Las Vegas, the mecca of poker has been an ever-buzzing place on earth and with the World Series of Poker on-going at Rio, the excitement has surged to an unprecedented level. When it comes to tournament poker, there is no match to the WSOP which now has entered its 2nd half the yearly series with over 35 gold bracelets finding its champions.
Brian Hastings became the first player to win 2 bracelets this year and sits in the 3rd place on 2015 GPI WSOP Player Of The Year leaderboard. Phil Galfond is in the 2nd place of this dynamic point table led by Paul Volpe who has made 
2 runner-up finishes but yet to clinch his 1st bracelet this year.
Indian contingent which include the best pros from the country as in Aditya Agarwal, Aditya Sushant, Amit Jain, Muskan Sethi, Kunal Patni, Apoorva Goel, Akash Malik, Sahil Agarwal, Jasven Saigal have been vying for the maiden WSOP bracelet for the country and were able to make deep runs in a few events. Apoorva Goel and Akash Malik were in the contest of the Event #38: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em where in the former couldn’t make it to the money while the later finished in 79th place bagging $6,722. Many Indian players joined the Event #42: $1,500 Extended Play No-Limit Hold’em out of which Apoorva Goel and Sahil Agarwal survived the Day 1 battle but couldn’t secure their places in the money.
Meanwhile, the players of Indian origin as in Kunal Patel, Nipun Java and Mukul Pahuja put a decent show in the events. Another Indian origin player Shashank Jain enjoyed a dream run in the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza III, Event 37 – $1,100 NLH placing 6th for an impressive cash prize of $43,567. Nipun who has cashed $4,517 in the Event #16: MILLIONAIRE MAKER $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em progressed at his WSOP campaign making 67th place finish in the Event #38: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em for $7,559. Mukul Pahuja also bagged his 2nd WSOP cash this year by finishing 120th in the Event #42: $1,500 Extended Play No-Limit Hold’em.
Events Roundup
Event #41: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship
Daniel Negreanu earned his best cash in 2015 WSOP finishing 3rd in this event for $113,062 while the Italian pro Max Pescatori took down the bracelet with the top prize of $292,158. The lucky on the 7th street won him the 3rd WSOP bracelet of his career against Stephen Chidwick who was leading with a pair of Kings. Max now has 3 WSOP bracelets with $1,882,734 in WSOP earnings. The American pro Phil Galfond placed 16th in this event bagging $18,426.
Event #40: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship
The living legend of poker world, Doyle Brunson made his first appearance in 2015 WSOP in this event. He tweeted:
Gonna stumble into the Rio for a late sign up in the super seniors event. Hope I know some of the old timers there.#gulp
— Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) June 21, 2015
The event is now down to the Final table with Travis Baker (4,935,000) in the chip lead closely followed by Stephen Nussrallah (4,060,000). The event drew 4,193 runners at Rio out of which 414 have already cashed a minimum of $1,886.
Event #39: $1,500 Ten-Game Mix
Brian Hastings won his 2nd WSOP bracelet this year and third overall in the 10 game mix event. Brian outplayed a field of 380 players to win the top prize of $133,403. Alexey Makarov (Russia), Tim Reusch (Germany) and Mike Watson (Canada) were the non-American players on the final table and place 4th, 5th and 6th respectively.
Event #38: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em
The Brazilian player, Thiago Nishijima took down the bracelet with $546,843 in top prize beating Sotirios Koutoupas of Greece. 2-times Asia Player of the Year Sam Razavi finished 4th in this event taking home $153,682. In the final hand Nishijima’s held up against Koutoupas’s when the dealer drew out on flop and on turn and on the river. Akash Malik brought the first cash for Team India in this event finishing 79th for $6,722. The Indian origin player, Nipun Java also cashed $7,559 finishing 67th.
Event #37: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed Championship
Many pros of the industry including Phil Galfond, Jonathan Duhamel and Faraz Jaka took a shot at this event, but it was Byron Kaverman clinching the bracelet in the end. Byron won his first WSOP bracelet taking home $657,351 in cash prize after cashing in 2 events this year prior to this. Byron’s dominated Doug Polk who went all-in in the last hand with and board ran . The Las Vegas local, Polk finished in the runner-up place taking home $406,261.
Event #36: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
Corrie Wunstel won his maiden WSOP gold bracelet in this event taking home $267,435 in cash prize. Jonathan Little who started off his 2015 WSOP campaign with the 6th place finish in the Event #25: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed placed 25th in this event bagging $8,063. Kevin Saul was deprived of his first WSOP bracelet as he finished 2nd collecting $165,147 which is his 19th WSOP cash.