Sebastian Schulze Leads Main Event with Will Kassouf and Isaac Haxton Chasing
Day 5 of the $10,000-entry World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event saw 522 starting players whittled down to 202 survivors, as the German player Sebastian Schulze bagged up the biggest stack of the World Championship so far at 12.7 million chips. With debutants and professionals in the field with Schulze, Day 6 and onwards beckons for players such as Will Kassouf, Isaac Haxton and the 2012 world champion Greg Merson.
Schulze on Top in the Main
With five full days of action now in the can, the WSOP Main Event has gone from 9,735 total entrants in the $10,000-entry event to just 202 survivors. As Day 6 looms, it is the German professional Sebastian Schulze who sits atop the leaderboard behind a massive pile of 12.74 million chips.
Behind the chip leader, American players Chad Power (9.54m) and Braxton Dunaway (8.6m) will be hoping to follow in Jonathan Tamayo’s footsteps, winning $10 million for the ‘home team’, while Portuguese player Sergio Veloso (8.2m) and another U.S. player Richard Buckingham (7.6m) are inside the top five.
With the talkative pest Will Kassouf again attracting fury and adoration from poker fans watching the live stream, the man of half a dozen catchphrases will take his repetitive table talk into Day 6 behind the eight largest stack of the 202 players on 6.9 million.
Day 5 didn’t go so smoothly for former WSOP Main Event winners, as both the 2023 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Max Neugebauer as well as the 2020 Hybrid Main Event winner Damian Salas both busted their stack. The sole survivor in world champion terms was the 2012 champion in Las Vegas Greg Merson, who bagged up 2.96m chips in his attempt to win Main Event number two 13 years on from his legendary triumph.
Other Big Names Still Involved
The Grinder, a.k.a. Michael Mizrachi put himself in a raising war late on but stepped away from the potentially fractious situation and refocused quickly to total 4 million chips at the close of Day 5, with other professionals such as Kenny Hallaert (5.7m), Alex Lynskey (1.57m), and Zhen Cai (1.47m) all making the next day. American poker hero Isaac Haxton could be the sleeper pick for glory, as the consummate pro sits on 2.58m chips, with few players matching his experience at this stage.
The son of French-Canadian singer extraordinaire Celine Dion and the late René Angélil, René-Charles Angélil, still has hope that he’ll be sitting ‘all by himself’ with the WSOP Main Event bracelet come midweek, bagging up 3.16 million chips. He may have huge opposition from female players, with stars of the felt such as Spanish Winamax Pro Leo Margets (2.81m), PPC third-place finisher Esther Taylor (2.1m), Thi Xoa Nguyen (2m) and Lindsey McDougall (420,000) all waving the female flag with just a few days to go in the World Championship.
While those big names are still involved, legends like Stephen Chidwick, Jeremy Kottler, Brian Hastings, Viktor Blom, Josh Reichard, Scott Margereson, Matt Affleck and Henrick Hecklen all busted.
| WSOP 2025 Event #81 $10,000 Main Event Day 5 Chip Counts: | |||
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
| 1st | Sebastian Schulze | Germany | 12,745,000 |
| 2nd | Chad Power | United States | 9,540,000 |
| 3rd | Braxton Dunaway | United States | 8,600,000 |
| 4th | Sergio Veloso | Portugal | 8,200,000 |
| 5th | Richard Buckingham | United States | 7,625,000 |
| 6th | Albert Calderon | United States | 7,365,000 |
| 7th | Muhamet Perati | Italy | 7,010,000 |
| 8th | Will Kassouf | United Kingdom | 6,900,000 |
| 9th | Pedro Padilha | Brazil | 6,835,000 |
| 10th | Michael Garner | United States | 6,505,000 |
Chris Nguyen Leading $50k High Roller
In the $50,000-entry NLHE High Roller Event #88, a total of 252 were confirmed as entries in the event which has made a prize pool of $12,159,000 with a top prize of $2,686,913 on the line. Just 78 players made Day 2 to begin with and just 17 players remain in with a shot at the gold, with the German high roller regular Christopher Nguyen (13 million) leading the way.
Other big stacks include the American pro Martin Zamani (9.2m), Sergio Aido (5.92m), Sam Soverel (5.47m) and Matthew Wantman (4.09m), all of whom sit inside the top 10 places on the leaderboard. The 2025 WSOP bracelet winner Philip Sternheimer (3.3m), Main Event ‘Bubble Boy’ Mat Frankland (2.53m), Day 1 leader Masashi Oya (2.52m) and Kyle Julius (260,000) have varied chances of success on tomorrow’s Day 2.
While those players survived, others were not so fortunate. Daniel Negreanu was one of many superstars to bust outside the money places when Texas Mike’s ace-three beat his king-queen. Phil Hellmuth also busted, not once but twice, as The Poker Brat slid out of contention in his latest bid to win bracelet #18. Others did cash, with Kristen Foxen, Joe Cada, Jesse Lonis, and Alex Foxen all making profit. Shaun Deeb also busted, but in earning $123,068 for reaching 19th place, bagged a couple more payjumps worth of POY points in his race against the British PokerStake player Benny Glaser, who came 34th for a min-cash.
| WSOP 2025 Event #88 $50,000 NLHE High Roller Chip Counts: | |||
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
| 1st | Christopher Nguyen | Germany | 13,035,000 |
| 2nd | Martin Zamani | United States | 9,200,000 |
| 3rd | Khoi Le Nguyen | Vietnam | 7,370,000 |
| 4th | Sergio Aido | Spain | 5,925,000 |
| 5th | Sam Soverel | United States | 5,470,000 |
| 6th | Manuel Fritz | Austria | 4,950,000 |
| 7th | Jun Obara | Japan | 4,300,000 |
| 8th | Matthew Wantman | United States | 4,090,000 |
| 9th | Fahredin Mustafov | Bulgaria | 4,000,000 |
| 10th | Vinny Lingham | United States | 3,695,000 |