John Hennigan Bags Day 1 Chip Lead of $10,000 Dealer’s Choice Championship
In a fast-paced day featuring a brand new Day 1 structure for 2023 World Series of Poker Championship Events, it was a WSOP veteran that took home the chip lead in Event #10: $10,000 Dealer's Choice Championship at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
Six-time WSOP bracelet winner John Hennigan led the field of 114 entries, bagging 309,500 chips, just slightly more than Marco Johnson’s runner-up tally of 297,500, and David Bach’s 273,000.
End of Day Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Hennigan | United States | 309,500 |
| 2 | Marco Johnson | United States | 297,500 |
| 3 | David Bach | United States | 273,000 |
| 4 | Anatolii Zyrin | Russia | 255,000 |
| 5 | Larry Tull | United States | 208,500 |
| 6 | Ray Henson | United States | 203,000 |
| 7 | Patrick Leonard | United Kingdom | 202,500 |
| 8 | Zack Freeman | United States | 202,000 |
| 9 | Brian Rast | United States | 190,000 |
| 10 | David "Bakes" Baker | United States | 190,000 |
Defending champion Ben Diebold entered with about two hours left in play but only managed to bag 42,500. Other notables to make it on to Day 2 include 2017 champion John Racener (111,000), 2022 runner-up Mike Gorodinsky (158,500), and recent $1,500 Dealer’s Choice champion Chad Eveslage (103,500) and runner-up Andrew Kelsall (142,500).
A trio of Poker Hall of Famers will have some work to do Sunday, as Daniel Negreanu (49,500), Erik Seidel (33,000), and Phil Hellmuth (9,000) all finished below a starting stack.
As mentioned, this event provides the first look at the new accelerated Day 1 structure in Championship events, with the first six levels only being 40 minutes in length and levels seven through ten 60 minutes long. Levels on Days 2 and 3 will be 90 minutes in length.
The new structure led to play being completed by 10:50 p.m. local time. It also led to plenty of eliminations, including three-time champion in this event Adam Friedman, defending WSOP Player of the Year Dan Zack, 2016 Champion Jean Gaspard, and 2021 $1,500 Dealer’s Choice Champion Jaswinder Lally to name a few.
The returning 58 players will come back June 4 at 1 p.m. local time to play seven 90-minute levels. They’ll be joined by the final batch of late entries, as registration does not close until the start of Day 2, which will add to the $1,060,200 prize pool thus far.
Stay close to PokerNews for continuing coverage of this and every WSOP bracelet event from here at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.