The 2018 WSOP is in full swing at Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and we are all up for more than a month of poker action from the gambling mecca. The first two tournaments on the festival’s 2018 schedule are now complete at the host casino with Aria Casino poker dealer Jordan Hufty winning the Casino Employees event and Elio Fox claiming the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty title.
Day 1 of Event #3: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em SHOOTOUT kicked off Thursday at the poker tables at Rio. It drew 363 entries who generated a prize pool of $980,100. By the end of the day, there were just 50 players left in contention and they were headlined by none other but record-breaking gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth.
Hellmuth is vying for his 15th gold piece from the WSOP. The player captured his first bracelet back in 1989 when he took down the $10,000 World Championship. And it was in the summer of 2015 when he last won one of the most coveted non-monetary prizes in poker. In 2015, Hellmuth took down the $10,000 Seven-Card Razz.
Now the player has the chance to win a particularly thrilling No-Limit Hold’em format. However, that would not be an easy task as there are many tough players, including another former WSOP Main Event champ, still in the hunt for the first-place prize and the gold bracelet.
Hellmuth had a tricky table draw during Day 1 of the tournament, but eliminating Brandon Cantu and Tony Dunst, he secured his seat into Day 2.
Other Notables in Contention
While Hellmuth might be the most accomplished player in terms of WSOP titles scooped among the remaining players, there are a number of prominent poker pros still up to battle for the $3,000 SHOOTOUT title.
Joe McKeehen, the winner of the 2015 WSOP Main Event, is looking to capture another piece from the series and is set to return for Day 2 of the SHOOTOUT tournament. Poker notables Eli Elezra, Adam Owen, and Chris Moorman were, too, among the players to make it through the end of Day 1.
Notables who did not survive included eleven-time WSOP Circuit gold ring winner Maurice Hawkins, Niall Farrell, Rainer Kempe, Kristen Bicknell, and the winner of the event’s 2017 edition Upeshka De Silva.
Day 2 action is set to resume today at noon local time at the host casino. The 50 survivors will be seated at ten tables of five players each. They will be playing down to a final ten-handed table. The event’s champion will take home a first-place prize of $226,218 and a shiny new gold bracelet. Each of the 50 remaining hopefuls is guaranteed a minimum payout of $6,302.
Arne Ruge, Jiacong Zhang, and Ivan Galinec are leading the 50 finalists with a stack of 118,100 each. Hellmuth bagged and tagged a total of 113,800 last night to claim the 12th spot in the chip counts chart.
