After almost a week of play in the 2025 World Series of poker main event there are just four British players left with a squeak at claiming the $10 million first prize. The day began with 11 members of the Brit pack amongst the 202 players Who retook their seats.
Day 6 started out in similar fashion to Day 5, with only one British player finding the rail during the first few levels of play. But as the day progressed, the attrition rate picked up and more players from the UK began to fall by the wayside. By the end of the day, just four UK players remain, with 57 left in the overall.
| Position | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 15 |  Mitchell Hynam | 13,650,000 |
| 35 | Paul Gibbons | 7,475,000 |
| 54 | Will Kassouf | 2,850,000 |
| 57 | Ben Jackson | 1,100,000 |
Mitch Hynam Bags Largest Brit Stack
Mitch Hynam has risen up to be main UK challenger left, ending the day with 13.65m chips, in 15th place overall. When play began he was in command of the second largest stack of the UK Eleven, on 5.65m and it was not long before he had built upon that, increasing to over 6.5m.
However it was not going to be plain sailing for Hynam and he faced a significant setback before the end of the first level of the day. On a flop of 3♦7♣6♣ Hynam picked up a royal flush draw and three-bet jammed for 4m. His opponent Don Carillo had pocket kings, made the call and held on.
Hynam was down to 2.3m after this hand, but recovered most of his losses busting Donnie Peters holding AQ against Peter’s kings. For most of the day Hynam’s stack hovered around the 8m mark, but boosted up in the last level, including sending Chahn Jung to the rail with pocket eights versus sixes.
Gibbofish Plugging Away
Paul “gibbofish” Gibbons has the second largest of the remaining UK players, on 7.45m. It’s a below average, but still very playable stack. He was the shortest stacked of the eleven with 1.435m at the start of the day, but avoided an early bath and started moving in the right direction when he found kings versus the even shorter stacked Christian Portillo’s A♠6♠.
Gibbons gradually built his stack, mostly by successfully playing a lot of small pots, but it was not until just before the final break of the day that he broke out of the small stack zone, moving to over 4m in a 3-way all-in where his queens held up, despite going behind on the flop.
This is the fourth event of the 2025 WSOP in which Paul has made the money. His best result was in the $1,000 Seniors, where he just missed out on a seat on the official final table, finishing 10th for $52,918.
Kassouf and Jackson Short Stacked
Will Kassouf had been the UK’s trailblazer for the last few days and is still in, but has fallen back in the field and will return as one of the short stacks. He had another roller-coaster of a day, which began with the fortuitous finding of aces against Stephen Kehoe’s Kings, rocketing him up to over 10m in chips and second place overall.
However that was the high point of the day for Kassouf, whose stack seemed to dwindle the more he delayed. He had fallen back to under 5m chips when restrictions on his thinking time were imposed and by the end of the day, his stack had receded to 2.85m, in 54th place of the remaining 57 players.
The player at the very bottom of the overall leaderboard is another Brit, Ben Jackson. He returned with a slightly below average 2.5m, but was unable to find much traction, doubling a few times during the session, but slipping back to just 1.1m by the end of play. With the blinds going to 100k/200k (200k ante) when play resumes, he will have to get lucky in the first lap or so of the table to keep his dream alive.
Kassouf Sparks Controversy (Again)
That the word controversy appears in this headline along with the name Kassouf will come as no surprise to anyone. He’s spent the last few days engaging in almost non-stop chatter, seemingly on 1.5x playback speed.
“So sick, I was ahead on the flop, still in front on the turn, but you pulled ahead on the river…I’m all in”
“If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”
“Either i’ve got it, or you’ve got it, if we’ve both got it, that’s what they call a cooler.”
“Draw to the nuts, redraw to the monkey nuts and hit the absolute coconuts on the river”
Quite funny the first time, maybe even the second or third, but the remaining sequels are all straight to video standard. And if you’ve heard it once, you’re probably going to hear it a hundred more times.
But a lack of fresh material wasn’t even the main problem, the issue for most was the amount of time that Kassouf wastes while speech playing/milking the limelight. People come to play poker and if anything is reducing the amount they get to play, that’s a problem.
After a significant amount of time-wasting and having the clock called on him over 20 times, the floor took action. In the later half of the day, Kassouf was put on a 10 second clock, which was lifted during the final level of the day.
“Stone Cold Prick”
Kassouf was also involved in a hand that saw floor man Bob Smith kill his hand for standing up. Will was in seat 1 and had stood up to get a better look at the stack of his opponent, in seat 9. Announcing before he did so that he wasn’t folding, he was either calling or raising, he stood up, moved a few feet to his right and had a squint at the stack of his opponent.
At this point, Smith arrived, having been called for another related reason (to put the clock on Will). Seeing Kassouf standing behind the dealer’s chair, he declared his hand dead. No amount of protestation from Will would reverse the decision.
In the aftermath of the hand, Kassouf put on a faux American accent and mocked the floor man, telling him
“Good job Bob. You’re good to go, you’re doing just great, doing great Bob, keep walking. Keep smiling, keep smiling buddy, good job, good job man, you got it…no, thank you, I appreciate you.”
It was an uncomfortable moment, both because of the harsh (but technically fair) killing of the hand and Kassouf’s disrespectful response. The commentary team referred to him as a “stone cold prick” for this performance.
Kassouf is a character and the game needs characters, but he pushes his schtick too far and is turning most viewers off, while others tune in simply for the car crash factor. If he were to trim his act, slow down the pace of his word salad and embrace more frequent moments of silence and contemplation, he could pick up a few more fans. Despite how annoying he can be, responses on social media suggesting violence is the solution to silence Kassouf, such as that made by Josh Arieh, are uncalled for.
Seven Brits Hit the Rail
The first of the British players to see their tournament come to an end on Day 6 was Andrew Wilson. He lost ground early in the day and busted in 185th place for $60,000. He got his last 575,000 in with A♠7♥ but lost out to Braxton Dunaway’s A♦8♥.
There was then quite a gap before any further Brits saw their challenge go up in flames, with the next to go being Henry Fewster, (151st for $70,000). Jamie O’Connor and Benjamin Winsor in 139th and 138th places respectively, were the next to depart, also taking home $70,000 each. O’Connor’s exit was a poker classic, AQ v AK, where he had the inferior holding and it remained so after the board was dealt out.
After this relative spate of UK exits, Team GB consolidated its position, but not its team spirit, as Mitch Hynam was heard shouting expletives across the room at Kassouf, urging him, in the words of Sophie Powers, to “Shut the **** Up”
It was sometime later that Nicholas Ramsey hit the rail, taking $85,000 for 95th place. Steven Alper was next out in 84th for $100,000. Having been reduced to just over 1m chips, he exited when Joey Padron rivered a flush against his turned straight.
The last British player of the day to reach the end of the line was Sam Darkin, who took $135,000 for his 66th place finish.
Day 6 Main Event UK Payouts
| Position | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 66 | Sam Darkin | $135,000 |
| 84 | Steven Alper | $100,000 |
| 95 | Nicholas Ramsey | $85,000 |
| 138 | Benjamin Winsor | $70,000 |
| 139 | Jamie O’Connor | $70,000 |
| 151 | Henry Fewster | $70,000 |
| 185 | Andrew Wilson | $60,000 |
