Upeshka De Silva Leads 71 Players on Day 1 of WSOP Main Event - $1.55 Million for First

The 2020 WSOP Main Event took place online this weekend on WSOP.com as 705 players took part and created a prize pool of $6,768,000 that would ensure the top 107 players finish in-the-money.

The final two players would be crowned millionaires with $1,553,256 in prize money reserved for first place – the smallest first-place prize since Carlos Mortensen won $1.5 million in the 2001 WSOP Main Event. The 705-player field was also the smallest since 2002 when Robert Varkonyi topped the 631-player field to win the $2 million first-place prize.

A plethora of WSOP bracelet winners entered the 2020 WSOP Main Event but would fall short of reaching Day 2 and included Eric Baldwin, Taylor Paur, Nathan Gamble, Phil Galfond, Michael Gagliano, Cord Garcia, Brandon Adams, Bryan Piccioli, Chance Kornuth, Ben Yu, Andrew Lichtenberger, Chris Moorman, Ryan Leng, Ankush Mandavia, Shaun Deeb, Jeremy Ausmus, Mike Matusow, Calvin Anderson, Tony Dunst, Michael Mizrachi, Anthony Zinno, Daniel Negreanu, and Joe McKeehen.

With the top 107 players guaranteed a $14,890 payday, it would be Adrian Buckley being eliminated on the money bubble when he was all-in with pocket queens against an opponent’s ace-king. The board brought four sevens, and Buckley’s full house was counterfeited on the turn as his opponent’s ace-high would scoop the pot and send Buckley to the rail in 108th place.

The likes of Nick Palma, Ian Steinman, Dan Sindelar, Chris Johnson, Michael Lech, and Daniel Negreanu all finished in-the-money as just 71 players survived into Day 2.

Three-time WSOP bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva finished as the chip leader with 1,930,067 in chips ahead of “vforvictoria” and “Samthedog76”. Other notables to round out the top ten chip counts include Taylor Von Kriegenbergh (1,518,393) and Galen Hall (1,271,362), while Martin Zamani, Mohsin Charania, Jason Somerville, Darren Elias, Shankar Pillai, Nick Schulman, Jesse Yaginuma, Jim Collopy, Dan Zack, Ryan Laplante, Matthew Wantman, Maria Ho, Ryan Riess, Barry Hutter, Freddy Deeb, and Farid Jattin also survived into Day 2.

Action is set to resume on Monday, December 14, at 3 p.m. ET with the final 71 players being reduced to the final table. The final nine players will then travel to Las Vegas to play out the final table at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino on Monday, December 28. The eventual 2020 WSOP Main Event champion will not only walk away with the $1,553,256 first-place prize, but they will play the winner of the GGPoker WSOP Main Event on Wednesday, December 30, in a winner-take-all $1 million freeroll.

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