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The World Series of Poker Main Event is America’s favorite annual goldrush. Thousands convene to compete for millions and thanks to PokerShares, that market is growing. The wagering website developed by Mike McDonald faces its most highly trafficked days of the year between now and Day 1A of the Main Event on July 2. Gamblers can buy pieces of their favorite players at the designated PokerShares markup and also bet on players to make the final table along with to win.

PokerShares released their odds this week and created a social media buzz that can only be found around the Main Event. The numbers are at a market price, thus creating an unlevel playing field for those looking to buy the biggest “name brands” in poker.

Markup game is all-in

Players who sell to the Main Event set their markup at the highest it will be for the full calendar year. The upside of winning the tournament is incomparable to any other event and PokerShares implements this practice across their own lines.

Phil Hellmuth’s name is worth quite a bit to the public eye and according to PokerShares, Hellmuth’s markup for the Main Event is 4.0. For every one percent a buyer pays for Hellmuth, they will be investing $400. Any buyer of Hellmuth’s on PokerShares to break-even, they need Hellmuth to cash for at least $40,000.

The last time Hellmuth reached that threshold was in 2008 when he finished 45th for $154,400. Hellmuth last cashed in the Main Event in 2015 for $21,786. Then again, if Hellmuth were to win his second Main Event bracelet, that same buyer could cash out for at least $80,000 for their one percent investment.

Other past Main Event champion markups include Joe McKeehen at 3.8,  Jonathan Duhamel at 3.3, Joe Hachem at 2.1, and Chris Moneymaker at 1.9.

Defending Main Event winner Scott Blumstein does not have a markup listed for his title defense.

The highest markups belong to the High Roller group. Nick Petrangelo, Connor Drinan, Ole Schemion, and Phil Ivey all score at 4.6. Schemion has never cashed in the WSOP Main Event and Petrangelo’s best cash of his three is last year, when he earned $24,867.

Drinan beat the 4.6 figure a summer ago when he took 56th place for over $120,000. A glance through the lines prompted feedback from Drinan’s Twitter.

At quick glance, 5 that stand out as under-priced for the main relative to regs @ similar MU (not advising that anyone is beating these MUs):@MariaHo @ 2.3@krissyb24poker @ 2.7@lynskey_99 @ 3.0@JamesObst @ 3.4@dude904 @ 3.8 https://t.co/fcXjOEevgl

— Connor Drinan (@ConnorDrinan) June 25, 2018

In Ivey’s amazing career, the Main Event has always been kind to him. The 2009 November Nine run is the pinnacle of his achievements in the ‘big one’ and he owns five career cashes dating back to 2002, three of which bested the 4.6 line.

Betting on Ivey comes at a steep price but the results prove his long-term worth of beating the largest fields he plays against all year.

Just win, baby

There’s picking a longshot and then there is finding the $8 million diamond in the rough. Anyone who digs deep enough is going to be handsomely paid.

PokerShares carries the alphabet of prospective Main Event winner with more odds available to those who request them. If you don’t see a player listed that you might want to wager on, PokerShares will create a price for that player based on what they believe the market to be.

Daniel Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, Petrangelo, Ivey, Schemion, and Drinan are the ‘favorites’ at 500-1 with a list of contenders behind them.

Adrian Mateos, Charlie Carrel, Dominik Nitsche, and Erik Seidel are all at the 550-1 price point.

A simple wager of $20 on Ivey nets $10,000, based on current odds. PokerShares bends to the will of the market. Even though Ivey’s tournament game is past its prime based on years away, he is still the most popular choice to outlast a field that is expected to crest 7,000.

The odds they are a-changin’

Per customer demand, more names are to appear on the PokerShares list of possible buys in the days leading up to the Main Event. PokerShares also offers odds for various players as the tournament moves closer to the final table.

Last summer, Blumstein was listed as the favorite heading into the final table and took home the bracelet to win those who bet on him a prize. Blumstein’s name was not on any buyer’s radar at this time in 2017 but by Day 7, he became a popular name within the PokerShares marketplace.

Sam Panzica’s ban from the Rio appears to be lifted, per Twitter, and PokerShares may have its newest available buy.

Need a price on my main

— Sam Panzica (@bestindabiz51) June 29, 2018

Lead image courtesy of World Poker Tour/Flickr

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If May 1, 2018, really was a monumental day for online poker in the United States, then June 23 should now be considered one of great importance as well.

May 1 will be remembered as the day shared liquidity, otherwise known as the pooling of players from all three US states currently offering online poker, officially launched.

It was the day players on the World Series of Poker-branded online poker sites in New Jersey and Nevada, 888 Poker in New Jersey, and the Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway sites using 888 software in Delaware, started competing against each other.

Planting the seeds for US-wide online poker

WSOP.com Head of Online Poker Bill Rini called the day “monumental.” Partly because it meant the framework for widespread online poker across the entire country was finally in place.

The launch of tri-state shared liquidity showed the rest of the country what is possible. It planted the seeds for US-wide online poker. It paved the road towards a return to the game’s glory days in this country. The days when players could log on to any number of online poker sites and play from wherever they were from coast to coast.

It was practically an invitation for every state in the union to pass online poker legislation of their own. An invitation to join in the growing interstate network.

Tri-state shared liquidity came with the promise of improved cash game traffic and infinitely larger tournament prize pools. The numbers have shown that. However, with just three states in the network, they’ve hardly been earth shattering.

Clearly, a return to online poker’s true glory days in the US will have to wait for a few more states to jump aboard. However, the events that unfolded on the morning of June 23 could give the existing network a significant boost.

The show me state

New Jersey isn’t exactly Missouri. But frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies the people there. Sometimes, they need to be shown something before they buy in.

One online poker player from the Garden State showed part of what shared liquidity makes possible on June 23. And now that New Jersey has been shown that, the sky is really the limit for online poker there.

Matt “mendey” Mendez, a 28-year-old stay-at-home father and part-time poker player living in rural New Jersey won a WSOP bracelet on that day — from home.

Mendez took down the second of four online bracelet events on the 2018 WSOP schedule. With that, he became the first person to win a WSOP Bracelet during the annual six-week tournament series while playing outside Nevada.

Mendez’ historic win came in the $565 Pot Limit Omaha online event that drew 657 players and another 566 re-entries. The total field hit 1,223 entries, creating a $635,960 prize pool that paid the top 99 players.

A win for more than just Mendez

Mendez collected $135,077 for the win. A win that will likely give online poker in New Jersey a bigger push than any advertising campaign ever could. All because it let the rest of New Jersey know winning a WSOP bracelet from home was now possible.

Only 107 of the 657 players in the event played online from New Jersey. That’s around 16 percent of the field.

Now that Mendez has proven what is possible, that percentage should go up for the other two online events. The  $1,000 No-limit Hold’em online WSOP bracelet event is on June 29. The $3,200 High Roller online WSOP bracelet event is set for June 30.

Online poker will undoubtedly continue to grow in New Jersey. Not to mention on the new tri-state shared liquidity network, and indeed, the entire US. As a result, the day Mendez showed it’s possible to win a WSOP bracelet from somewhere other than Las Vegas is sure to be looked at as another monumental one for the online game.

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This is Part 1 in a series of Top 5 lists leading up to the 2018 WSOP Main Event. Be sure to look out for the remaining articles every day until the Main Event kicks off on July 2!

The bad beat. It’s the story you simply don’t want to hear.

Everybody has got a good bad beat story and, honestly, nobody cares. But, as poker players, we listen to them because anyone who plays the game can, at the very least, empathize.

The very worst of the bad beats come in the biggest events and there’s no bigger event than the World Series of Poker Main Event.

It would be impossible to detail out the worst Main Event bad beat of all time. With tens of thousands of players getting dealt hundreds of thousands of hands over the course of all previous Main Events to date – just about everything that could happen in a poker hand has happened in the Main Event.

So, while we’re sure that the hand that ended your most recent tournament was the sickest of coolers, we’ve composed a list of some of the most disgusting, filthiest, vicious beats to ever be seen in the Main Event. Look away…if you can.

Gaelle gets there

It was early on Day 1B of the 2017 Main Event. Three of the best poker players on the planet — Vanessa Selbst, Gaelle Baumann, and Noah Schwartz — take a flop on the televised featured table. While Schwartz flopped an inconsequential jack-hi flush draw (which he folded), both Selbst and Baumann each flopped a set. Set over set, usually one of the fastest ways for someone to go broke.

Selbst binked the flopped top set of aces while Baumann’s hit a middle set of sevens. The dealer then casually ripped off the last seven in the deck on the turn. Selbst checked her full house to Baumann, who now had quads and bet to build the pot. For those watching, the writing was on the wall. Selbst check-raised Baumann on the turn and then, after betting the river, got shoved on by Baumann. Selbst fell into the tank, but with only one hand, quad sevens, beating her aces full, she was forced to call.

“I wanted to fold, I really did,” Selbst said in the aftermath. A hand like that could send just about anyone into poker retirement.

Candio goes wild

Day 8 of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event found Italy’s Filippo Candio engaged in a big stack battle with poker pro Joseph Cheong. Cheong, holding aces, three-bet Candio preflop and Candio came along with his suited five-seven. The flop brought Candio bottom pair on a paired board, he decided to check-raise Cheong’s continuation bet. Cheong, having way the best of it, three-bet shoved the flop and with the pair of fives, Candio called it off hoping to have picked off a bluff. Nope.

Candio, in poker jail, headed to the back rail to hang his head and watch his fate. An eight hit the turn. The crowd swooned. Cheong sat stone-faced. The river brought out a four providing Candio a straight, the winning hand, and a reason to lose his mind.

Cheong, however, would prevail and rebuild his stack, eventually outlasting Candio at the final table. Candio survived to finish in fourth place for over $3 million while Cheong made it to 3rd for roughly $4.1 million.

“How can I get off of this hand?”

In the 2005 WSOP Main Event, poker legend Jennifer Harman flopped top set with pocket queens against Cory Zeidman’s flopped straight on one of the wettest boards possible. Harman bet her set and, after being raised by Zeidman on the flop, Harman called.

The turn was an action card, the ten of diamonds. It paired the board, giving Harman a full house and adding the open-ended straight flush draw to Zeidman’s already made hand. Harman checked, Zeidman bet, Harmon check-raised and Ziedman knew he was no longer ahead. He was going to have to make a decision for his tournament. He called with no knowledge that he literally had only one out headed to the river.

The savage seven of diamonds peeled off the top of the deck on the river giving Zeidman the straight flush and, while not busting Harmon on this hand, crippling her. In the end though, Zeidman was unable to turn that stroke of luck into a Main Event payday.

Mizrachi and Jarvis take turns

Matt Jarvis put Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi to a tough decision in the midst of the 2010 final table. Jarvis shoved his final 13 million chips in the middle with pocket nines. Mizrachi, never one to pass up a spot, made the huge call holding a suited ace-queen.

With all the cards on their back, Jarvis was a slight favorite for his tournament life. Then, one of the most ridiculous hands of any final table played itself out.

The flop saw a queen in the window and one in the door, giving Mizrachi a massive lead in the hand.  Jarvis, taking it in stride, nodded, understanding that the end was near. But when the turn brought one of the two remaining nines in the deck, the room exploded. The tables had indeed turned with Jarvis taking nearly the same lead on Mizrachi that Mizrachi had over him on the flop. Mizrachi was now looking for help with only 7 outs to save him from the brink of extinction. The ace from space smacked the river, retaking the hand for Mizrachi and crushing the tournament life of Matt Jarvis.

Justin Phillips lives the dream

Perhaps one of the most brutal hands of all time occurred on Day 1 of the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Tank-top wearing Justin Philips was facing off against Motoyuki Mabuchi who had flopped a top set of aces. The turn brought the ten of diamonds, giving Philips, who was holding the king-jack of diamonds, a straight with a redraw to a straight flush.

The ESPN cameras caught the action as the improbable ace of diamonds hit the river giving Mabuchi quad aces. But as one can guess, that was no good as the same card completed the royal flush for Phillips.

Mabuchi bet, Phillips raised and then, Mabuchi with an aggressive splashing of the pot literally shipped every chip into the middle by shoving his stack and shouting “gamble!”

Both hands were tabled and Phillips seemingly could not believe what his opponent turned over. Quad aces fall to the royal flush in what could possibly be one of the most disgusting coolers of all time.

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