Longest Day of WSOP Action This Year Sees 10 Survivors Reach Main Event Final Table

A truly epic day of drama took place in the World Series of Poker Main Event as for the first time in history, ten players will arrive to play at the final table in Las Vegas, Nevada on Friday. With 35 players starting play on Day 7 after a dramatic previous day at the felt, 25 players lost their tournament lives as players produced incredible plays, and the tension, excitement and drama ramped up the max across 17 hours of sensational poker.

The Early Levels of Play

Play began in a fairly nondescript fashion as players returned to the felt determined to battle down to what they believed would be the final nine players. The shortest stack at the table belonged to Marco Johnson and he busted in 35^th place before others such as Adam Demersseman (30^th) and the 2020 WSOP ‘Hybrid’ Main Event winner Damian Salas followed him.

Salas, who hails from Argentina, was dominated and defeated as he slid out of contention in this year’s event after success over the last five years in Main Events that rival anybody’s level of achievement. Busting in 27^th place, Salas was all class as he made his bow.

Two dozen quickly remained, but among them, only one female player stood between 19 men and glory. Greek-born U.S. player Efthymia Litsou outlasted one more opponent before she departed in 18^th place for $323,100. After a brilliant run, her ace-ten what shot down by Espen Jorstad’s pocket kings. Afterwards, PokerGO’s Remko Rinkema caught up with the plucky and skilful Litsou.

The Tag Team bracelet winner from earlier in the series Jorstad was suddenly chip leader and stayed top of the shop for plenty of the final table. Coming into Day 7, he was incredibly positive about his chances.

The Fold of the Century

Popular poker pro Kenny Tran lost his place in 17^th as the field narrowed and the hours stretched out in front of players like a shadow into the midday sun. The small hours were just a distant memory as, over 15 hours into play, David Diaz made one of the greatest folds ever seen in the World Series of Poker as he laid down a full house of queens over deuces on the river to a better full house of kings over queens. Staggering play.

Diaz was unlucky to bust a few places later in 13^th, before Vadim Rozin exited in 12^th with ace-ten starting and ending the final hand of his behind his fellow Canadian Aaron Duczak’s ace-king, with a queen-high board signalling doom for the short-stacked Rozin.

When Robert Welch busted in 11^th place with king-five against ace-king for Jorstad, the Norwegian grabbed a share of the chip lead and upon Jack Effel’s command, the 10 players were told that they had made the final table. The official one may be nine-handed, but for these players, they won’t care a jot. In two days’ time the final ten will meet at the felt.

Joint Chip Leaders Lead the Way

“With a new world champion guaranteed, the $10 million top prize will be awarded in just a few days’ time.”

Heading into the final day – after 24 hours break of course – there will be two chip leaders rather than one. Matthew Su (pictured above) and Espen Jorstad both have 83.2 million chips, with Croatian Matija Dobric on 68.65 million in third place. With the big blind at 1 million when play was suspended for the night, no-one has anywhere near 100 big blinds, so the table will be full of ICM challenges, not least for middle-ranking players such as Aaran Duczak (56 million), John Eames (54.95m),Adrian Attenborough (50.8m) and Michael Duek (49.77m).

Shorter stacks Jeffrey Farnes (35.35m), Asher Coniff (29.4m) and Philippe Souki (13.5m) will all need to get off to a good start in order to put themselves back in contention. After players return to the unique 10-handed final table on Friday, they’ll play down to three (or four) players before the final day will produce a new world champion. With a new world champion guaranteed, the $10 million top prize will be awarded in just a few days’ time, with players just as excited as fans. As the announcement was made that this year’s final table would be 10-handed and play was over at 6.45 am Vegas time, players jumped into the air, hugged and ran to celebrate with their rails.

There promises to be an amazing atmosphere in the air when the WSOP final table takes place on Sunday night. We can’t wait to find out who wins the WSOP Main Event!

Photographs courtesy of PokerGO, home of the 2022 World Series of Poker, with final table live streams throughout July.