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We have three PokerStars World Championship of Poker (WCOOP) results to bring you up to speed on, all of which resulted in a second WCOOP triumph for each last man seated.

We start with Ludovic Geilich.

The Scotsman, wore his partypoker patch with pride, as he outlasted a 94-entrant field in Event #10 {H}: $10,300 No Limit Hold’em 8-Max High Roller for $238,966. It’s the second time Geilich has won a WCOOP title with the words’ high roller’ in the event headline. In 2016, the partypoker pro beat 93-entrants in a $21,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max High Roller for $462,182.

The final day of the two-day event lasted less than six hours, and as you can see from the results, Geilich had to overcome a final table brimming with some of the most talented No-Limit Hold’em players in the world.

Final Table Results

  1. Ludovic Geilich – $238,966
  2. Ole Schemion – $184,676
  3. Chris Hunichen – $142,719
  4. Mikita Badziakouski – $110,295
  5. Thomas Muehloecker – $85,237
  6. Timothy Adams – $65,872
  7. Filipe Oliveira – $50,907
  8. Fishbones11 – $39,341
  9. Pieter Aerts – $31,510

Niklas Astedt Wins Event #39 (H): $5,200 No Limit Hold’em Progressive KO, High Roller

Niklas Astedt also binked a second WCOOP title.

The Swedish online star won Event #39 (H): $5,200 No Limit Hold’em Progressive KO, High Roller for $201,055, and in doing so prevented Gleb Tremzin from winning his fifth WCOOP title.

Astedt has been on the top of the online multi-table tournament (MTT) world several times (as ranked by PocketFives) and has accrued more than $21m in online earnings, supplemented by a big win in August, defeating 100-entrants in a $10,300 event in the PokerStars Stadium Series for $230,434.70.

Final Table Results

  1. Niklas Astedt – $201,055
  2. Gleb Tremzin – $120,898
  3. Wesoly78 – $86,103
  4. Christian Rudolph – $67,843
  5. Bayaraa1002 – $49,579
  6. Alexandros Theologis – $41,267
  7. Manuel Ruivo – $44,380
  8. Igor Yaroshevskyy – $20,849
  9. Ognyan Dimov – $28,346

Andras Nemeth Wins Event #37 (H): $5,200 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max High Roller

From one multiple PocketFives World #1 to another, and Andras Nemeth collected the second WCOOP title of his career. Both of them came within a week of each other. Firstly he topped a field of 294-entrants to win the $530+R 8-max event for $79,655.48, and then he went on and won the $5,200 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max High Roller for $140,506.

Nemeth conquered high stakes Pot Limit Omaha star, Richard Gryko, heads-up, for the title. Laszlo Bujtas, Joao Vieira and Shaun Deeb also featured on the final table.

Final Table Results

  1. Andras Nemeth – $140,506
  2. Richard Gryko – $107,761
  3. Laszlo Bujtas – $82,648
  4. Us_Alex – $63,387
  5. Aku1206 – $48,614
  6. Joao ‘Naza114’ Vieira – $37,285
  7. Shaun ‘shaundeeb’ Deeb – $28,596

It took until the final event of the series, but one man won his bracelet bet against Daniel Negreanu, and that man’s name is Connor Drinan.

Ahead of the tandem World Series of Poker (WSOP) series on WSOP.com and GGPoker, Drinan was always going to be Negreanu’s biggest problem, especially after a year that saw him collect a record five Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) titles on PokerStars.

But boy did Drinan leave it late.

Event #83: $10,000 Super MILLION$ saw the $5m guarantee pale into insignificance as 899-entrants turned up for the final WSOP hurrah of the 2020 season, and Drinan placed a clean white pillow over the heads of the last six players suffocating the lot on his way to a $1.4m payday, and a $100,000 flick of the wrist from Negreanu.

It was the 37th time that Drinan had made money in a WSOP bracelet event and his seventh final table. Before this win, he had finished ninth in Event #75: $300 Double Stack No Limit Hold’em (3,552 entrants), and seventh in Event #50: $2,100 No Limit Hold’em Bounty (1168 entrants), both on GGPoker. He also finished sixth in Event #13: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em (649-entrants) on WSOP.com.

Drinan has also made three final tables in Las Vegas finishing 4/516 in a 2013 $5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event, 4/815 in a 2015 $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better, and 7/1117 in the same event in 2019.

It was a final table with a lot of class.

Chris Oliver is a former PocketFives World #1 with more than $13.3m in online earnings, who in 2011 picked up $1.8m for finishing second to Galen Hall in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.

Sylvain Loosli finished fourth in the 2013 WSOP Main Event for $2.8m and was appearing in his third final table after finishing 5/113 in a €25,000 No Limit Hold’em event at the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE). Chris Kruk appeared in his third WSOP final table after finishing 3/400 in a $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout in 2016, and 8/109 in the 2018 $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship.

Suraj Mishra also brought the heat, booking a sixth-place finish for $288,836 a hop, skip and a jump away from finishing runner-up to Ivan Zufic in the 15,205-entrant $500 Mini Main Event for $586,157

Here are the final table results.

Results

  1. Connor Drinan – $1,423,049
  2. Daniyar Aubakirov – $1,041.414
  3. Viktor Ustimov – $755,754
  4. Chris Oliver – $548,450
  5. Sylvain Loosli – $398,010
  6. Suraj Mishra – $288,836
  7. Chris Kruk – $209,609
  8. Arsenii Malinov – $152,113
  9. Kenneth Smaron – $110,389

Three other high rollers who went deep into this thing before turning into David Bowie’s ashes were Elior Sion (23rd), Joao Vieira (26th), and Sam Trickett (27th).

Fedor Holz

Fedor Holz has earned a second career bracelet on the final day of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online Series on GGPoker. The GGPoker Ambassador conquered a field of 127-entrants in Event #79: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em to win the sliver of gold and $1m first prize.

Holz is a modern-day legend of the felt racking up more than $32.5m in live tournament earnings, and countless millions more playing online multi-table tournaments (MTTs).

The German All-Time #1 Live Tournament Money Earner is one of those strange beasts who seem capable of winning the lot in both realms. He is a multiple PocketFives World #1, and in 2014 he won the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $1.3m.

The last time Holz appeared in an ITM list of a WSOP event came in 2018 when he finished runner-up to Justin Bonomo in the $1m buy-in Big One for One Drop for $6m. Holz defeated Bonomo en route to this win, and the man Bonomo beat for the 2018 $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up bracelet, Jason Mcconnon, also had a deep run, making the final eight.

Holz defeated Bruno Botteon in the final bracket. Botteon finished 6/407 in the $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Poker Players Championship. There was also a third deep run in the GGPoker series for Sergi Reixach. The Spaniard made it to the final four in this one, adding to his 7/328 in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship, and 3/301 in the $10,000 Short Deck No Limit Hold’em Championship.

Here are the results of the last four.

Results

Final

Fedor Holz ($1,077,025) beats Brunno Botteon ($622,300)

Semi-Finals

Brunno Botteon beats Oktay Kahyaoglu ($311,150)

Fedor Holz beats Sergi Reixach ($311,150)

Fedor Holz’s Run

Round of 128 – Luc Greenwood
Round of 64 – Anton Morgenstern
Round of 32 – Robert Flink
Round of 16 – George Wolff
Round of 8 – Justin Bonomo
Round of 4 – Sergi Reixach
Round of 2 – Bruno Botteon

partypoker has added another high roller to their impressive sponsored pro team, with Benjamin Pollak joining from France. The appointment comes amid partypoker EU’s POWERFEST festivities promising €5m in guarantees in France, and €4.5m in Spain.

Pollak spent his early years working his magic on the stage, and will now swing his wand on the partypoker online platform alongside the likes of Anatoly Filatov, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Philipp Gruissem. 

The French star first came to prominence on the World Poker Tour (WPT) where a batch of near misses catapulted him into the purview of the poker media such as finishing fourth in WPT Prague (2011), and second in WPT Barcelona (2013). But he hit the big time in 2017 finishing third in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $3.5m. 

Pollak took the confidence gained from that WSOP Main Event run and spun it up on the European Poker Tour (EPT) High Roller scene, collected a whole host of fantastic results including winning a €50,000 Super High Roller in Barcelona for $1.1m. Pollak has also binked decent scores stateside including winning an event during the 2018 US Poker Open. His most recent victory came last year, taking down a €25,000 High Roller during EPT Monte Carlo.

“I’m thrilled and very excited to join the partypoker team,” said Pollak. “They’ve supported players from the beginning and see the game as I do. I couldn’t be happier to support them and be part of this great adventure. See you all around the tables!”

Pollak isn’t the only Frenchman representing partypoker. Lilian ‘Clae’ Erdmann and Julien Achard-Stropoli represent the Twitch team, and the legendary Bruno Fitoussi sits on the advisory board. 

It’s not the first time that Pollak has represented an online gambling brand, having spent time promoting Betclic and Everest Poker back in the day. 

Las Vegas police have arrested a 46-year-old woman from Arizona on suspicion of stealing $1m in cash, casino chips and jewellery from the home of Antonio Esfandiari. The fuzz has charged, Svitlana Silva, with residential burglary and possession of stolen goods valued at $100,000 or more.

According to reports, Esfandiari and his father Bejan reported the incident to authorities on July 14, after returning to their condo at Panorama Towers to find an empty safe.

Here is a list of missing items.

$150,000 in cash.
$300,000 to $500,000 in casino chips.
One Drop bracelet worth $350,000
Hublot Aerofusion watch worth $35,000
Cartier watch worth $6,000
Gucci watch worth $2,000
Patek Philippe watch worth $7,000
A gold suitcase

Yes, a gold suitcase.

The Accused

The Esfandiari father and son tag team told officials that Silva was the only other person with access to the condo having lived on and off with Bejan for several months, where she had spent time alone there on numerous occasions.

Bejan told police that he suspected Silva had figured out the passcode to the safe because she had his passcodes for his iPad and iPhone and the keycodes were similar.

Silva told the police that she had moved out of the condo in March, and on the day of the burglary, she had seen a ‘random guy’ in the Esfandiari’s condo with the stolen goods. Contrary to that tale, Silva’s ex-husband told the police that Silva had told him she had taken $200,000 from the safe, and that it was her money.

How Did She Get Caught?

It seems Silva likes a spot of poker.

In the wake of the incident, friends of Esfandiari told him that Silva had rocked up to a private poker game losing $5,000, $20,000 and then two hits of $30,000. After losing all of her cash, someone then drove her to her pad where she returned to the game $100,000 in Aria chips. After dusting them off, next came $200,000 in Bellagio chips, and this time she won and cashed out.

Reports indicate that after the game Silva texted a player who had been paid with her chips to ask if she could buy back the lost Aria chips. A second text read, “Hey forgot to tell you my chips has special mark on computer so if its stolen they can’t cash out.”

The police caught up with Silva in the Aria car park and found a lump of cash and chips on her person. She received bail, and the Las Vegas Justice Court will hear the case in October.

With the World Series of Poker (WSOP) winding down on GGPoker it’s time for PokerStars to enter the mental moorland of online poker mega multi-table tournament (MTT) series’s with the return of the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP).

It was a fantastic opening night for PokerStars with one of their own bagging his first-ever WCOOP title. Benjamin ’Spraggy’ Spragg delighted his Twitch stream who bore witness to his victory in a $5.50 No Limit Hold’em 8-Max. ’Spraggy’ conquered a field of 12,192-entrants to claim the $4,349.41 first prize. He also finished 9/1091 in the $530 version of that event in what would have been an incredible double.

On the high roller front, the biggest tournament of the first two days saw two former PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event winners trying to deprive each other of a WCOOP title.

The $10,300 No Limit Hold’em 8-Max, PKO Sunday Slam, attracted 136-entrants, and Dimitar Danchev out-duelled Mike Watson for the $400,495 first prize and WCOOP honours. The Bulgarian #1 in the All-Time Money List on The Hendon Mob claimed victory after A7o beat KQc when all-in pre-flop. Danchev began the heads-up phase with the dominant chip lead and collected a hefty purse thanks to gathering close to a quarter of a million bucks in bounties. It’s Danchev’s first WCOOP title, and in winning it, he denied Watson his third.

Watson comes into the WCOOP on the back of winning three titles in this year’s Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP), taking his total SCOOP title account to five.

Here are the final table results.

Results

  1. Dimitar Danchev – $400,495
  2. Mike Watson – $198,463
  3. Joao Vieira – $103,149
  4. Javier Fernandez – $112,039
  5. 663Daur – $73,066
  6. Ryhor Karapanau – $61,604
  7. Pieter Aerts – $50,170
  8. Jans Arends – $55,241
  9. Andrey Novak – $40,483

2020 WSOP Online: Bryan Piccioli Leads Final 38-Players in The WSOP Main Event

In 2017, moments after falling in sixth place in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $1.675m, Bryan Piccioli told reporters, “I’ve always dreamed of making it here. When I started playing poker, it was my dream to make the Main Event final table. I always knew that if I made it, I would have an incredible support group with me, and they lived up to expectations and beyond. They’ve been amazing.”

I wonder how they will all fit inside his house?

Piccioli is the chip leader with 38-players remaining in Event #77: $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event at the WSOP Online Series on GGPoker. The event attracted an astonishing 5,082-entrants, smashing the $25m guarantee, and creating the largest prizepool in online multi-table tournament (MTT) history ($27,559,500).

At the start of Day 2, there were 1,171 players in the mist, but by the time birdsong broke, only 38-remained with Piccioli looking to make his second WSOP Main Event Final Table, albeit two very different types of table.

Piccioli isn’t the only known player in the mix. Stefan Schillabel has come out of retirement to snatch a 15th place spot, and high stakes star Chris Brewer sits in 27th. Online stars Benjamin Rolle (8th) and Samuel Vousden (29th) are also in contention, as are fellow bracelet winners Michael Lech (30th) and Arkadiy Tsinis (34th).

Here are the chip counts.

Chip Counts

  1. Bryan Piccioli – 18,417,494
  2. Michal Kane – 15,907,969
  3. Stoyan Madanzhiev – 15,299,783
  4. Kellyyy – 13,108,575
  5. Criag Timmis – 12,809,181
  6. Dinesh Alt – 11,681,173
  7. TiroGiro – 11,116,489
  8. Benjamin Rolle – 10,789,181
  9. HappyDX – 10,553,281
  10. Joao Santos – 10,433,786
  11. Tyler Cornell – 10,152,249
  12. Dingxiang Ong – 9,320,927
  13. Xuming Qi – 8,842,916
  14. WhyEsEi – 8,635,342
  15. Stefan Schillhabel – 8,412,841
  16. Satoshi Ismoae – 8,359,674
  17. Maicon Gasperin – 8,171,017
  18. Joshua Mccully – 7,906,110
  19. Tyler Rueger – 7,692,938
  20. Tzai Wei Phua – 7,338,038
  21. Martin Arce – 6,131,772
  22. Jonas Lauck – 6,118,751
  23. Avidan Cohen – 5,880,731
  24. Manuel Saavedra – 5,847,283
  25. Lucas Tabarin – 5,695,282
  26. Phachara Wongwichit – 5,135,525
  27. Chris Brewer – 4,908,096
  28. Julien Perouse – 4,866,548
  29. Samuel Vousden – 4,241,694
  30. Michael Lech – 4,192,636
  31. Thomas Ward – 4,083,422
  32. Mateusz Rypulak – 4,079,246
  33. Ricky Tang – 3,397,845
  34. Arkadiy Tsinis – 2,394,386
  35. Freek Scholten – 2,248,788
  36. Julian Stuer – 2,111,979
  37. Aleksandr Trofimov – 1,602,207
  38. Evgeny Galakhov – 958,516

And payouts.

Payouts

  1. $3,904,686
  2. $2,748,605
  3. $1,928,887
  4. $1,353,634
  5. $949,937
  6. $666,637
  7. $467,825
  8. $328,305
  9. $230,395

The bracelet for the $25,000 No Limit Hold ’em Poker Player’s Championship is currently sealed in a DHL bag heading to the home of Christian Rudolph. The German star overcame a 407-entrant field to win the $1.8m first prize.

Coming into the event, Jason Koon had all of the skills, experience and chip lead. Still, it would be a final table to forget for the Triton Ambassador, who doubled up Chris Hunichen, on his way to a disappointing seventh-place finish.

Hunichen would make fair use of those chips, finishing in second place for $1.3m. It’s the second time that Hunichen has earned a million bucks after pocketing $1m for coming third in the 2019 partypoker MILLIONS World Bahamas. It’s also his second bridesmaid finish in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) event, finishing second to Nadar Kakhmazov in a 2017 $5,000 No Limit Hold ’em 6-Handed event.

Rudolph also knows what it feels like to come a mosquito’s thong width from a bracelet win. The German star lost out to Michael Addamo in the live version of this event during the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE). He made two more final tables before this one. In 2017, he finished fifth in a $1,500 and sixth in a $5,000 No Limit Hold ’em event.

Here is the nutshell action.

The Nutshell Action

Alaiksei Boika became the first player to hit the rail after jamming over a Shankar Pillai open with Ad5d. Pillai showed AhJh and flopped a much-needed second jack after Boika also hit a pair on the turn. Two fives didn’t cut the mustard and Boika left in ninth.

Then a big moment when Chris Hunichen doubled through Jason Koon for the chip lead. Big Huni opened for 500,000 from the hijack and then called after Koon had moved all-in with AdJs from the button. Hunichen called and held with pocket queens.

Paulius Plausinaitis exited in the eight place after shoving from the small blind, holding Kc9c, and finding a caller in the shape of Aram Zobian in the big blind. Zobian showed Td8c and flopped a second ten to move into third in chips.

The overnight chip leader, and favourite, fell in seventh.

Rudolph opened in midfield with AhQs, and then called and won when Koon shoved holding pocket tens.

Brunno Botteon fell in the sixth place when his pocket queens failed to get past the Ac8c of Rudolph when all-in during a blind turf war. Rudolph turned a straight to end Botteon’s involvement in the tournament.

Rudolph kept hacking away, and this time it was the head of Zobian that flew over the rail after winning a flip with pocket nines versus ace-queen. Aleksejs Pnakov left in fourth place when his KsQs couldn’t beat the Qc8c of Rudolph, and we reached heads-up when Hunichen eliminated Pillai AK>A9.

Heads-up began even in chips, but it was all Rudolph, who ended things in a 20-minute sweep. The final hand saw QT beating KQ when all-in pre-flop after Rudolph flopped a second ten.

Here are the final table results.

Results

  1. Christian Rudolph – $1,800,290
  2. Chris Hunichen – $1,332,097
  3. Shankar Pillai – $979,138
  4. Aleksejs Ponakovs – $719,700
  5. Aram Zobian – $529,005
  6. Brunno Botteon – $388,837
  7. Jason Koon – $285,808
  8. Paulis Plausinaitis – $210,079
  9. Aliaksei Boika – $154,416

As the Russian nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, released footage of the dropping of the most massive hydrogen bomb in history, one of their sons was dropping a few bombs of his own in Event #6: Mix-Max Championship at the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Online Championships.

Andrey Kotelnikov raised a mushroom cloud over the heads of 989-entrants on his way to victory in the $3,200 buy-in event on partypoker. Kotelnikov apprehended the $488,508 purse, a Hublot Classic Fusion Titanium watch, and a replica Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.

Kotelnikov had won three live tournaments before this success, including a $3,300 High Roller at partypoker MILLION Sochi and a European Poker Tour (EPT) side event, but this is his blistering best.

The final table housed a few standout performers including the WPT Champions Club member, Oleg Vasylchenko, who won WPT Prague in 2016, and the former WPT DeepStacks Champ & World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Niner, Jerry Wong.

The standout performer at the final was Bulgaria’s #1, Dimitar Danchev, who arrived at the last with more than $4.6m in live tournament earnings, including a victory in the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.

The Pistachio Nut Action

Wong exited first when AT ran into the bright headlights of Stuart Guite’s pocket queens. Danchev frittered and fluttered his way to the rail in sixth after his KQ lost in a race against the raggedy ace of Vasylchenko. Kotelnikov’s pocket eights treated Maciej Gasior’s pocket treys to a fifth-place exit before the WPT Champ found himself in the moorland beyond the rail when KQ ran into the AQ of our eventual winner.

We reached heads-up play after Kotelnikov’s QJ found two more queens when all-in versus the ace-rag of Sven Joakim Andersson. The sacking of the Swede saw Kotelnikov take on Stuart Guite with slightly more than a 2:1 chip lead, but Guite fought back to take the lead before surrendering it once more. The final hand saw Kotelnikov get all of the chips when he turned a straight to beat the flopped two pair of the man from Britain.

Here are the final table results.

Final Table Results

  1. Andrey Kotelnikov – $488,508*
  2. Stuart Guite – $366,605
  3. Sven Joakim Andersson – $271,903
  4. Oleg Vasylchenko – $190,500
  5. Maciej Gasior – $124,500
  6. Dimitar Danchev – $89,016
  7. Jerry Wong – $69,300

*Includes a $15,000 seat in the WPT Tournament of Champions

Seven years ago, Yan Shing “Anson” Tsang finished seventh in an HKD 1,000,000 (USD 129,000) No Limit Hold’em event at the GuangDong Asia Millions in Macau for a million bucks.

Seven years later, and he enters a tournament with a total prizepool of a million bucks, and wins a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, all from the sanctity of whatever four walls he is currently calling ‘home’.

Tsang picked apart the 2,315-entrant field in Event #68: $500 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack like an experienced electrician picking apart a string cheese switchboard to collect the $150,460 first prize on GGPoker. It’s his 12th cash of the 2020 WSOP series, and before this win his deepest dive came in the event prior, finishing 12th in the $500 Limit Hold’em event.

It’s not the first time Tsang has won a bracelet. In fact, Tsang has finished a few cards away from a barrage of bangles in the past two years making five live final tables. In 2018, he won the €2,200 Pot Limit Omaha 8-Handed bracelet in Rozvadov. Last year, he finished seventh in the €550 Pot Limit Omaha, fifth in the €1,100 Turbo Bounty Hunter, and sixth in the €2,200 Pot Limit Omaha – all in Rozvadov. He also finished third behind Alex Epstein and Thai Ha in the $10,000 Short Deck No Limit Hold’em in Vegas.

The only other player at the final table with a hint of a record was Nobuaki Sasaki who finished fourth in the $10,000 Short-Deck No Limit Hold’em Championships earlier in the series.

Here are the final table results.

Final Table Results

  1. Anson Tsang – $150,460
  2. Mohaiman Ashrafee – $116,809
  3. Stephen Holford – $83,986
  4. Amir Divir – $60,387
  5. Wong Soon Heong – $43,419
  6. Malcolm Trayner – $31,219
  7. Marc Carola – $22,446
  8. Nobuaki Sasaki – $16,139
  9. Eder Campana – $11,604

Superstars who went deeper than an ant in a deprivation tank included Sam Vousden (26th), Daniel Dvoress (56th), and George Wolff (110th).