2016 World Series of Poker Daily Update: A Star-Studded Cast at the Rio

June 6th, 2016 | by Brian Corlisse

Allen Cunningham (left front) and Jason Somerville (orange shirt) compete in a $1,500 Dealers Choice event at the 2016 World Series of Poker.

Day Five of the 2016 World Series of poker brought out the superstars, and put some unknown players in a position to achieve a dream.

Colossus II started with over 21,000 players and is now left with just 77 $1 million hopefuls. Left in the field are a couple of stars such as Ylon Schwartz and David “ODB” Baker. But the majority of the field is a bunch of players who are unknown to the poker community. One of those players will be well-known in a couple of days.

Ben Lindemulder has 5,325,000 chips, far greater than anyone else in the tournament. The Michigan resident has just one other cash in a WSOP event. That came in 2014 in a $1,000 no-limit tournament. He won $4,307 for 55^th place.

Where are the Women?

If you are someone who wants to see more women in poker, you won’t like what you’re about to read. There were 21,613 participants in the 2016 Colossus, but 94.1 percent of them were male.

Although women such as Vanessa Selbst, Kathy Liebert, Cate Hall, Maria Ho, Jennifer Harman, and many others over the years have shown that the ladies can play at the highest levels, there’s no doubt poker has a problem getting enough women into the game.

Women Can Dominate Poker

Don’t think women have game? In Event #5, $1,500 Dealers Choice, players such as Barry Greenstein, Greg Raymer, Jason Somerville, Mike Sexton, and Todd Brunson entered. But none of them was able to accumulate a larger stack than Svetlana Gromenkova on Day One.

The New York resident will start Day Two with a pretty sizable chip lead with 85 players left in the field. She has 99,600 chips, which is more than 17,000 greater than Richard Ashby’s second place chip stack.

Also still in the tournament: David Sklansky, Sorel Mizzi, Eli Elezra, Mike Matusow, and one of poker’s most hated players, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson.

$10,000 Stud Final Table

The stars are also still alive in Event #3, $10,000 Stud. The event is down to its final six players, and a few of them are among the most well-known names in poker history.

Robert Mizrachi (1,371,000), Matt Grapenthien (1,157,000), Steve Weiss (682,000), Ted Forrest (447,000), David Benyamine (363,000), and George Danzer (340,000) will battle it out for the gold bracelet and $242,662 on Monday.

For Mizrachi, a fourth WSOP bracelet is on the line. Forrest will be chasing his seventh overall bracelet and fifth in a stud-based event. He is considered by many the greatest seven-card stud player in history.

Mizrachi, on the other hand, has somewhat lived in the shadows of his brother Michael. But Robert has been successful as well. Another bracelet and he just might become known as Robert Mizrachi instead of Michael’s brother.