WSOP 2025 Day 42 Recap: Reigning Champion Tamayo Survives Day 2, Liv Boeree and Doug Polk Both Stay Alive

A packed day at the felt in the WSOP Main Event saw 9,735 entries reached as the class of 2025 fell just short of the record-setting five-figure fields in 2023 and 2024. With a huge Day 2d producing 2,133 survivors, adding that number to the 1,320 who made it through Day 2abc means there are 3,453 players heading to Day 3 hoping to make the money then build a stack to take on towards the final table of the World Championship.

Main Event Welcomes Third Highest Crowd in Poker History

With a prizepool of $90,535,500, the third largest to date, 1,461 players will make the money, with a min-cash of $15,000 on offer. The final table of nine players will all become millionaires, with ninth place worth $1,000,000, while the top prize is the same $10 million that Jonathan Tamayo won in 2024.

On a fast and frantic day on Day 2d, San Kim finished top of the chip counts, with 799,000 chips. He will be behind the Day 2abc chip leader, Ukrainian player Oleksii Kravchuk (937,500) when play begins on Day 3. On Day 2d, plenty of others bagged big stacks, with Fernando Rodriguez (749,000), French professional Romain Locquet (673,500), with the start of play chip leader Riva Arthur close behind on 607,000 chips.

Lots of big names made the upper limits of the chip counts, with six-time WSOP bracelet winner Josh Arieh (448,500) ending play with a great chance of running deep. The reigning champion Jonathan Tamayo was the only former Main Event winner to make the cut, ending Day 2d with 158,500 chips. Every other former World Champion fell short of the money, with Joe McKeehen, Hossein Ensan, Huck Seed, Stoyan Madanzhiev and Ryan Riess all eliminated.

Others to survive included Giuseppe Pantaleo (580,500), Will Kassouf (430,000), Pat Lyons (467,500), David Jackson (444,000), Joe Cheong (426,500) Matt Affleck (401,000), Brad Owen (397,000), and Isaac Baron (386,500) all finishing inside the top 100 players. Other stars of the felt survived after late double-ups, with Doug Polk seeing his kings hold to bag up 85,000, while British player Liv Boeree’s pocket jacks held up to put her through to Day 3 with 103,000.

Meanwhile, in losing the final hand, American player Gary Margolis had possibly the most painful ending to Day 2d. Losing with queen-jack against French player Adrien Zychowski’s pocket kings on a board of T-T-K-9-9, Margolis walked away from the table believing he was out. Instead, almost all of his stack of 106,500 chips went to Zchowski, who had 106,000 to his name. Margolis will return to Day 3 hoping to emulate Jack Straus and his famous ‘chip and a chair’ victory from 1982.

WSOP Event #81 $10,000 WSOP Main Event World Championship Day 2d

Bassett Builds a Lead in Ultra Stack

With the WSOP Main Event taking up much of the space inside the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris casinos on Monday, only one other event was in progress as Day 1b of the $600-entry Ultra Stack Event #85 took place. A total of 4,339 Day 1b entries means that the total field is 7,057, with just 382 Day 1b starters bagging up at the end of the night to join 213 survivors from Day 1a in tomorrow’s Day 2.

Of that number, British players Tom Hall (1.98m) and Ian Simpson (945,000) both had strong showings, but the overnight chip leader from Day 1b is Justin Bassett. The American totalled an incredible 2.78 million chips by the close of play and is some way clear of nearest challenger Roei Simantov (2.34m) from Israel. With players already in the money, expect a frantic Day 2 tomorrow as those 595 who will start battle to reach the latter stages of an event that will award a huge top prize.

WSOP Event #85 $600 Ultra Stack NLHE Day 1b Chip Counts

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