Cherokee Main Event Reaches Final 11 After 1,681 Entries
Curtis King leads the WSOP Circuit field with 11.2 million chips as the prize pool passes $2.5 million.
The WSOP Circuit Cherokee Main Event is down to its final 11 players after pulling in 1,681 entries. Curtis King leads the field with 11.2 million chips, or 112 big blinds, and the prize pool topped $2.5 million. The winner is set to collect just over $363,000.
According to PokerOrg, that turnout made the event the third-largest Main Event in Cherokee history, and it was the biggest late-summer version of the tournament. The February edition usually brings in the larger crowd.
King has not won at Cherokee before, but he has come close. He finished second in the 2016 8-Max and third in the 2023 6-Max, and he needs at least a fifth-place finish to top his career-best score of $68,000. His second-ever cash in the event came after a win at Hard Rock Tampa a few months after his first Cherokee cash.
Ryan D’Angelo is right behind him with 9.6 million chips, or 96 big blinds. His Hendon Mob history goes back to 2006, and a third-place finish in a $2,000 bracelet event in 2008, a 2016 deuce-to-seven bracelet, a Cherokee win in 2023 and a near-miss in February, when he lost heads-up in the Double Stack Closer.
Toby Boas sits third with 8.3 million chips, or 77 big blinds, and comes in fresh off a second-place finish in the Grand Finale at the BetMGM Summer Poker Festival in Las Vegas that paid $74,000 back to Gainesville, Florida. He has never won a WSOP Circuit ring, and he is trying to improve on a fourth-place finish in this event in February.
Scott Gronroos is next with 7.7 million chips and has already secured his first five-figure score, with $23,000 locked up. Kataka Eaton follows with 7.5 million chips, and all five of her live cashes since 2019 have come on the Circuit, three of them at Cherokee; her best result remains second in Biloxi in 2019 for $6,945.
Donta Moss and Wayne Harmon are next in line, with a gap before Andrew Kelsall in eighth. Caio Sobral, Jeremy Eyer and David Sathue round out the final 11. The players are due back at 12pm ET with blinds at 50,000/100,000/100,000, and Cherokee still remains the top stop in the United States.
