Las Vegas pro busts at WSOP Main Event in stunning hand

Jared Bleznick spent the past few days repeatedly calling the World Series of Poker Main Event the best poker tournament in the world.

The high-stakes poker pro and prominent sports card collector might be rethinking that after what happened Saturday night.

Bleznick was eliminated from the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship at Horseshoe Las Vegas in one of the biggest pots of Day 1D when his opponent, Romain Locquet of France, made four-of-a-kind.

“Pretty disappointing, but the way I play tournament poker, I want to get a lot of chips early,” Bleznick said in an interview on PokerGO after busting out. “That was probably the sickest beat I’ve taken all summer. I enjoyed the table, it was a lot of fun. I’d rather have that happen today than four days in.”

During the fourth level of play, Bleznick, a Las Vegas resident, held pocket aces and engaged in an preflop raising war with Locquet. After Bleznick’s six-bet was called by Locquet with pocket nines, the pot had 79,400 chips in the middle. That’s more than the 60,000-chip starting stack.

The flop came four-nine-three, giving Locquet a set of nines and a commanding lead in the hand. But Bleznick, sensing he was still ahead, fired a bet of 30,000 chips. Locquet just called, and the turn card was another nine, giving him quads.

Bleznick quickly jammed his remaining 63,900 chips, and Locquet called with his opponent drawing dead.

Locquet rocketed to the top of the Day 1D leaderboard after the hand and finished the day with 296,000 chips, the fifth-largest stack in the room.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on X.