WSOP Circuit at Dusk Till Dawn: Christopher Brice Takes Main Event Lead, Mindaugas Kurlenskas Wins the Bounty

For three days, the big question in Nottingham was how large the overlay on the £1,500 WSOP Circuit Main Event would be. Friday answered most of it. Day 1D drew 366 entries, more than Days 1A, 1B and 1C put together, and the £1 million guarantee suddenly looks within reach.

Christopher Brice finished the night with 1,100,000 chips, the biggest stack in the tournament so far. Reigning WSOP Main Event champion Lucas Jumalon was among the players in the room. And in the £300 Bounty, Mindaugas Kurlenskas won the ring.

Here’s what happened, what the numbers mean, and what’s left before Day 2.

Quick results

• Main Event Day 1D: 366 entries, 55 players bag, Christopher Brice leads with 1,100,000 (106 big blinds)
• Main Event total so far: 627 entries over four flights, 94 players through to Day 2
• Event #10, £300 Bounty: Mindaugas Kurlenskas wins £6,587 plus his bounties
• Today (Saturday): final Main Event starting flight, plus the Colossus and the High Roller

Main Event Day 1D: Friday flips the story

The first three flights were quiet. Day 1A drew 62 entries, Day 1B 66 and Day 1C 133, a total of 261. Then Friday’s flight brought in 366 on its own, about 40% more than the previous three days combined.

That pattern is common at UK festivals. Many players have to work during the week, so they travel on Friday and fire on the last flights. But the jump here was bigger than usual, and it changed the outlook for the guarantee overnight.

Exactly 55 of the 366 entries made it through, a 15% survival rate, in line with the earlier flights.

Day 1D top 11 chip counts:

1. Christopher Brice – 1,100,000 (106 BB)
2. Ayush Gandhi – 1,000,000 (101 BB)
3. Samuel Goodman – 970,000 (97 BB)
4. Matthew Rabb – 678,000 (67 BB)
5. Marius Varanavicius – 653,000 (65 BB)
6. Ashley Timms – 575,000 (57 BB)
7. David Ledden – 566,000 (56 BB)
8. Christopher Hutty – 517,000 (51 BB)
9. Nikolai Mamut – 503,000 (50 BB)
10. Andrew Mikhail – 488,000 (48 BB)
11. Umberan Akhtar – 472,000 (47 BB)

Brice and Ayush Gandhi were the only two players to bag seven figures. Samuel Goodman finished just short on 970,000. All three are clearly ahead of the earlier flight leaders: Marian-Ionut Farcas topped Day 1B with 744,000, and Gary Nordigian led Day 1A with 701,000.

There’s also a familiar name in sixth. Ashley Timms, who won the £560 Paradise Mystery Bounty earlier this week for £26,497, bagged 575,000. Taking a ring and a top-ten Main Event stack in the same festival makes Timms someone to watch if he goes deep again.

The world champion comes to Nottingham

The biggest name on Friday was Lucas Jumalon, the reigning WSOP Main Event champion. He also hosted a meet-up before the flight, playing a £1/£2 cash game where players could win a £1,500 Main Event seat. Whatever happens to his stack, it’s a smart promotion. Cash-game regulars rarely play a big tournament, but sitting with a world champion gave them a reason to try.

The £1M guarantee: from big worry to small gap

Earlier this week we worked out that the guarantee needs about 741 entries, based on £1,350 of each buy-in going into the prize pool. Here’s where things stand now:

• Day 1A: 62 entries (£83,700)
• Day 1B: 66 entries (£89,100)
• Day 1C: 133 entries (£179,550)
• Day 1D: 366 entries (£494,100)
• Total so far: 627 entries (£846,450)
• Needed: about 741 entries (£1,000,000)
• Shortfall: about 114 entries (about £153,550)

After Day 1B, the gap was more than 600 entries. Now it’s about 114. Saturday’s last flight will decide the rest, and the Mystery Bounty gives a clue: its Last Chance flight was the biggest of that event, with 177 entries. If the Main Event follows a similar pattern, the guarantee could be met or beaten. Even if it falls short, the overlay will be far smaller than it looked midweek.

For players thinking about a Saturday bullet, the value is still good. There may be a small overlay, and the field is softer than the 1D field, which included strong late-arriving regulars.

Event #10: Mindaugas Kurlenskas wins the £300 Bounty

The £300 Bounty drew 190 entries for a total of £49,400. Of that, £19,000 went into bounties (£100 per player) and £30,400 into the regular prize pool. So £260 of each £300 buy-in went back to players, with £40 (13.3%) kept as the fee.

Twenty-nine players cashed, about 15% of the field, with a min-cash of £355. Heads-up, Kurlenskas beat Nicholas Banks and took £6,587, a WSOP Circuit ring and a WSOP Paradise package.

Final results:

1. Mindaugas Kurlenskas – £6,587
2. Nicholas Banks – £4,303
3. Aiden Janus – £2,903
4. Haiwen Xu – £2,019
5. Luke Jacobson – £1,448
6. Judde Serrano Teixeira – £1,073
7. Jonathan Claxton – £822
8. Ahsan Qurban – £652
9. Chaofan Lei – £535
10. Bogdan Jaworski – £456
11. Anthony Whalley – £456

Kurlenskas’s prize was about 22% of the regular prize pool, or 22 times his buy-in, and that’s before counting the bounties he collected. Those amounts aren’t published, but every player he knocked out added £100 to his total.

How bounty events change the maths

If you’re new to bounty tournaments, here’s the key point: in this event, more than a third of all the money (38%) was in bounties, not in the payout table. That means you can profit without making a deep run. A player who knocks out three opponents and busts before the money still gets £300 back, the cost of the buy-in. It also means you should call a bit wider against short stacks, because winning the hand pays you the pot plus a £100 bounty.

The ring is only part of the prize. Every WSOPC UK ring winner also gets a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package for the Bahamas, so Kurlenskas’s £300 entry turned into prize money, bounties and a trip.

What’s next at WSOPC Dusk Till Dawn 2026

• Saturday 14 November: final Main Event starting flight, Colossus and High Roller
• Day 2: all 94 survivors from Days 1A to 1D, plus Saturday’s qualifiers, combine
• Sunday 15 November: Main Event final day

Brice will start Day 2 with the biggest stack, but Gandhi and Goodman are close behind. Players from the last flight could also overtake them. We’ll have the final entry count, and the answer to the guarantee question, in our next update.

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