Ben Mintz has become one of Barstool's most reliable poker diarists every summer the WSOP rolls around, live-tweeting the grind from inside the Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe ballroom. This year's Main Event kicked off July 2, and by the time Day 2 got underway, Mintz was locked in and looking to build.
Mintz kicked off Day 2 with his usual optimism before the cards turned.
He even had time for a bit of between-hands commentary, noting the table behind him featured a notoriously loud talker, which he took as some kind of cosmic payback for his own years of being the loudest guy in the room. Lighthearted stuff, the kind of color that makes his run worth following beyond just the chip counts. It didn't last.
BarstoolNate broke the news that Mintz was done for the summer.
Eric Nathan confirmed the elimination, joking that Mintz's tournament bag would be waiting for him at security whenever he was ready to collect it. Mintz filled in the gruesome details soon after: he got his stack in with JJ against QQ, watched a 9-high flop miss him completely, and lost a pot worth a reported $100,000. That's the kind of cooler that ends a run regardless of how well you played to get there -- pocket jacks running into pocket queens is close to a coin flip's worst-case outcome, and there's no strategic fix for it.
I feel like those sports team social media not wanting to tweet the score after a bad loss. Busted Main JJ < QQ on 9 high flop in 100k pot. Better luck next year.
The Main Event field this year has been enormous, and Day 2 alone sent over 1,000 players home, leaving a stacked leaderboard chasing reigning champion Michael Mizrachi as the tournament moves into Day 3 on July 8. Mintz's exit puts him in familiar company -- names like Gus Hansen, Doug Polk and Matt Berkey also didn't survive the same stretch of the bracket this year. It's a reminder of just how unforgiving the Main Event field has gotten as the buy-in pool keeps swelling.
This isn't new territory for Mintz, either. He's had his share of gutting exits at WSOP events before, the kind of cooler that pros call variance and everyone else calls heartbreak. What's stayed consistent is that he keeps showing up and keeps live-tweeting the pain in real time, which is exactly why Barstool fans followed along again this year.
Thanks man. It’s my favorite thing. Nothing fires me up more than getting chips in the Main and seeing all the support on Twitter. I will be back next year. Hoping to play $30k worth of buyins. Maybe more depending on how BTC is doing. I’m getting better every day. #WSOP2027 🚀
Mintz wrapped it up with a wink, thanking the pile-on for the support and already talking about running it back in 2027 -- with a bigger buy-in budget depending on how his Bitcoin bag is doing. That's the Mintzy formula: get busted, vent for a night, and start counting down to the next Main Event almost immediately.