2025 WSOP: Another 52 Brits Survive Day 1c of Main Event

Three of the four starting day of the Main Event of the 2025 WSOP in Las Vegas have now been completed, with the biggie, Day 1d taking place on Saturday. A further 1,678 players entered on Day 1c, with 1,249 progressing to Day 2, taking the total number of entries up to 3,697 so far. Late registration remains open for the first two levels of Day 2, which is split into two flights, so the final number won’t be known until Monday. 

2025 WSOP Main Event Day 1c UK Survivors

In total 52 players from the UK joined the 54 who progressed from the first two flights, taking the total number of confirmed members of the 2025 WSOP Main Event Day 2 Brit Pack up to 106.  They will all resume play on Day 2abc on Sunday and could be joined by late UK entrants during the first two levels of the day.

The ace of spades in the Day 1c Britpack survivor special deck is Joshua Boulton, whose 224,000 pile was the 13th largest of the day. Not far behind is Kyriacos Hajikypri, whose 214,500 was the 18th largest of the survivors in the flight. Guy Leathley (194,800), Christopher Guertin (184,900) and Zane Desilva (173,800) bagged the next biggest stacks of the UK players. 

Further down the deck, but with above average piles of cookies are Paul Newey, Adam Owen, Nick Eastwood, Matthew Beltcher and Philip Sternheimer.

Jack Sinclair, Ian Simpson and Jake Cody are all hovering just above the 60,000 starting stack, but not at all critical, as this is the slowest paced tournament in the world.

As we get down to the lowest cards in the UK Day 1c deck, we find Gary Blackwood with just over half his starting stack, just ahead of Jack Dean. Mitchell Johnson has the second smallest Brit stack of 16,500, while Simon Higgins is the veritable deuce of clubs with only 9,600 chips to his name, plus a chair of course, that hasn’t been taken away from him yet.

Sadly for Grosvenor Poker ambassador Katie Swift, the Main Event dream is over. She exited early on during the day and jumped straight into Event #84, the $1,000 NLH bracelet side event. See below for more on how that panned out.

Still no sign of Will Kassouf in any WSOP Main Event reporting, so either he’s not yet played, or he’s still on the fabled PokerNews “no reporting list,” if such a thing even exists. 😉

Position	Player	Chips
13	Joshua Boulton	224,700
18	Kyriacos Hajikypri	214,500
40	Guy Leathley	194,800
49	Christopher Guertin	184,900
61	Zane Desilva	173,800
67	Jamie O’Connor	168,200
72	Jamie Harding	164,200
98	Patrick Sekinger	154,500
128	Samuel Wilkinson	143,100
217	Yudhishter Jaswal	120,200
220	Matthew Hunt	120,000
239	Laith Edris	117,700
252	Mark Remnant	116,400
286	Jason Wong	109,300
289	Paul Newey	109,000
301	Henry Fewster	107,500
307	David Hudson	107,000
313	Jiaze Li	106,600
334	Adam Owen	103,800
346	Nick Eastwood	102,500
380	Stacey Metz Ceragioli	99,000
398	Neil Barron	96,600
405	Matthew Belcher	96,000
432	Philip Sternheimer	91,900
472	Michael Allen	88,000
562	Ricky Murphy	78,300
568	Ronnie Ballantyne	78,000
588	Ben Slack	75,800
612	Theo Gillis	73,600
615	Matthew Waterfall	73,300
620	Jack Sinclair	72,900
652	David Tovar	70,000
662	Martin Donoghue	69,000
717	Ian Simpson	63,600
754	Arron Woodcock	60,900
758	Jake Cody	60,200
789	Robert Haigh	57,900
809	Kevin Frame	55,500
824	Steven Taylor	54,800
866	Andrew Hulme	51,600
899	Richard Sheils	48,300
923	Callum Gordon	47,000
962	Antonius Samuel	44,400
1034	Justin Tsui	36,700
1038	Gary Fisher	36,100
1075	Gary Blackwood	32,900
1077	Jack Dean	32,600
1110	Steven Alper	29,200
1144	Thomas Bolton	25,500
1197	Lewis Spencer	18,700
1204	Mitchell Johnson	16,500
1237	Simon Higgins	9,600

Main Event Tracker: Entries Down 33% on Day 1c

Will the 2025 WSOP Main Event be a record breaker? After the first two starting days, The Main Event numbers were up over 30% year-on-year, thanks mainly to the big jump in participation on Day 1b. 

However, the trend did not continue on Day 1c, when “only” 1,678 players began their quest for the most yearned after bracelet in poker. That’s a huge decrease on the 2,528 who participated in the third flight 12 months ago. There were 850 fewer entries in the flight year-on-year, a 33% decrease. 

This throws an unexpected spanner into the works and brings into question whether the event will become a record breaker, for the second year in a row?

After the first three starting days, the total number of entries is now 3,697, down 577 (13.5%) on the 4,274 that there were at the same juncture in 2024. But despite the deficit and the huge cliff drop on Day 1c, Day 1d is still expected go be huge and could exceed the 5,014 who entered in 2024.

There could also be significantly larger numbers of players opting to wait until Day 2 before taking their seats. Last year 824 players started the tournament on one of the two Day 2s combined. There was a lot of noise about this last year, with many influential voices in the game suggesting its the optimal way to play the Main Event, as it’s still very playable with a starting stack on Day 2. 

Could it be that the Day 1c drop is indicative of a shift in player behaviour towards “max late reg” in the Main Event? And if that’s the case, could the record still be under threat? This story is still unfolding,  but we’ll find out for sure in a few days time!

Lydia Cugudda Wins Daily Deepstack for $33k

Congratulations to Lydia Cugudda, who took down Event #410, the $250 Daily Deepstack. She topped a field of 1,198 in her final event before returning home, claiming the first prize of $33,029. 

Other Bracelet Event News

Event #80 $800 Summer Celebration

This one wasn’t much of a celebration for the Brit Pack, as only ten of the UK’s summer poker celebrants celebrated visits to the payout window from a field of 7,078. The highest placed of these was Andrew “Picasso” Hedley, the self-styled most “churming” man in poker, who managed to churm his way into 69th place, earning $7,740 reasons to celebrate.

Place	Winner	Prize
69	Andrew Hedley	$7,740
94	Yousif Mirjan	$4,810
124	Jun Li	$4,180
130	Alfie Adam	$4,180
159	Robert Bull	$3,660
230	Tiffany Williamson	$3,230
249	Stephen Lockwood	$3,230
254	James Bagley	$3,230
255	Hamish Tong	$3,230
356	Idris Drief	$2,600

Event #83 $2,500 Freezeout

Sadly there are no British players left among the 25 who will return or the final day of the $2,500 Freezeout, but six did make the money. Renee Xie’s 41st place for $11,060 was the highest of the bunch, which also included Matt Davenport and Brandon Sheils.

Position	Winner	Prize
41	Renee Xie	$11,060
70	Tamer Kamel	$7,310
73	Graeme Newman	$6,570
88	Matthew Davenport	$6,000
103	Igor Dursel	$5,270
133	Brandon Sheils	$5,010

Event #84 $1,000 No Limit Hold’em

Seven players from the UK made it into Day 2, with all in-the-money. Bosco Li’s 422,000 was the 8th largest of the flight and Calogero Morreale’s 355,000 was the 15th biggest. Also bagging a stack (79,000) for Day 2 is Katie Swift, who will be glad to have put her early exit in the Main Event behind her.

Position	Player	Chips
8	Bosco Li	422,000
15	Calogero Morreale	355,000
63	Harry Lodge	193,000
190	Katie Swift	79,000
217	Matthew Bonham	61,000
224	Terence Etim	58,000
272	Jiang Pu	31,000

Photos courtesy of PokerNews and WSOP