James Kennedy Leads the Way After Day 1a in Event #47: $1,000 Seniors Championship
It was a busy day in Event $47: $1,000 Seniors Championship at the 2022 WSOP at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas. A massive field of 5,121 players have entered in total already with 3,206 of them who have entered Day 1a’s starting flight, generating a prize pool of $4,516,750. These numbers nearly match the combined totals from last year’s event, which saw 5,404 entries and a prize pool of $4,809,560. With another starting flight still to come, this year’s event will no doubt smash last year’s totals.
Those fortunate enough to bag chips at the conclusion of play will return for Day 2 on Friday, June 24th at 10 a.m. local time, at which point they will play another 11 one-hour levels, as the seniors try to build their stacks in pursuit of the gold WSOP bracelet, which will be given out at the conclusion of Day 5, on Monday, June 27th.
Event #47: $1,000 Seniors Championship Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Kennedy | United States | 452,000 | 181 |
| 2 | Seongsu Kong | South Korea | 365,000 | 146 |
| 3 | Allyn Shulman | United States | 361,500 | 145 |
| 4 | Orlando Barrera | United States | 358,500 | 143 |
| 5 | Michel Bouskila | Australia | 353,500 | 141 |
| 6 | Kevin Song | United States | 350,000 | 140 |
| 7 | Terence Anton | Canada | 343,500 | 137 |
| 8 | Louis Russo | United States | 339,000 | 136 |
| 9 | Dennis Spretz | United States | 333,000 | 133 |
| 10 | Daniel Gerard | United States | 310,000 | 124 |
Many notable names entered today’s field. Women in Poker Hall of Famer Allyn Shulman bagged one of the biggest stacks of the night (350,000), thanks in part to a double knockout on the last hand of the night. Fellow Women in Poker Hall of Famer Kathy Liebert (225,000) also had quite a large stack at the end of the day, as did Kevin Song (350,000).
American James Kennedy finished the night as the big stack, with 452,000. Kennedy will use this stack in pursuit of his first WSOP bracelet, although he has cashed in many WSOP events. Earlier in this series, he finished 739th in the $600 Deepstack, for a cash of $960. He placed 78th and 59th in 2021’s Super Senior and Senior events, for cashes of $3,233 and $9,626 respectively.
The 2004 Main Event Champion Greg Raymer failed to bag at the end of the night, but told PokerNews that he intends to come back tomorrow. Raymer saw the early parts of an epic comeback before his elimination, as he was at one point down to a single 100 chip, before running his stack up to nearly 30,000. Other notables who failed to bag included Perry Friedman, Humberto Brenes, Todd Witteles, Bruno Lopes, and Antonin Teisseire.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for full live coverage of this and all other events at the 2022 World Series of Poker at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.