Can Friedman Find His Fifth Bracelet in $10,000 Stud Championship?
With almost double the amount of chips (2,385,000) as his closest opponent and over 40 percent of the total chips in play, a fifth World Series of Poker bracelet is well within the grasp of mixed game superstar Adam Friedman on Sunday in Event #22: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship.
To close it out though, he’ll still have to defeat a star-STUDded final table full of mixed game wizards, including 2016 WSOP $10,000 Dealer’s Choice champion Jean “Prince” Gaspard, who comes in with that second-place stack of 1,231,000 chips, and Yuval Bronshtein, who has several deep Stud 8 or Better runs at the WSOP, but his best previous finish in this event was back in 2010 when he placed 15th.
While he may be at the bottom of the leaderboard with just four big bets to start the day, Phil Ivey and his 174,000 chip stack can’t be overlooked. The second of Ivey’s ten WSOP bracelets came in the 2002 $1,500 Seven Card Stud event back in the Binion’s Horseshoe days.
Also of note in the field is maybe a lesser-known name in James Paluszek, who finished 25th in this year’s $1,500 Stud event and has a 6th place finish in the $10,000 Stud championship to his name from 2008.
$10,000 Seven Card Stud Final Table Seat Draw
| SEAT | PLAYER | COUNTRY | CHIP COUNT | BIG BETS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adam Friedman | United States | 2,385,000 | 59 |
| 2 | James Paluszek | United States | 235,000 | 5 |
| 3 | Ben Diebold | United States | 375,000 | 9 |
| 4 | Jean Gaspard | United States | 1,231,000 | 30 |
| 5 | Yuval Bronshtein | Israel | 837,000 | 20 |
| 6 | Phil Ivey | United States | 174,000 | 4 |
| 7 | Marco Johnson | United States | 236,000 | 5 |
| 8 | Yueqi Zhu | United States | 231,000 | 5 |
The eight hopefuls will return to the Bally’s Event Center at 2 p.m. local time with visions of the gold bracelet and the $248,254 first prize dancing through their heads. Play resumes with 90-minute levels starting at Level 18 with limits of 20,000 and 40,000.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand until a champion is crowned, so keep it right here for all the action from this and every event at the 53rd World Series of Poker from its new home at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.