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Kartik Ved is sole Indian going into Day 6 of WSOP ME

Over the last 10-12 months, poker players around the world have been sharpening their skills in anticipation of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), an annual event that takes place in Las Vegas. It’s safe to say that the WSOP Main Event is the most prestigious poker tournament and thousands of enthusiasts and pros participate in it each year.

This year, the 2019 WSOP Main Event saw a participation of 8,569 entries, narrowly missing the record of the largest field in the Main Event, which was recorded back in 2006. We recently reached the end of Day 5 of this mega tournament and right now, only 106 players are still in contention to win $10,000,000 in hard cash and this shiny gold bracelet:

As for Team India, we had 3 pros returning to Day 5 today among the final 354 players, including Kartik Ved, Yudhishter Jaswal and Akshay Nasa. Nasa was the shortest stacked among the three and he hit the rail first, securing a prize of $38,240 (~INR 26.13 Lakh) for finishing 307th in the Main Event. This became Nasa’s second largest career cash, after his runner-up finish in the APPT National Event in Manila in 2018.

The next to go was Yudhishter Jaswal who made a slightly deeper run, eventually busting in 261st place for $43,935 (~INR 30 Lakh).  Jaswal himself is not new to making deep runs in the poker capital, earning $109,443 for shipping a Bounty Event at the DeepStack Championship Poker Series last year.

As for Kartik Ved, he needs no introduction. The player has kept getting better with time, from shipping major signature tournaments online to making impressive runs overseas. All of his major achievements have come in the last year or so, including 7 cashes in WSOP 2019 and a career-best $57,010 for finishing 128th in the WSOP 2018 Main Event last year.

This year, he has locked up a bigger prize and has already bettered his performance from 2018, progressing among the final 106 players with a stack of 5,085,000 chips. When Ved returns to the tables on Day 6 tomorrow, he is guaranteed a minimum cash prize of $59,295 (~INR 40.54 Lakh) for 106th place. However, he will have eyes on the trophy and prize money that will prove to be life changing.

The competition he faces tomorrow is as good as it can get in global poker. Canada’s Sam Greenwood is among the top stacks with a bracelet and $18+ million in live cashes on his poker CV. 3-time bracelet winner and somewhat a poker legend, Antonio Esfandiari also progresses with a major stack of 6.63 million chips, a player who has nearly $28 million in live tournament cashes.

4-time bracelet winner Jeff Madsen is still in the mix, while 2018 GPI Player of the Year Alex Foxen also progresses. 3-time winner Brian Yoon and USA’s Jill Bryant were eliminated during the last couple of levels of the day, the latter’s exit leaving us with an all-male field in the Main Event.

Timothy Su (pictured above) is the chip leader with 19,235,000 chips and a couple of eliminations towards the end helped him go ahead of everyone else in contention. As for Team India, it was Nishant Sharma who set the record for the best ever WSOP ME finish by an Indian, finishing 34th in WSOP 2018. Can Kartik Ved beat that? We will have to wait to find out…

Day 5 top 10 chip counts:

1. Timothy Su – 19,235,000
2. Sam Greenwood – 11,950,000
3. Duey Duong – 11,765,000
4. Warwick Mirzikinian – 11,430,000
5. Luke Graham – 11,280,000
6. Nicholas Marchington – 10,835,000
7. Milos Skrbic – 10,715,000
8. Romain Lewis – 10,600,000
9. Laurids Nielsen – 9,955,000
10. Ian Pelz – 9,635,000

We’re a couple of days away from crowning a new world champion of poker! Stay tuned to GutshotMagazine.com for timely updates on the 2019 WSOP Main Event…

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