Moneymaker Busts with Full House as Main Event Kicks Off

The quest to see who the next world champion of poker will be kicked off last night in Vegas with 7-time bracelet winner Billy Baxter doing the ‘shuffle up and deal’ honours…

Billy Baxter used few words to announce 'shuffle up and deal!' for Flight 1A of the 2025 Main Event. Watch Flight 1A on https://t.co/pGPDDvqFQG starting at 7pm PT/10pm ET. #WSOP2025 pic.twitter.com/xvr3RoQrih

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 2, 2025

Some 923 players took the earliest opportunity to stake their claim at WSOP glory and riches as day 1a filled the Horseshoe and Vegas Casino and, as ever, all eyes were on who would exit first. Casualty vampires maybe, but we’ve all had the nightmare of being first to fall.

Seat open!

Lauren Hazelgreen was the headline act, facing a 3-bet on the flop…

Lauren Hazelgreen: A♠ J♠
Pedro Garagnani: 10♠ 10♥

Flop: 10♣ J♣ 4♦

…and deciding to shove with TPTK into a bloated pot. The bad news didn’t improve…

Turn: 6♠

River: A♥

Everyone else in the room could breathe a sigh of relief, but 300 players would join Hazelgreen on the Main Event rail before the day was done, some very big names among them:

BUSTED!

• Chris Moneymaker (2003 Main Event champ)
• Joe Cada (2009 Main Event champ)
• Barny Boatman (original Hendon Mobster)
• Billy Baxter (Poker Hall of Famer)
• Jean Robert Bellande (highstakes cash game pro)

Moneymaker’s exit was a brutal one…

Chris Moneymaker: Q♠ J♦
David Brown: Q♦ Q♣

Flop: J♠ J♣ 6♥

Moneymaker, in the small blind, check called to the turn…

Turn: 10♠

Play went check, check…

River: Q♥

A raising war saw Brown 5-bet shove and the 2003 champ had a very difficult decision to make for his tournament life.

“Do you really have pocket queens?” asked Moneymaker, eventually settling on “If you’ve got queens, you’ve got queens”, putting his chips in and that was that for big Chris!

BAGGED!

Those who made it through the five 2-hour levels to bag a day 2 stack included:

• Johnny Lodden (Norwegian poker-boom legend)
• Adrian Mateos (highstakes MTT beast)
• Bobby Baldwin (1978 Main Event champ)
• Scott Blumstein (2017 Main Event champ)
• Martin Kabrhel (most-disliked player of all-time?)

Czech highstakes pro Kabrhel was fresh off his win of the Mini-Main Event, turning $1k into 843 buy-ins for the Main Event proper. Will he run deep again?

.@martinkabrhell Defeats Alexander Yen Heads-Up to Win the Mini Main for $843,140!

This puts him in the lead for the POY Race!#WSOP2025 pic.twitter.com/tlSbHn84bM

— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 2, 2025

His big win (and 4^th WSOP gold) didn’t prevent him from moaning about an extended streamed table and you can expect to see and hear more from the motormouth as the Main Event progresses.

Day 1a Top 10 chip counts

We’ll be bringing you all the best of the action from this year’s WSOP main Event, so be sure to check in regularly for all the latest news!

Andrew Burnett

Professional Poker Journalist

An avid poker player, he dreams of one day playing the WSOP Main Event and has promised himself he will fold aces and kings if he gets them on the first hand to avoid front-page headlines. [more]