Walton Bags Lead on Day 1f of Event #67: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event World Championship
The 2021 World Series of Poker has drawn its curtains on the sixth and final flight of Event #67: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event World Championship. After five levels and over 12 hours, Day 1f attracted a field of 1,045 players, and only 782 will be moving on to Day 2cef.
Adam Walton topped the Day 1f leaderboard after bagging up a whopping 334,000 chips. The majority of Walton's chips came from two hands against Frederic Normand, one where Walton got a fold from Normand and the other when Walton's kings overpowered Normand's ace-king in the last level of the night.
Some other big stacks to end the day included Tung Nguyen who finished with 328,200. Nguyen was the only other player with a stack of over 300,000 chips with Hannes Speiser (282,100) bagging the third biggest Day 1f stack. Ryan Hartmann (243,000) also bagged a big stack but was overheard stating that his stack could have been much larger if it weren't for a bad beat in the last moments of the night.
Day 1f Top 10 Chip Counts
| RANK | PLAYER | CITY / STATE / COUNTRY | CHIP COUNT | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adam Walton | United States | 334,000 | 418 |
| 2 | Tung Nguyen | United States | 328,200 | 410 |
| 3 | Hannes Speiser | Austria | 282,100 | 353 |
| 4 | Arkadi Onikoul | United States | 266,300 | 333 |
| 5 | Ryan Hartmann | United States | 243,200 | 304 |
| 6 | Young Ko | United States | 240,300 | 300 |
| 7 | Jung Woo | United States | 231,900 | 290 |
| 8 | John Bagosy | United States | 224,700 | 281 |
| 9 | Christopher Fischer | United States | 219,000 | 274 |
| 10 | Terence Clee | Australia | 218,700 | 273 |
Hellmuth Makes Grand Entrance
The highlight of the day came just before the dinner break when Phil Hellmuth made his grand entrance into the Amazon Room. With cameras surrounding the 16-time bracelet winner, Hellmuth was dressed as Gandolf The White and he captured the eyes of everyone in the room. Hellmuth only played two levels of poker on Day 1f and managed to turn his starting stack of 60,000 chips into 94,500 for tomorrow.
Some other notables to enter the last starting flight include Fedor Holz (161,600), Scotty Nguyen (52,200), Michael Mizrachi (212,300), and Chris Moneymaker (75,800). Nguyen and Mizrachi played at the same table throughout the day, also known as the 'Table of Death'. It included Felipe Ramos and Harald Sammer who somehow also managed to weave their way through the day with above starting stacks.
Holz entered the day at the start of the second level and never once fell below his starting stack. An aggressive start followed by some made hands in the last level resulted in Holz bagging an above-average stack for Day 2. He was joined by many other international players who made the trek to Las Vegas now that the international travel ban has been lifted. The last two starting flights were added to the schedule to accommodate those that were not able to fly across the Atlantic Ocean due to the pandemic.
2021 WSOP Main Event So Far in Numbers
| Flight | Entries | Survivors | Advanced to Day 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1a | 523 | 348 | 66.54% |
| Day 1b | 845 | 611 | 72.31% |
| Day 1c | 600 | 433 | 72.17% |
| Day 1d | 2,550 | 1,933 | 75.80% |
| Day 1e | 797 | 592 | 74.28% |
| Day 1f | 1,045 | 782 | 74.83% |
| Total | 6,360 | 4,699 | 73.88% |
Unfortunately, there were some players who were unable to find a bag by the end of the day and they will not be returning for Day 2 and a shot at glory. Rainer Kempe, Dominik Nitsche, David Benyamine, and the 2021 WSOP Seniors Champion Robert McMillan were all forced to the rail throughout the day.
McMillan was the victim of a former WSOP Senior's Champion James Hess who won that title back in 2011. The two bracelet winners collided in a hand that saw Hess come out on top to eliminate McMillan. Kempe was just flat-out unlucky after turning the nut straight only to see the board pair on the river and Vinny Ta's full house ended Kempe's short-lived tournament. As for Benyamine, he fell by the wayside in the fourth level of the day when his ace-king flopped a pair of kings but he was up against pocket aces.
For all those players advancing from Day 1f, they will return bright and early Wednesday morning for Day 2cef that begins at 11 a.m. local time throughout the Pavillion and Amazon rooms. Another five two-hour levels will be on the schedule before all the remaining players gather for Day 3 on Thursday, November 11.
Be sure to keep it here throughout the 2021 World Series of Poker for all of the latest updates on the Main Event and many other tournaments brought to you by the PokerNews live reporting team.