Reeves Ransacked in Brutal Bubble at the WSOP Main Event

By Jonathan Raab

11 Jul 2024

Jonathan Raab 11 Jul 2024

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Bubble Bursts in the WSOP Main Event
Two Players Split the 1,517th place prize
Lucas Reeves Bubbles the Bubble Prize

Double Bubble at the WSOP (Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)

The Bubble Has Burst in the 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event

Last night I stone cold bubbled an $11 Micro Millions event on PokerStars. 2,780th, with just 2,779 players getting paid. It was a PKO and I’d already racked up over $20 in bounties, but missed out on a further min cash of $8.73 by pushing with AQ off-suit when a fold would have guaranteed me the money.

Was it a mistake? Probably, but I’d decided I was going for gold rather than creeping into the money and this was the best hand I’d seen in many orbits of the table. It wasn’t good enough, falling to pocket tens.

I didn’t feel too bad about it, it wasn’t a life changing amount of money on the table, I would not even have to forgo my weekly take-away meal treat this weekend as a result.

The Day After the Night Before

I had almost forgotten about it when I woke up this morning, got myself a bun and started to read some updates from Day 4 of the WSOP Main Event.

Yesterday I reported that the overnight Best of the Brits left in the 55th World Series of Poker Main Event was Lucas Reeves, on 1.3m chips. They were just 23 players away from a minimum payout of $15,000 and it seemed inconceivable that Reeves would miss out, as he was in 27th place overnight, with 1,540 players left.

Kings v Aces on the Bubble of the WSOP Main Event

And when Lucas Reeves picked up pocket kings early on Day 4 he still would have been confident of a $15,000 payday. He got it all in against Marcelo Tadeu Aziz Jr, who had him covered. To Lucas’s horror, he was up against the one hand he didn’t want to seem pocket aces. The board provided no help, Lucas was eliminated.

Double Bubble

As the play was hand-for-hand, it still wasn't determined that Lucas was the bubble and whether he would scoop the consolation Bubble Prize, which is an entry into next year’s WSOP Main Event, worth $10,000.

Another player did bust, so Reeves and that player split the 1,517th place prize, $7,500 each, but less than the buy-in of the tournament. However there was still the matter of the Bubble prize to be determined.

It Gets Worse for Reeves

It was settled with a high card draw with the other player who had been eliminated on the same hand, Christian Stratmeyer. Reeves lost the high card, which meant that the official boy of the Main Event was Stratmeyer and he was the one who received the free 2025 $10,000 entry.

From being one of the chip leaders to out and then bubbling the bubble prize all in the space of a few minutes must have been pretty hard to take. Definitely a lot worse than bubbling the Micro Millions. Lucas Reeves, unlucky fella, I feel bad for you.