The 2023 World Series of Poker is rounding the corner into the month of July and Shaun Deeb has the lead in the race for his second WSOP Player of the Year honor. Deeb, who last won the award in 2018, is on pace to become the second two-time champion since Daniel Negreanu won in 2004 and 2013.
The six-time bracelet winner has four more cashes since PokerNews’ last POY update, which includes another WSOP final table. This has seen him overtake Ian Matakis, who now sits in second place.
Early frontrunner Chad Eveslage has fallen outside of the top five. Michael Rodrigues, Chance Kornuth, and Chris Brewer have also put in a string of results which sees them climb to the upper echelons of the leaderboard.
2023 WSOP Player of the Year Standings
Rank
Player
Country
Points
1
Shaun Deeb
United States
3,143.03
2
Ian Matakis
United States
3,008.67
3
Michael Rodrigues
Portugal
2,476.23
4
Chance Kornuth
United States
2,312.77
5
Chris Brewer
United States
2,300.38
6
Chad Eveslage
United States
2,217.92
7
Josh Arieh
United States
2,173.70
8
Michael Moncek
United States
2,151.16
9
John Monnette
United States
2,112.98
10
Jeremy Ausmus
United States
2,054.41
2023 World Series of Poker Hub
Bookmark this page! All you need to know about the 2023 WSOP is here.
Deeb Makes His Move
Deeb has 12 cashes and one bracelet so far in 2023 — a pace that matches a 2018 effort where he brought home two bracelets over 20 cashing finishes. Besides his win, Deeb has three other top-five finishes — two of them on the live felt in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event and the $1,500 Omaha Mixed event. Elsewhere on the internet, he nearly picked up another bracelet with a runner-up finish in the $1,000 Online Deepstack event.
The former collegiate runner and current high-stakes crusher finally broke through with his first bracelet in the $250,000 Super High Roller. The win has propelled him to the top five on the leaderboard, with plenty of opportunities to close the gap throughout the rest of the summer.
Besides the win, Brewer had a late run of bad luck to finish third in the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship.
Chris Brewer’s 2023 WSOP Cashes
Event
Place
Earnings
Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller
1st
$5,293,556
Event #35: $10,000 Secret Bounty
45th
$15,340
Event #23: $50,000 High Roller
12th
$102,479
Event #8: $25,000 Heads-Up Championship
3rd
$192,513
Event #6: $5,000 NLH/PLO
64th
$8,750
Event #2: $25,000 High Roller
21st
$50,000
Others Chasing Deeb
Rodrigues found his way into the mix with a win in the first-ever $1,500 Badugi event and he has bolstered his resume with final table finishes in both the $1,500 and $10,000 versions of the Limit 2-7 Triple Draw. He’s joined by Kornuth with three top-five finishes in high roller events in 2023, including the runner-up spot in the $25,000 event that kicked off the summer.
The rest of the top 10 players feature Josh Arieh, Michael Moncek, John Monnette, and Jeremy Ausmus. Ausmus is a new addition to the list after his victory in the $3,200 High Roller on WSOP.com. The other three found their way into the top ten with wins of their own, but they’ve fallen back a few slots as players like Brewer, Kornuth, and Rodrigues have moved into contention.
Meanwhile, Brian Rast is picking up ground outside the top ten with a win in the Poker Player’s Championship and a run to seventh in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo event.
Live Reporting Executive
Las Vegas-based PokerNews Live Reporting Executive, originally from Chicago, IL
The final day of Event #58: $3,000 Limit Hold’em (6-handed) has concluded at the 2023 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Jason Daly has emerged victorious after a dominant final table performance to take home $165,250 and his first gold bracelet.
The event attracted 263 total entrants, up from last year’s attendance of 213, to generate a total prize pool of $702,210. Only 17 of those initial entrants found a bag for Day 3 to battle it out for the top prize.
Final Table Results
Place
Player
Country
Prize
1st
Jason Daly
United States
$165,250
2nd
Brent Mutter
United States
$102,132
3rd
Nick Pupillo
United States
$72,681
4th
Freddy Sageer
United States
$52,056
5th
Daniel Young
United States
$37,526
6th
Mavrick Yoo
United States
$27,228
Winner’s Reaction
“It means a lot,” Daly said when asked what this win meant to him. “On the grind, I moved out to Vegas when I was 21 and that didn’t work out. I’m 41 now so I’ve come full circle. It’s the first limit hold’em tournament I’ve ever played so it’s pretty cool. It’s a bucket list item and I’m just kind of speechless right now.”
Daly, who started playing poker online in college during the Moneymaker era, mentioned that he’s never experienced a final table run quite as dominant as his was today.
“This is my third World Series final table. I had a huge chip lead like this last year and blew it so I was focused and I was doing everything I could not to screw this one up”.
Daly, who has several WSOP cashes across different mixed games such as Triple Draw and H.O.R.S.E., credited his success to his ability to adapt to other opponents’ strategies and use them to his advantage.
“I think with the mixed games I learn quickly and I kind of use people’s strategies against them. Coming from Texas you don’t get to play a lot of mix so when I’m out here it’s the only time I get to play them. I just kind of watch good players, see what they’re doing, try to emulate it and use it against them a little bit. But I’ve fared pretty well in mixed games”.
2023 World Series of Poker Hub
Bookmark this page! All you need to know about the 2023 WSOP is here.
Final Day Recap
The final day started with 17 players and that number was quickly reduced to the unofficial final table of seven. Early exits to start the day included Joe McKeehen, Daniel Idema, Matt Szymaszek, Dan Shak, Alex Torry, Daniel Maczuga, Michael Senter, Robert Como, Tom Koral and David Bach.
Jeffrey Lo was next to be eliminated when he got his last chips in preflop with a short-stack holding Ace Five and failed to catch up to Mavrick Yoo‘s Ace King. Lo’s elimination marked the start of the official final table.
Six-handed play lasted for about 30 minutes before Yoo became the first official final table casualty. He was left short-stacked after folding a big pot to Freddy Sageer and got the last of his chips in against Daniel Young, who turned a pair of Jacks against Yoo’s flopped pair eights to knock him out of the tournament.
Five-handed play went on for nearly two hours and it was during this time that Daly started to separate himself from the rest of the pack, particularly after winning a colossal pot against Nick Pupillo with the nut-flush versus Pupillo’s king-high flush.
Eventually Daniel Young, who started the final table with a slight chip lead over Daly, found himself short-stacked during five-handed play after losing a few pivotal hands against Sageer and Daly. He bowed out in fifth after getting the last of his chips in against Sageer, who had flopped a pair of queens to secure the knockout.
Four-handed play saw Daly extend his lead over the rest of the field significantly, holding more than eighty percent of the chips in play for nearly the entire time. Freddy Sageer was the next to fall to Daly from this point, getting the last of his chips in against Daly preflop and failing to catch up when Daly flopped a pair of tens.
Three-handed play was a brief affair, with Daly beginning with just under ten million chips while his two opponents had less than one million each. Nick Pupillo got his final few chips in good against Daly preflop, holding a queen versus Daly’s low unsuited connectors. Daly would spike a pair of fives on the turn to pull ahead and eliminate Pupillo in third, setting up heads-up play.
Brent Mutter had done an excellent job throughout the day picking his spots and laddering up. His time in the tournament finally ran out when he flopped a set of twos against Daly’s combo draw. Daly would end up rivering a straight flush to end Mutter’s tournament run and take home his first gold bracelet in spectacular fashion.
This concludes the PokerNews coverage for this event, but there is still plenty more action to come at the 2023 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, so be sure to stay tuned for all the live updates from each and every bracelet event.
1Peter Thai Wins First Bracelet of the 2023 WSOP: Event #1: $500 Casino Employees ($75,535)
2Alexandre Vuilleumier Captures 2023 WSOP Event #2: $25K High Roller Title
3Cody “1eggadaymike” Bell Wins WSOP Bracelet and $87,665 in the Triple Treys Summer Tip Off