The Muck · WSOP Daily Brief
Day 50
The August Nine is set, and it belongs to a 22-year-old. Lucas Jumalon turned a third-place stack into 194,000,000 chips on Day 8, cracked Malcolm Trayner's queens with jacks for a 50 million pot, then finished the job by busting Trayner in 10th to kill the Aussie Millions double at the doorstep. Every legacy story died on Monday: Ensan 13th, Deeb 15th and immediately registering two more events, Brunson 20th after his aces got rivered by, who else, Trayner. The nine survivors return August 3 with a million locked and $10,000,000 on top. Meanwhile the bracelet logjam broke: Yanting Jiang won the Mid-Stakes Championship for $1,159,182, Ori Hasson took The Closer for his second bracelet, and Sterling Lopez of Anchorage, Alaska beat a stacked T.O.R.S.E. final table and Jesse Lonis heads-up for his first. Three bracelets Monday puts the count at 92 of 100, per our tally of PokerNews reporting.
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The Main Event final table is officially set, and Lucas Jumalon dominated Day 8 to lead it with 194,000,000 chips, 129 big blinds and more than double his nearest challenger, per PokerNews. The 22-year-old American entered the day third with 40,800,000, then cracked Malcolm Trayner's pocket queens with jack-jack, rivering a full house in a pot worth more than 50,000,000. He had 155,000,000 by dinner and closed the show himself, eliminating Trayner in 10th place to set the final nine. Rami Hammoud is second with 79,000,000, Jamie Shaevel third with 56,000,000, and three-time bracelet winners Greg Mueller (48,500,000) and Michael Gagliano (46,500,000) lurk behind. The final table runs August 3 to 5 at Paris Las Vegas, with everyone locked for at least $1,000,000 and $10,000,000 up top.
Why it mattersSeven days, seven different chip leaders, and then one kid ended the argument in a single session. Jumalon is eight eliminations from being the youngest-feeling world champion in years, with a stack so big that second place needs a double just to see him clearly. The experience gap is real: Mueller and Gagliano own three bracelets each, and Jumalon owns 129 big blinds, which historically has been the better hand.
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Malcolm Trayner started Day 8 as the chip leader with 63,200,000 and still led at the dinner break with 81,900,000, per PokerNews. It did not matter. Jumalon first cracked his queens with jacks in the 50 million pot, and hours later eliminated the Aussie Millions champion in 10th place, one spot short of the final table, sending what PokerNews called his raucous Australian rail into despair. In between, Trayner did plenty of executing himself: his ace-jack of clubs check-raised and rivered a flush against Todd Brunson's pocket aces in what PokerNews called the biggest pot of the tournament to that point.
Why it mattersNobody has ever won the Aussie Millions and the Main Event in the same year, and the streak survives because the man chasing it ran into the one player at the table having a better day. Bubbling the August Nine after leading Days 7 and most of 8 is as brutal as this tournament gets: 10th place instead of a guaranteed million and a televised run at history. The chip lead curse we have been tracking all week claims its biggest victim yet.
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Shaun Deeb's deepest Main Event run ended in 15th place for $410,475 when he check-raised all in with an open-ended straight draw just after the dinner break and whiffed against Rami Hammoud's top pair, per PokerNews. It took the reigning WSOP Player of the Year only a few minutes to register for both Event #95: $500 Summer Saver and Event #97: $25,000 High Roller H.O.R.S.E. He sat down in the Summer Saver first and immediately busted it, per PokerNews, which noted this at least spared him the logistics of live multi-tabling. He then settled into the $25K H.O.R.S.E. field. Deeb sits third in the POY race behind Alex Foxen and Naoya Kihara and barely ahead of Josh Arieh, and will close the gap once his Main Event points land. A repeat would make him the first three-time POY ever.
Why it mattersYesterday he told us the Main Event was blocking his real work, and Monday he proved it was not a bit. Fifteen minutes from a $410,475 payout to two fresh registrations and one fresh bustout is the purest expression of the Deeb doctrine on record. The POY math now gets interesting: Main Event points plus a $25K H.O.R.S.E. field full of the exact mixed-game regulars he farms, with Paradise still to come in December. Also worth noting: PokerNews explicitly links Deeb's 2025 POY title in this article, which settles the discrepancy we flagged three days running.
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Hossein Ensan's run at a second Main Event title ended in 13th place on Day 8, per poker.org. The 2019 champion had been fourth in chips at the dinner break with 55,600,000, roughly 55 big blinds, and PokerNews spent the evening writing about how he was the only player left who had ever reached a Main Event final table. He busted before the night was over, falling shy of becoming the first repeat champion since Johnny Chan in 1987 and 1988. Joe Cada's fifth place in 2018 remains the deepest second run by a Moneymaker-era champion.
Why it mattersFor about six hours on Monday, poker allowed itself to believe. Ensan was fourth in chips with 15 left, playing the best position any former champion has held this deep since Cada, and then the Main Event did what it does to storylines. The 62-year-old leaves with the consolation that he outlasted 9,195 players seven years after outlasting 8,568, which is a resume line nobody else alive can write. The final table will now crown a first-time champion, and the Chan record survives another year.
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Todd Brunson's Day 8 lasted two acts, per PokerNews. Act one: with 13 big blinds, he shoved ace-king of diamonds into Brock Wilson's kings and Trayner's queens, flopped nothing, turned a flush draw, and spiked the ace of spades on the river for a full triple. Act two, about 30 minutes later: Brunson raised pocket aces on the button, Trayner defended ace-jack of clubs, turned top pair with the nut flush draw, check-raised, and called Brunson's 17,100,000 shove. The four of clubs on the river completed the flush and ended Brunson's tournament in 20th place for $325,000, fifty years after Doyle's 1976 title and one flush card from a real run at the first father-son Main Event championship.
Why it mattersThe hand he won was a three-way cooler he had no business surviving, and the hand he lost was the exact same movie with the roles reversed, which is the Main Event explaining its own house rules. Getting the chips in as a favorite both times is all you can do; the deck decides who gets the documentary. The 50-years-later story ends 11 spots short, and the Roma Deli remains the family's most reliable holding.
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Three bracelets landed Monday. Yanting Jiang won Event #89: $3,000 Mid-Stakes Championship for $1,159,182 and a first bracelet, beating Chahn Jung heads-up from a field of 3,668 entries, per poker.org, one day after leading the final 16 on her birthday per PokerNews live updates. Ori Hasson won Event #93: $1,500 The Closer for $582,800 and his second bracelet, defeating Kevin Song heads-up from 3,724 entries and a $4,526,376 prize pool, per spadepoker.com. And Sterling Lopez, a two-time Circuit ring winner from Anchorage, Alaska, won Event #92: $3,000 T.O.R.S.E. for $247,842 and his first bracelet, per Card Player, ending Jesse Lonis' bid in 40 minutes of heads-up play with an eight-high straight on seventh street. Lonis took $160,862 for second. Every player at the T.O.R.S.E. final table except one already owned a bracelet, per Card Player.
Why it mattersSunday gave us zero bracelets and Monday gave us three, because the WSOP schedule believes in feast or famine as a governing philosophy. Jiang banks the second-biggest first prize of any non-Main event this week. Lopez beating that final table lineup in the last mixed event of the summer is the quiet upset of the month, and Lonis, one of the most feared tournament players alive, keeps waiting for bracelet number two. The count now stands at 92 of 100 by our tally, with the Main Event bracelet parked until August 5.
Three bracelets were awarded Monday, July 13, bringing our tally to 92 of 100. We did not obtain confirmation on whether Event #88 Gladiators of Poker also concluded; if so the count is higher, flagged in missing.
First bracelet, beat Chahn Jung heads-up from 3,668 entries, one day after leading the final 16 on her birthday, per poker.org and PokerNews.
First bracelet for the Anchorage, Alaska Circuit grinder, denying Jesse Lonis ($160,862) in a 40-minute heads-up, per Card Player and PokerNews.
Second bracelet for the Israeli, beat Kevin Song heads-up from 3,724 entries and a $4,526,376 pool, per spadepoker.com.
Main Event counts are the official final table bags per PokerNews. The August Nine return to Paris Las Vegas August 3 to 5, blinds resuming at 750,000/1,500,000 territory per the 129 big blind math PokerNews published. All nine are locked for $1,000,000; first place is $10,000,000.
Day 8 played from 21 down to the final nine. Prizes are listed where a source stated them; PokerNews did not itemize payouts for every Day 8 exit.
Led Day 7 and most of Day 8, then Jumalon cracked his queens with jacks and later finished him one spot from the final table, per PokerNews. The Aussie Millions double dies at the door.
Fourth in chips at dinner, out before the bags came out, per poker.org. The first repeat title since Johnny Chan remains unclaimed.
Open-ended straight draw, check-raise all in, two bricks, per PokerNews. Registered two events within minutes and instantly busted one of them.
Tripled with a rivered ace, then had his aces rivered by Trayner's flush in the biggest pot of the tournament to that point, per PokerNews. Fifty years after Doyle, 11 spots short.
The high-stakes grinder's kings survived the three-way with Brunson's ace-king and Trayner's queens for roughly break-even, but he did not reach the final table, per PokerNews and poker.org. Exact finish not stated in our sources.
Eighth in chips overnight, eliminated during Day 8 per poker.org. Exact finish not stated in our sources.
Ran hot late on Day 7, out on Day 8 per poker.org. Exact finish not stated in our sources.
Lost a 40-minute heads-up to Sterling Lopez, ending on an eight-high straight on seventh, per Card Player. Bracelet number two stays on layaway.
Fell heads-up to Yanting Jiang, per poker.org. Runner-up prize not stated in our sources.
The veteran fell heads-up to Ori Hasson, per spadepoker.com. Runner-up prize not stated in our sources.
PokerNews' Deeb bustout article places Foxen atop the standings, and he was also among the early leaders in the $3K PLO 6-Max per PokerNews' Day 48 recap. The volume machine hums.
Named second in the race in PokerNews' Deeb article. No new results for him in our sources today.
15th in the Main for $410,475 plus whatever the points table says, now grinding the $25K High Roller H.O.R.S.E. A repeat would make him the first three-time POY; Negreanu is the only other two-time winner. PokerNews' article also confirms Deeb won 2025 POY, resolving the discrepancy we had flagged.
Close enough that the $25K H.O.R.S.E. and Paradise both matter. No new results in our sources today.