Lucas Jumalon tried to bully the other eight players with his big chip stack on the first day of the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event.
His aggressiveness eventually paid off Monday.
Jumalon increased his chip lead in the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship at Horseshoe Events Center and finally put some distance between himself and his opponents.
The Spokane, Washington, resident was sitting on 204 million chips at 10 p.m., well ahead of Lauri Saaskilahti with eight players still remaining.
The Main Event continues at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Horseshoe Events Center with Day 2 of the three-day final table. ESPN’s coverage is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. The champion is set to be crowned Wednesday on ESPN.
All the remaining players are guaranteed $1.25 million.
Jumalon, 22, is looking to become the second-youngest winner of the Main Event. He entered the final table with a massive advantage holding 35 percent of the chips in play (194 million) and moved over 213 million in the first hour of play.
But Jumalon voluntarily put chips in the pot (VPIP) on 41 percent of the hands during the first three hours, and that hyperactivity created opportunities for the rest of the table before he regained traction as action in the tournament continued late Monday.
Saaskilahti, the first player from Finland to reach the Main Event final table, was the biggest mover and nearly tripled his starting stack after four hours of play. He put immense pressure on his opponents was sitting on 80.5 million.
Saaskilahti took advantage of a misstep from Jumalon to win a big pot and later got away with a river bluff against Greg Mueller to muscle him off a big pot.
The final table didn’t see many fireworks as many of the players remained inactive waiting for the short stacks to be eliminated. There were few big clashes, and it took approximately 2½ hours before the first player was knocked out.
Rami Hammoud of Canada won the largest hand of the day when he doubled-up with ace-queen against the pocket 10s of Jamie Shaevel. Hammoud hit an ace on the flop to take down a pot worth 89 million chips.
Hammoud had 80 million at 10 p.m. and was sitting in third place.
Han Feng, who was dressed in full cosplay as Donquixote Doflamingo of the Japanese anime “One Piece” with a pink feather boa, battled as the short stack during much of the action and moved into fourth place with 66.5 million chips late.
Mueller, a former professional hockey player in Germany whose sizable cheering section included Philadelphia Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, capitalized on Jumalon’s aggressiveness to scoop a key pot. But he gave most of those chips back to Saaskilahti when Mueller folded the best hand facing a sizable bet from his opponent.
Mueller was fifth at 47.5 million, nearly identical to his stack at the start of the day.
Michael Gagliano, a four-time WSOP champion, took a late hit to his stack after gaining on Jumalon and . The resident of New Jersey held 30 million at 10 p.m.
Mario Boos of France and Shaevel were the short stacks at 22.5 million and 22 million, respectively.
Evagoras Evagorou of Cypress, who came in as the short stack, scored a double-up through Jumalon before he was eliminated in ninth place by Shaevel and took home $1 million.
“I’m very, very happy. It was an amazing experience,” Evagorou said in an interview with ESPN. “To reach the final table is surreal. At the moment I’m at little disappointed because I lost a flip, but at the end of the day I am happy for what I achieved.”
Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on X.
