The 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) continues to crown new champions and award massive cash prizes. While the main event continued to captivate the poker world, several events played down to a champion on weekend. Following over 13 hours of play on Day 2, the first-ever Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration was one of the key events to conclude. The event crowned its first champion in Francis Anderson, who overcame a massive field of 4,263 players and defeated Brent Lee in a brief and intense heads-up to win a career-best $501,040.
This was his first-ever gold bracelet victory following several near misses. In 2019, he finished fourth in the $2,620 ‘Marathon’ event and then came third in the 2022 ‘Monster Stack’ for $449,912. Last year, he finished fourth again in the 2023 Poker Hall of Fame bounty event. After several near misses, he finally got the monkey off his back by winning the WSOP 2024 Independence Day Celebration.
The WSOP 2024 Independence Day Celebration generated a massive $4,781,568, which was finally shared by the top 356 players with a min cash worth $2,550. Plenty of notables cashed, including WSOP 2024 Event #77 winner Wing Po Liu (147th-$4,150), Kenny Hallaert (126th-$4,150), two-time bracelet winner John Riordan ( (97th-$4,780), two-time bracelet winner Mark Seif (41st – $13,350 ), three-time bracelet winner Ari Engel (35th – $16,300), bracelet winner Benjamin Ector (21st- 20,050), and two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani (7th -$81,660).
The top six walked away with six-figure paydays. Bamshad Azizi cracked pocket kings of Tom Cohen with pocket sixes to bust him in sixth place ($105,960). Azizi (5th – $138,490) hit the rail after his pocket nines clashed with the pocket jacks of Brent Lee. Donnie Barnard got it in with Q-9 suited against the pocket queens of Lee to hit the rail in fourth place ($182,350).
Lee continued his domination, with his pocket fives holding against A-4 for Taylor Williams in the next all-in confrontation. Williams earned $241,850 as the third-place finisher. Heads-up saw Lee as the chip leader against Anderson, who was able to close the gap. Anderson’s pocket kings then won a big pot against the top pair of queens of Lee. Anderson called all-in on the river to overtake the lead.
Finally, it all ended with Lee shoving for over eight big blinds with Qd 2d. Anderson called with 4s 4d.The board brought 10c 9h 6s 3s 5h and Anderson’s pocket fours won him the pot and the title. Lee walked away with a career-best payday of $323,080 as the runner-up.
Team India Performance
From Team India, an impressive five Indians cashed in the Independence Day Celebration. Premnath Kasinath, owner of PSL’s Gujarat Falcons, ran deepest among. He finished 19th for $21,250 – his best WSOP score, which took his series winnings to $21,250 from two deep runs. In his final hand, Kasinath moved all in with As Kh after a raise by Donnie Barnard who held Ah 10h in early position. Barnard made the call and the board ran out 10h 5h 10d Kc 4h and Kasinath was eliminated by Barnard’s trips.
Joining him among the other Indian cashers were WSOP debutant Uday Kwatra (78th – $6,520), Abhishek Paul (160th – $4,150), Sreekanth Narayan (264th – $3,620) & multiple bracelet winner Nipun Java (266th – $3,200).
WSOP 2024 Event #80: $800 Independence Day Celebration Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
| 1 | Francis Anderson | $501,040 |
| 2 | Brent Lee | $323,080 |
| 3 | Taylor Williams | $241,850 |
| 4 | Donnie Barnard | $182,350 |
| 5 | Bamshad Azizi | $138,490 |
| 6 | Tom Cohen | $105,960 |
| 7 | Martin Zamani | $81,660 |
| 8 | Regina Vega Sevilha | $63,410 |
| 9 | Jaskaran Brar | $49,613 |
WSOP 2024 Main Event Update: Many Indians Advance To Day 2D
Over to Event #81: $10K WSOP Main Event, over 1,907 players bagged for Day 2ABC on Day 39 of the ongoing series. Japanese pro Mikiya Kudo bagged the chip lead with 600,100 chips (750 BBs). Legends Phil Hellmuth (66,700) & Daniel Negreanu (37,900) also clinched their spot into Day 2ABC. From India, Yasheel Doddanavar led the pack with 84,300 chips (105 BBs). India’s WSOP 2024 Super High Roller champion Santhosh Suvarna bagged 60,600 chips (76 BBs), followed by Deepankur Gupta (60,500), Avneesh Munjal (56,700), Ankit Wadhawan (27,300) & Muskan Sethi (17,500)!
Day 40 of the WSOP 2024 was a blockbuster one. The Main Event turned out to be the biggest Day 1 ever, with a staggering 5,014 players joining the fray. This took the total field a whopping 9,288, making it the second biggest field in the main event history. With late registration still open for Day 2ABC and 2D, last year’s 10,043 record is likely to be broken.
John McDonald ended up as the Day 1D chip leader with a massive stack of 496,000. Trailing him in the top stacks were Brian Hastings (252,100) and Aram Zobian (231,400).
Plenty of Indians advanced from Day 1D. Ashish Munot amassed a formidable 200,000 chips (250 BBs) to headline Indian chip counts. Kavin Shah (175,600 -219 BBs), Sriharsha Doddapaneni (169,300), Tarun Goyal (156,000), Kunal Punjwani (149,000), Sreekanth Narayan (146,400), Adda52 Game Ambassador Arun Sriram (134,800), and Akshay Bharadwaj (122,200) were other other Indians to bag respectable stacks to advance to Day 2D.
Ankit Ahuja (82,400), Zarvan Tumboli (71,400), Rahul Melwani (68,500), Aditya Systla (59,900), WSOP bracelet winner Aditya Sushant (50,700), Abhishek Paul (48,500), Anil Adiani (24,100), and Abhishek Goindi (10,800) also managed their spots into Day 2D.
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