik got the other one.
The nosebleed cash regular who thought he busted days ago finally did, per PokerNews. No second resurrection.
The high-stakes crusher's run ended on Day 6, per PokerNews.
The Japanese superstar's exit dims the Summer of Japan storyline, per PokerNews.
Three bracelets, one Day 6 rail, per PokerNews.
The poker journalist turned WSOP darling could not add another seven-figure chapter, per PokerNews.
Turned getting fired as a content creator into two final tables and a deep Main Event run while swatting away trolls, per PokerNews. A summer well spent.
Hero-called Ralph Perry with the wrong read and surrendered his 25 big blinds dominated, per PokerNews.
Ran two black jacks into Josef Schusteritsch's two red kings on the final table bubble, per PokerNews.
His bid for a second bracelet of the summer ended when ace-king lost the flip to Dwan's nines, per PokerNews. Still his second final table in a week.
The Hall of Famer's chase for bracelet #11 fell just short of the official final table, per PokerNews.
The all-time money leader pushed his lifetime total to $89,094,210, per PokerNews and The Hendon Mob.
Still marching in the Main Event with 62 left. Notably, PokerNews' Day 6 recap called Deeb the 'reigning Player of the Year,' which conflicts with prior reporting that Mizrachi won 2025 POY. We flag the discrepancy rather than resolve it; official standings remain unpublished.
An eighth-place finish in the $50K High Roller for $226,086 adds another final table to a summer that already includes a bracelet, per PokerNews. Whatever the unpublished standings say, he keeps accumulating.
A $2,276,691 win in a $50K should move any leaderboard, though with best-15-results scoring and no published standings, where he lands is anyone's guess.
Out of the Main Event since Day 5; no new results in our sources today. The race waits on the Main Event survivors.