The WSOP Main Event has been must-watch stuff all week, and Eric Nathan has basically live-tweeted the entire bloodbath from the felt. Day after day the field kept shrinking from the hundreds down into the teens, and every elimination hit different because of who was still in the mix: a 2019 champ trying to run it back, a 9-time bracelet winner chasing his signature title, and a kid nobody outside the poker world had heard of a week ago.
That kid is Lucas Jumalon, and he turned into the story of the tournament. He kept finding himself in massive pots and kept coming out the other side with more chips than he started with, which is exactly the formula that gets you deep in a field this big.
Jumalon playing great, running great. That's how you win this tournament.
One hand in particular summed up the run. Jumalon found himself all in with nothing more than Q-high and got there anyway, the kind of call that either makes you look like a hero or gets you a long flight home. It landed, and the rail lost its mind.
HE CALLED WITH Q HIGH AND WAS RIGHT!!!!
The eliminations kept piling up around him. Michael Gagliano, the Rutgers guy known as Gags30, put together one of the nights of the tournament when he sent 2019 Main Event champion Hossein Ensan to the rail, a genuine 13th-place finish for Ensan after his two pair got run down. It was the kind of moment that shows up in every WSOP recap for a reason -- a former champ trying to become just the 2nd multi-time Main Event winner in years, gone.
Holy shit Gags! Knocks out the former champ! And then there were 12…
Not everyone who ran deep got to see the final table. Malcolm Trayner, the young Aussie pro fresh off winning the Aussie Millions Main Event, had built himself into a monster stack and looked like a lock for the last 9. Then it all went the other way in one hand, an all-in on the turn that flipped his tournament upside down and eventually bounced him right at the final-table bubble.
My heavens. All in on the turn. Traynor with ALL the chips now.
Shaun Deeb's rail was fired up too, and for good reason -- the guy has already won just about everything else in poker before turning 40, and a Main Event title would round out the resume in a way nobody else in the field could match. It didn't happen this time, but the run got people talking, which is basically the point of Barstool showing up to poker at all.
There was a hometown thread running through this too. Blake Barousse ended one day of the tournament sitting 2nd in chips with the field still over 60 players deep, giving the Lafayette crowd something to sweat every hand of.
They damn well better feel proud in Lafayette tonight. Blake ends Day 6 of @wsop Main 2nd in chips w/ 62 players left!
Now it's down to the final 9, and Jumalon walks in as the runaway favorite, sitting on roughly 35% of all the chips in play. The final table doesn't wrap up until ESPN airs it in early August, but if the kid keeps calling with Q-high and getting there, nobody left in the field should feel comfortable.