The second Day 2 of this year’s WSOP Main Event was a huge one, with late registrations boosting the overall attendance to a massive 9,735 entries. While not as big as either 2023 or 2024, this bumper number produced 2,133 survivors on Day 2d as the combined total of players moving on to Day 3 in the World Championship totalled 3,453 including the 1,320 who survived Day 2abc. Of them, the six-time WSOP bracelet winner and PokerStake players Giuseppe Pantaleo and Josh Arieh is riding high.

Bumper Day of Action as Main Event Produces Drama

This year’s 2025 WSOP Main Event is the third largest of all-time. With a prizepool of $90.5 million gathered, the top 1,461 players will make money, at least $15,000 of it when the bubble bursts. This will likely be late on tomorrow’s Day 3 but depending on the action, could carry over into the start of Day 4.

The WSOP organisers confirmed today that the winner will receive $10,000,000, the same as was on by Jonathan Tamayo 12 months ago. Everyone who reaches the final table of nine players will become a millionaire, with ninth place worth $1 million and second place earning a $6m runner-up score.

The reigning champion Tamayo was in the field on Day 2d and ended play as the only former Main Event winner to make the cut on the day. Ending Day 2d with 158,500 chips, Tamayo is taking an under-the-radar route to glory but if he can win back-to-back Main Events, then he will be the envy of every other winner in history. Certainly, the other former world champions couldn’t emulate his survival on Day 2d, with Joe McKeehen, Hossein Ensan, Huck Seed, Stoyan Madanzhiev and Ryan Riess all eliminated before chips went into bags.

Lonis and Margolis onto Losing Bets

Another player to lose his stack was Jesse Lonis, who backed himself to the tune of $2,000 to win the Main Event against Belarussian pro Mikita Badziakouski. Hoping to win ‘an extra million’, Lonis was out of luck, busting towards the end of the day.

Another popular player busted in unfortunate circumstances, as poker vlogger Alexander ‘Wolfgang Poker’ Seibt couldn’t hold with pocket queens, as he got shot down by ace-queen.

American player Gary Margolis will be hoping for the miracle to end all miracles after almost crashing out at the end of Day 2d. In the final hand, he lost 106,000 of his stack of 106,500 to the French player Adrien Zychowski’s on a board of , Margolis thought he had busted but was called back to put his sole chip in a bag, as he hopes to come back from the toughest position since Jack Straus’ famous ‘chip and a chair’ win all the way back in 1982.

Arieh Among Big Stacks

With so many players having busted on Day 2d, there were plenty of big stacks that closed out the day in charge of their tables. The chip leader in the room, San Kim, finished top of the pile with 799,000 chips and although that wasn’t as much as the Day 2abc chip leader, Oleksii Kravchuk (937,500), Kim’s stack will look down on everyone else when play resumes on Day 3. Day 2d stars Fernando Rodriguez (749,000), Romain Locquet (673,500), and Riva Arthur (607,000) all have a great shot at glory, and there are a couple of PokerStake players in their rearview mirrors.

The German pro Giuseppe Pantaleo has already had a great year on the site and any PokerStake investors who have backed him to run deep with their own money will be dreaming of turning their backing into potentially thousands of dollars. Pantaleo ended Day 2d with a stack of 580,500 chips.

Right behind his fellow PokerStake player is the six-time WSOP bracelet winner Josh Arieh. Ending Day 2d with 448,500 chips, Arieh – who finished in third place for $2.5m in the 2004 Main Event won by Greg ‘Fossilman’ Ramyer, could yet go two places further and become world champion for the first time.

Big Names Rise and Fall

While Martin Kabrhel has left the Main Event, a big name from nine years ago remains in the hunt and with an ominously big stack. Will Kassouf will forever be associated with his ‘Nine high like a boss’ speech from the 2016 Main Event where his pocket kings eventually lost to Griffin Benger’s pocket aces for a 17^th place finish worth $338,288. Bagging up 430,000 chips after Day 2d, Kassouf is sure to use his ‘speech play’ antics to pressure those at threat of missing out on money tomorrow.

Fresh from his stand-up comedy debut, Doug Polk doubled back into contention late on when his pocket kings beat a suited king-three to leave the motormouth YouTuber on 85,000 chips coming into Day 3. Randall Emmett also made the cut with 180,000 chips, while the British poker hero Liv Boeree won with pocket jacks late in the day to double up to a stack of 103,000 at the close of play.

Others to make the cut with chips well above the average included Pat Lyons (467,500), David Jackson (444,000), Joseph Cheong (426,500) Matt Affleck (401,000) and Brad Owen (397,000).

WSOP 2025 Event #81: $10,000 WSOP Main Event Day 2d Chip Counts
Rank	Player	Country	Chips
1st	San Kim	United States	799,000
2nd	Fernando Rodriguez	United States	749,000
3rd	Romain Locquet	France	673,500
4th	Nazar Buhaiov	Ukraine	633,500
5th	Ibrahim Senoussi	France	625,000
6th	Daniyal Gheba	United States	625,000
7th	Kevin Javier	Canada	620,000
8th	Kotaro Shoda	Japan	619,500
9th	Kyle Grupp	United States	618,000
10th	Riva Arthur	United States	607,000