2025 WSOP: 91 British Players Survive Main Event Day 2d

Day 2d of the 2025 WSOP Main Event took place on Monday, when the survivors from Day 1d were joined by a further 777 players, bringing the final number of participants up to 9,735. In total, 4,553 players were seated at some point during the day, but by the time it was completed, over half had vacated the tournament area with a zero chip count. In total, 2,133 players made it to the end of the 5th level, when proceedings drew to a close.

There were still 91 British players left among the 2,133 who bagged stacks at the end of the day. They join the 58 who progressed from Day 2abc, leaving 149 surviving members of the Britpack still in with a chance of winning the $10m first prize and the obscene winner’s bracelet, revealed to be worth an estimated $500,000!

UK players now represent 4.3% of the remaining 3,453 players in the field. Full chip counts of all surviving British players from Day 2d can be found further down this article.

Joe Hindry Leads the Day 2d Brit Pack

Joe Hindry ended the day with the largest stack of the British players who made it through Day 2d. His stack of 472,000 was the 32nd biggest of the 2,133 players who made it through to Day 3 and close to three times the average (170k). The only other player to register a Day 3 stack over 400,000 was Will Kassouf on 430,000. 

Andrew Wilson (350,000), James Atkin (323,000), Dean Lyall (316,500), Yiquin Song (316,000) and Jamie Dale (310,000) all sealed burgeoning chip bags with in excess of 300,000. 

Kassouf Bossing It Up

It was eight years ago that Will Kassouf’s famous run to the last two tables of the Main Event led to him becoming one of the biggest characters in the game. Famously verbose, Kassouf’s act is theatrical poker genius at best, car crash tragicomedy at worst, but always a talking point.  

It’s rumoured that Will was once put on a “no reporting” list at a recent live event, but gladly that has proven not to be the case this time, as several classic Kassouf hands unfolded and were wonderfully reported on by the team at PokerNews.

In one textbook Kassouf reel in, he goaded his opponent into paying him off on the river, delivering a confuse-ray speech that clearly got inside the head of his opponent. He didn’t even need to redraw to the coconuts on this one and certainly had better than the 9-high-like-a-boss catchphrase he has become known for.

He now takes 430,000 into Day 3, when the show will continue. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea and I must confess to having been irked by it myself at times in the past, but I’m now largely amused and can’t wait to see what unfolds in this year’s event, be it funny or car crash. He’s been described by some as a Temu Martin Kabrhel, but he’s no copycat and has had this table persona since well before his 2016 Main Event run. 

It’s the poker death-match heads-up battle that everyone would love to see, Kabrhel v Kassouf. It could be screened successfully on both a pay-per-view and a pay-to-stop viewing basis. PokerGo could draw to the nuts and redraw to the coconuts with new subscribers, by making this match-up happen.

James Atkin Progresses to Day 3 of Main Event

James Atkin has bagged one of the biggest stacks of the Brit pack, chipping up towards the end of the day, getting paid off with jacks against threes in one hand. He secured 323,000 for Tuesday’s resumption of play and will be hoping to build further on his good start to the tournament. 

Shortly before heading out to the World Series of Poker, Atkin announced a change of career. He has given up being a professional poker player and has become a mortgage adviser, continuing to play poker only as a hobby. But will he continue his new career path if he goes deep and achieves a big score at the WSOP?

I first met James twenty years ago, when he had been destroying the high roller heads-up tables on Blue Square Poker (RIP), booking positive records against both Mike Cato and Doyle Brunson (RIP). I was the poker manager at the time and we sponsored James for the World Heads-Up Championship in Barcelona, during which I remember chasing off a thief who had tried to steal his backpack, while sitting at an outdoor cafe.

Back then, James was training to be a primary school teacher, but put that admirable career on hold after a string of successes at the online and live poker tables. 

James also has a secret past life as a successful battle rapper, which inspired his online poker moniker MC Epitome. He narrowly missed out on a big title on one occasion, losing out (iirc) to Professor Green in the semi-finals. 

Now sporting locks reminiscent of the 1970s Hannah Barbera classic The Hair Bear Bunch, Atkin has always had poker running through his veins and is capable of making a deep run. Good luck on Day 3!

Big Baggers

Those comfortably into Day 3 with well above average stacks include Scott Margerson (281,500), Gareth Devereux (276,000), Felix McPeake (234,000), Matthew Davenport (230,000) and Andrew Teng (228,500). Bracelet winner Patrick Leonard (209,000), Fraser McIntyre (205,500) and Martins Adeniya (196,000) also finished the day ahead of the mean.

Average Joes

Lounging in the middle of the pack with stacks close to the 169k average are Hamid Toghyan (176,000), Tom Middleton (173,500) and Roberto Romanello (143,000), who had been the chip leader of the Brit pack at the start of the day.

Timothy Joyner had also posted a big Day 1d stack has now fallen back to below the average with 118,00, just ahead of Thomas MacDonald (114,500), Cassandra Yong (111,500) Brandon Sheils (109,500), Waheed Ashraf (105,500) and Liv Boeree (103,000). Liv is another player who gave up playing professionally, but still likes to play from time to time, sometimes cashing big when she does.

Jogging on to Day 3, But Only Just

As we move further down the chart, we get to those who will be in the will-they/won’t-they bracket when it comes to making the money, which might be reached by the end of Day 3.

Those whose tournament lives will be at risk from the restart on Tuesday include Chris Moorman (76,000), Sam Acheampong (69,000) and Philip “The Tower” Heald, who is still hanging in with 54,000, but over-the-moon to have gotten to the end of what started as a very difficult day. By the end of the first level of the day, Heald reported that every hand on his table was seeing three and four bets, making it difficult to negotiate. 

Badbeat, the Word is on the Street that the Fire in your Stack is Out

For some of the Britpack, 2d was gonna be the day that they had to get back on cue. By then, short-stacks somehow realised what they had to do…and got it all-in, hoping “maybe, this hand’s gonna be the one that saves me.” 

But it wasn’t…and after all, when their wonder walls of chips were torn down, the bad beat stories began to flow. We won’t go into those, because I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, but you’ve never really had a doubt that the likes of Ben Collins, Benny Glaser, Toby Lewis and Rob Sherwood are great players, despite their early exits on the day. The oasis in the desert that is Las Vegas, did not sustain a revival of their tournament lives this time around.

All that remained for them and many others, was the winding road to the rail, no chance of being led by blinding lights to the final table. Richie Allen, Talal Shakerchi, Adam Wilkinson, Robbie Bull and Ian Bradley, a Day 2 registrant, all found out that 2025 definitely (not maybe) wasn’t going to be their year either, departing in the mid-stages of the day. 

Bracelet winners Robert Cowen, Niall Farrell, Richard Gryko and Chris Brammer also saw their chances of winning this shakermaker go up in the sky. And Dean Hutchinson’s dream of making another final table is also now over.

The game was also up for former professional footballer Steven Watts and poker coach Guy Taylor, whose amazing fold of AK v AA on the feature table on Day 1d kept him in the hunt. They both made it to the final level of the day, exiting just before the end of play. 

Main Event Final Numbers

It wasn’t a record breaker, but with 777 new entrants on Day 2d, the total number of players in the 2025 Main Event settled at 9,735, the third biggest in the history of the World Series of Poker. There was a year-on-year increase in the number of players choosing to enter on either of the Day 2s, up 218 entries (26.5%) from 824 in 2024 to 1,042 this year. 

This contrasts with a decrease of 591 players entering on Day 1s, a drop of 9.4%. The big dip in participation of the starting days was on Day 1c, with Day 1a and 1d performing similarly to 2024, while Day 1b saw a significant uplift.

It will be interesting to see if this trend continues in 2026, as although it’s not an issue yet, it could become one in a few years time, creating logistical nightmares for organisers if more and more players bypass the Day 1s. Perhaps they will incentivise people to play Day 1s with spot prizes or big stack bonuses, or a free banana voucher, or whatever.

2025 WSOP Main Event Day 2d UK Survivors

Position	Player	Chips
32	Joe Hindry	472,000
61	Will Kassouf	430,000
148	Andrew Wilson	350,000
184	James Atkin	323,500
201	Dean Lyall	316,500
203	Yiqian Song	316,000
215	Jamie Dale	310,000
255	Minnes Scott	294,500
294	Scott Margereson	281,500
315	Gareth Devereux	276,000
427	Oliver Bithell	241,000
444	Felix Mcpeake	234,000
455	Benjamin Winsor	232,000
457	Michael Allen	231,000
462	Matthew Davenport	230,000
472	Andrew Teng	228,500
501	Christopher Wood	223,500
520	Jason Shellum	217,000
562	Patrick Leonard	209,000
570	Jamie Kingston	208,000
583	Niall Costigan	206,000
584	Fraser Macintyre	205,500
622	Christopher Scholes	199,000
638	Martins Adeniya	196,000
696	James Osullivan	186,000
702	Bradley King	184,500
728	Mathew Frankland	181,000
760	Paul Sokoloff	178,000
762	Calin Ciolte	178,000
766	Benjamin Jackson	177,000
770	Robert Ludwig	176,500
775	Hamid Toghyan	176,000
779	Joseph Odonnell	175,500
792	Tom Middleton	173,500
812	Claudiu-Mihai Burlacu	170,500
835	Carl Shaw	167,000
861	William Stephenson	162,500
863	Alex Whitenstall	162,000
900	Alan Carr	157,500
916	Nicholas Ramsey	156,000
936	Andreas Olympios	153,500
970	Lukas Schwartz	150,000
974	Jacob Stone	149,500
1003	Samuel Darkin	145,500
1024	Giorgos Onisiforou	143,500
1028	Roberto Romanello	143,000
1037	Kurtis Lake	142,000
1094	Kevin Allen	136,000
1107	James Bagley	135,000
1147	Rehman Kassam	129,000
1163	Simon Burns	127,500
1168	Christopher Whitaker	127,000
1192	James Rann	123,500
1229	Steven Smart	119,500
1243	Timothy Joyner	118,000
1277	Thomas Macdonald	114,500
1304	Cassandra Yong	111,500
1313	Grant Gardner	110,500
1319	Brandon Sheils	109,500
1358	Waheed Ashraf	105,500
1381	Liv Boeree	103,000
1394	Martin Hellmuth	102,000
1408	Mitchell Hynam	100,500
1423	Shamil Patel	100,000
1426	Samuel Goodman	99,500
1446	Ciaran Mccullagh	98,000
1447	Stephen Lloyd	97,500
1466	Evan Hu	96,000
1473	Srikant Vedutla	95,000
1544	Christopher Odonnell	87,000
1590	Rupom Pal	83,000
1600	Andrew Hedley	81,500
1614	Luke Porter	80,000
1632	Brandon Harris	78,000
1650	Chris Moorman	76,000
1708	Sam Acheampong	69,000
1714	Alistair Hill	68,500
1775	Paul Tait	61,500
1833	Stephen Moreschi	56,000
1855	Philip Heald	54,000
1867	Pratik Ghatge	52,500
1883	Robert Mcadam	51,000
1970	Andrew Hawksby	42,500
1973	Alex Lindop	42,000
1981	Samuel Welbourne	41,000
2000	Matthew Barnett	38,500
2057	Sam Ameen	31,500
2068	Mayukh Chhibber	29,500
2081	Yin Shen	27,500
2089	Andrea De Giorgi	25,000
2126	Charles Russell	10,500

* Hands and photos courtesy of PokerNews and WSOP