Besim Hot Leads the Final Seven Players in Event #10: €25,500 Mixed Games Championship; Hellmuth and Negreanu in Contention
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After nearly another 10 levels of all variants of poker, only seven players remain in the quest for a World Series of Poker gold bracelet in Event #10: €25,500 Mixed Games Championship. The day mostly belonged to Besim Hot who dominated throughout to bag up an impressive chip lead with 15,795,000 chips.
The Swiss poker player has been missing in action over the past few years but has been making a big impact at the 2019 WSOP Europe thus far. Just a couple of days ago, Hot had a fifth-place finish in the €25,500 High Roller where he pocketed over €166,000. Now he has his second cash of the series but will be looking to better that performance and maybe lay claim to his first-ever bracelet.
Hot's first major clash of the day came against Benny Glaser (2,750,000) and the two continued to battle, trading the chip lead in the early going. However, Hot got the best of Glaser in a pot-limit omaha hand where Hot got a full double up. He then went on to eliminate Anatoly Filatov, Ivo Donev, and Anthony Zinno en route to the final table.
While Hot will hold over a third of the chips in play, it won't be an easy path to victory with plenty of experience among the other six players. Dzmitry Urbanovich is still a distant second after a last-hand knockout that vaulted him to 7,425,000 chips. Urbanovich will also be in search of his WSOP title. While the two leaders have zero bracelets to their name, there are 25 total bracelets among four others.
Most notably, two of poker's biggest names in Phil Hellmuth (5,495,000) and Daniel Negreanu (5,315,000) will be in the hunt and looking to add to their poker resume. Negreanu has already locked up his sixth cash in 10 events at the WSOP Europe in his hopes to claim another Player of the Year title while Hellmuth will be looking to win a record-breaking 16th bracelet.
Another name that some may find familiar is that of Alex Livingston (4,005,000) who's back at King's Resort in Rozvadov this year. The Canadian poker pro is coming off a third-place finish in the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas where he scored a career-best $4,000,000. Livingston appeared to take a break since his deep run but he's back looking for his first-ever WSOP title.
Final Table Seating Assignments
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | Poland | 7,425,000 |
| 2 | Julien Martini | France | 4,475,000 |
| 3 | Besim Hot | Switzerland | 15,795,000 |
| 4 | Phil Hellmuth | United States | 5,495,000 |
| 5 | Benny Glaser | United Kingdom | 2,750,000 |
| 6 | Alex Livingston | United States | 4,005,000 |
| 7 | Daniel Negreanu | United States | 5,315,000 |
The action got underway at 3 p.m. local time earlier today with just 21 players returning to their seats from Day 1. That number quickly grew in the first couple of levels with late registration still open. Phil Ivey entered for the third time while many mixed-game rookies took a seat with an overlay looming on the €1,000,000 guaranteed prizepool. Ryan Riess, Alex Foxen, and James Chen joined a few Russians in Marek Blasko, Maksim Pisarenko, and Filatov to compete against some of the greats.
A total of 45 entries were recorded for the event and it took a while after the registration period closed for the eliminations to occur. There were still 30 players remaining after the second break of the day but that number quickly dwindled as the short stacks bowed out. Shaun Deeb, Chris Ferguson, David "ODB" Baker, Robert Campbell, and Zinno all saw their POY hopes take a hit as they were eliminated before the money.
It was a dramatic ending to the day when both Johannes Becker and Roland Israelashvili were eliminated within seconds of each other with nine players remaining. Only seven places were paid and there was no hand-for-hand process required to get into the money. With just seven players remaining, the players and tournament staff decided to call it quits on the night with 21:43 remaining in level 18.
Final Table Payouts
| Place | Prize (in EUR) | Prize (in USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | € 385,911 | $428,361 |
| 2 | € 238,509 | $264,745 |
| 3 | € 162,463 | $180,334 |
| 4 | € 111,689 | $123,975 |
| 5 | € 77,502 | $86,027 |
| 6 | € 54,287 | $60,259 |
| 7 | € 38,389 | $42,612 |
The final table will restart at 3 p.m. local time tomorrow and each player has €38,380 locked up. However, they will each have their sights set on the first-place prize of €385,9111 and it is still anyone's game. They will finish out the 18th level and the remaining levels will be 60-minutes in length until a winner is crowned.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the tournament floor tomorrow to bring you all of the live updates throughout the final day. Stay tuned to find out who will be the first eliminated and who will be crowned a new world champion.