Day 2d of World Series of Poker Main Event Sees Second-Highest Attendance in Poker History

The final Day 2 of this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event saw the overall attendance in the biggest poker tournament swell to near-record levels, with players battling towards a Day 3 scenario where the money bubble will likely burst. Who excelled and who will need a lot of help to survive? The WSOP Main Event Day 2d numbers are in.

Attendance Record Nearly Broken

“This year’s Main Event crowd was 8,663 players, 110 short of the record.”

With the world and his poker-playing wife predicting that the record attendance of the WSOP Main Event would be broken this year, everyone expected the numbers to travel past the 9,000-entry mark. Such is the popularity of poker at present, that events such as America’s Cardroom’s $1 million guaranteed anniversary tournament will be crying out to players in America right now.

As it happened, the 2006 record of 8,773 still stands strong as this year’s Main Event crowd was locked in at 8,663 players – 110 short of the record – when registration ended two hours into Day 2d. At that point, the $10,000 buy-in only bought a player under 70 big blinds, and pretty soon after registration ended, the bust-outs began to flow.

Al that means that with a prize pool of over $80 million now up for grabs, the top prize was confirmed at an incredible, life-changing $10 million. Only 1301 players will make the money however and it could be a close-run race to see whether the bubble bursts on Day 3 or Day 4, with both those days taking place on Saturday and Sunday this weekend.

Bryn Kenney Has a Top 10 Stack, David Peters Close

Day 2d may have seen a great attendance, especially when compared to the late registrations that took place on Day 2abc, but the important business was who would end up with the most chips on the day. That turned out to be Muhammad Abdel-Rahim who closed play with 936,500 chips, some distance ahead of his nearest challengers Marsel Backa and Ryan Torgersen, both of whom ended the day with 738,000.

Behind them, Bryn Kenney took a big stack through to the next day, with the Long Islander totalling 665,000 chips by the close of play, with another very famous face in David Peters qualifying for the next day with 552,500 chips, as he came into the metaphorical clubhouse 11^th in chips in the biggest poker tournament of them all.

Having already won a bracelet this summer that was worth $1.1 million along with the top prize, Peters is in a very strong position to win the $10 million that is on offer for the winner of the 2022 Main Event.

Last Year’s Winner Still Fighting

In a cool twist to the action, Koray Aldemir, who won the Main Event in 2021 still has the chance to do what no player has ever done and win two Main Events in 10 months. It may sound like he squeaked through to the next day with 255,000 chips, but that is still well over 100 big blinds and he is joined by some stellar company in the field.

Two 2022 bracelet winners survived in the form of Massoud Eskandari (475,000), and Chino Rheem (366,000), while bosses such as John Juanda (374,500), Adrian Mateos (339,500), and the 2003 Main Event world champion who changed the world, Chris Moneymaker, emerged from the day with 297,500.

Plenty of big names busted on a busy day at the felt, with former WSOP Main Event champions Joe Hachem and Johnny Chan both departing the action, along with three-time WSOP bracelet winner Doug Polk, the 2019 WSOP Player of the Year Robert Campbell, back-to-back Poker Players Championship winner Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, four-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus, WSOP bracelet winner and former finalist Alex Livingston, David Tuchman, Dietrich Fast and Vanessa Kade among others.

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