WSOP Main Event final table down to 7 players; 22-year-old pro leads

The World Series of Poker Main Event is down to seven players.

After six hours of action in the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship at Horseshoe Events Center, play was halted late Monday with Lucas Jumalon maintaining the chip lead.

Jumalon, a 22-year-old professional poker player from Spokane, Washington, has 212 million chips, twice as many as his next closest competitor.

The Main Event continues at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Horseshoe Events Center with ESPN’s coverage scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. The champion is set to be crowned Wednesday on ESPN.

All the remaining players are guaranteed $1.5 million but are chasing the $10 million top prize.

“We just dodged the landmines,” Jumalon said in an interview with ESPN. “I think I did a pretty good job today bobbing and weaving. We lost a couple of medium pots and hung in there and stemmed the tide a little bit. It was a good day.”

While Jumalon maintained his chip lead, Han Feng was the biggest mover going from eighth place at the start of play to second place. Dressed in a pink feather boa and full cosplay as Donquixote Doflamingo from the Japanese anime “One Piece,” Feng finished with 106.5 million chips.

Feng was on fumes at one point late Monday but survived an all-in against eighth-place finisher Mario Boos to double-up and continued to build his stack after that with well-timed aggression. He won a big pot with pocket queens on the final hand of the night against Lauri Saaskilahti of Finland.

Saaskilahti was one of the most active players throughout and finished in third place with 84.5 million after starting the final table seventh in chips.

There were only two eliminations Monday, with Evagoras Evagorou of Cyprus leaving in ninth place and Boos departing in eighth.

Rami Hammoud, Michael Gagliano, Jamie Shaevel are all left with less than 20 big blinds, while Greg Mueller starts Day 2 of the final table as the short stack with 11 big blinds.

Chip counts

Lucas Jumalon: 212 million

Han Feng: 106.5 million

Lauri Saaskilahti: 84.5 million

Rami Hammoud: 45.5. million

Michael Gagliano: 42 million

Jamie Shaevel: 33 million

Greg Mueller: 29.5 million