The 2024 World Series of Poker taking place at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas awarded another five bracelets. Asian players were not among the winners however Taiwan’s Kai Hung Hu and Hisashi Yamanouchi secured final table finishes. Here are the stories.
2024 WSOP Latest Winners
Georgios Skarparis Is Last Player Standing; Taiwan’s Kai Hung Hu Finishes 6th
The 2024 WSOP Event #78: $1,000 MINI Freezeout Main Event is one of the tournaments that brings about the bigger playing fields given the affordability of the buy-in. With only one bullet allowed, 6,076 players entered for a prize pool of $5,346,880 with the top 912 survivors earning a cut.
The event played for three days and saw the likes of India’s Paawan Bansal make some waves as he became the top chip leader after Day 1. Including this event, Bansal was now on his 5th series cash finishing in 46th place for 12,587. Other deep runners were China’s Senhao Cao in 32nd place for 18,587, and Japan’s Kentaro Aramaki who made it all the way to a 19th place for $22,859.
Navigating his way into the final table was Taiwan’s Kai Hung Hu who went on to exit in 7th place for a career high payout of $93,171. This was Hu’s fourth cash this series. Cyprian Georgios Skarparis was undefeated to claim his first WSOP gold bracelet and the substantial $554,925 payout.
Other Asian players making decent runs were Haruki Arita (52nd), Chuanshu Chen (58th), and Norihide Tanaka (63rd).
Matthew Lambrecht Wins $10K Mystery Bounty; Felipe Ketzer Draws Largest Bounty
A total of 965 entries were seen at the 2024 WSOP EVENT $76 $10,000 Mystery Bounty No-Limit Hold’em (8-Handed) to create a prize pool of $8,974,500. After three days of play, USA’s Matthew Lambrecht won it for his first WSOP bracelet and a massive payout of $1,018,933.
Also performing well was Simas Karaliunas, in 4th place. Karaliunas won his first bracelet earlier this series at the WSOP Online Event #11: No-Limit Hold’em Mystery Bounty. One of the luckiest players was Felipe Ketzer who drew the largest bounty worth $250,000. Just as lucky was Chris Puetz who drew the second largest bounty of $100,000.
Notable players of the Asia Pacific region in the top 100 were William Jia (9th), Ky Nguyen (13th), double bracelet winner Santhosh Suvarna (39th), Zhi Xu (61st), Thomas Hulley (62nd), Sandhy Sitepu (74th), Joshua Duce (78th), Alex Lynskey (79th), Toru Wakamatsu (85th), and Jufranri Lim (87th).
Jimmy Setna & Jason James Top Tag Team Event
It’s simple No-Limit Hold’em, and although there are 2 players to a team, it still follows poker’s golden rule of one person to a hand. A player can tag in anytime he/she is not in an active hand, and the only condition is that prior to the end of registration, each teammate must play one round of blinds to not be disqualified.
It was entertaining to see teams with matching outfits like funky shirts & funny hats. The varied teams – good friends, siblings, spouses, lovers, parent & child, poker buddies – made for a memorable fun time playing poker with the hopes of cashing in and winning a WSOP bracelet.
1,437 teams entered to generate a $1,264,569 prize pool. with 216 teams earning a cut of the pot. Among the Asian teams, China’s Min Ji and Xu Hang finished 12th. For Australia, Malcolm Trayner and Sheraton Hall did better with a 7th place berth. Closing it out were Canadians Jimmy Setna and Jason James to collect $95,455 each and matching WSOP bracelets.
Arash Ghaneian Wins Career 2nd Bracelet At 10K Stud; Hisashi Yamanouchi Earns First WSOP Final Table
A total tally of 167 seven-card stud specialists coughed up the $10,000 buy in for a total prize pool of $1,553,100. Only 26 players took a piece with Arash Ghaneian claiming the top prize of $376,476 and his career second WSOP bracelet. Ghaneian outlasted Richard Sklar after a lengthy nine-hour heads up battle.
There were a lot of representation from the Asian Pacific region. Recent WSOP Bracelet winner Xixiang Luo had a good start to the event, and was among the top 10 chip leaders entering Day 2 eventually exiting in 19th place. One notch higher was bracelet winner Naoya Kihara in 18th place. Going deeper was Japan’s Hisashi Yamanouchi, finishing in 9th place for $30,706.
*Article by JJ Duque
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