Are you in? The Main Event of the World Series of Online Poker (WCOOP) started yesterday and the hunt for the $10 million guaranteed prize pool is under way. Here’s how things are shaping up…
TODAY’S HEADLINES
• $10 million guarantee already broken as Main Events begin
• Fintan “EasyWithAces” Hand bags huge in $5K Main
• Another title for the UK’s “geokrinikali”
• “dlanger610” and “Wildace_hun” among big winners
• 200 tournaments done; last three start today!
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Is that the chip lead? (Nearly)
The WCOOP Main Event got off to a flyer yesterday with 2,070 entries already to the $5,200 version (including 520 re-entries) and 37,065 to the $55 low buy-in event (including 12,588 re-entries). Registration is still open until the start of Day 2 in the former, which means the $10.35 million prize pool should swell further. Meanwhile, there’s $180,656.41 confirmed as first place in the $55 event, from a prize pool of $1.85 million.
Oh my days. The super-slow structure in the $5,200 Main Event means that there’s still a very long way to go until they burst the bubble, but even so let’s take our hats off to Fintan “easywithaces” Hand, the PokerStars Twitch streamer extraordinaire, who sits in second place overnight of the 788 players still with chips. He built his starting stack of 250,000 up to 2.4 million, and is behind only Uruguay’s “peceli” in the counts. Hand’s team-mates Igor Kurganov (66th), Andre Akkari (114th), Lex Veldhuis (465th), Leo Fernandez (541st), Ramon Colillas (546th) and Liv Boeree (671st) are also alive. But the game is up already for Spraggy, Fatima Moreira de Melo and Celina Lin (unless they choose to re-enter).
The Six-Max PLO Main Event also played Day 1 yesterday and reached the money when Sami “LrsLzk” Kelopuo went out in 24th, on the stone bubble. That left 23 players to divide the $1.93 million prize pool in this $10,000 buy-in tournament, and some of the game’s biggest names still in with a shout. Ben “Ben86” Tollerene leads the way; Andreas Skjervøy” Torbergsen is second and Russia’s “Bagrovui” is third. Then comes Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb, Richard “raconteur” Gryko and Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira. Deeb is also still alive in the $1,050 medium buy-in version. See below for more details of ongoing tournaments.
The biggest prize pool to be awarded fully yesterday came in the high buy-in of the Sunday Cooldown, aka WCOOP-72-H. In it, the former Sunday Million and Sunday Warm-Up champion Doug “dlanger610” Lang added a third “Sunday” to his resume, picking up a total $168,729.52, including bounties, for beating a 1,041-entry field. His first ‘COOP title puts Lang’s total online earnings, across all sites, up to $6.2 million, according to Pocket Fives.
“Wildace_hun“, for whom the “hun” means his home country of Hungary, is a former winner of the SCOOP-medium Main Event. It’s for that reason only that victory last night in WCOOP-65-H did not register as a career high: last night’s success earned “Wildace_hun” $156,744.09, including bounties, and he got more than $780K for that huge success in May 2018. However none of his previous defeated finalists had the pedigree of the man “Wildace_hun” beat heads-up last night. To get this one in the bank, he needed to slay the beast that is Ole “wizowizo” Schemion. And at 1.18am WET, it was job done. Schemion had to settle for $92K, including bounties.
Sunday nights have become hugely profitable over the past couple of weeks for the UK’s “geokrinikali“, and last night his second victory of this WCOOP series earned him another $73,230, including bounties. A week ago, “geokrinikali” beat a field of 2,952 to win the $215 Sunday Warm-Up, worth $85,540, and this time he was the last man standing as 7,690 other entries (inc. 2,269 re-entries) had proved fruitless.
Lars Peder “wulfgarrr86” Malones doubled his previous career high score when he won the high buy-in version of WCOOP-64 and picked up $64,715.10. A regular in tournaments with buy-ins of between $50 and $200 — ie, the level of many tournament grinders on PokerStars — Malones anted up $530 for this one and went all the way, beating Poland’s “seboraptor” heads up after Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira went out in fifth, former SCOOP champion “ShipitFTW911” was out in sixth and Philippe “takechip” D’Auteuil was out in seventh.
A screenname like “snirk“, resembling more an actual name than a wifi password, tends to suggest a player who set up their account many years ago before all the good names were snapped up. Sure enough, our records suggest Germany’s “snirk” has been doing this some time — and victory overnight in the $5.50 buy-in Afternoon Deep Stack now represents a second ‘COOP title. Back in 2015, “snirk” won the $27 8-Game in SCOOP, and make no mistake, it’s far harder to win two “low” buy-in events than to win two high buy-ins. This latest one, from a field of 11,931 entries, earned “snirk” $5,927.07 after a four-way deal.
Ronan “Sw33ney” Sweeney has been close to a WCOOP title before, but fell one place short of the title in $215 Sunday Warm-Up special edition in 2017, losing heads up to Brazil’s
Thiago “Thiago Wks.” Wildener. But Sweeney hauled himself over the line in the medium buy-in Afternoon Deep Stack yesterday, picking up $32,738 after beating a 4,596-entry field. Sweeney is an Irishman whose account is registered in the UK, but whose live results suggest someone willing to travel. The five-figure score should help to finance a bit more of that.
TODAY’S RESULTS
| Tournament | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
| WCOOP-64-L: $5.50 NLHE Afternoon Deep Stack | 11,931 | $58,462 | snirk | Germany | $5,927.07* |
| WCOOP-64-M: $55 NLHE Afternoon Deep Stack | 4,596 | $229,800 | Sw33ney | UK | $32,737.89 |
| WCOOP-64-H: $530 NLHE Afternoon Deep Stack | 747 | $373,500 | wulfgarrr86 | Norway | $64,715.10 |
| WCOOP-65-L: $11 NLHE 8-Max PKO | 24,129 | $236,464 | S3d3m2 | Poland | $15,989.80† |
| WCOOP-65-M: $109 NLHE 8-Max PKO | 7,690 | $769,000 | geokrinikali | UK | $73,230.37† |
| WCOOP-65-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max PKO | 1,027 | $1,027,000 | Wildace_hun | Hungary | $156,744.09† |
| WCOOP-72-L: $11 NLHE 8-Max Turbo PKO | 14,368 | $140,806 | SryIGotOdds | Romania | $13,041.18† |
| WCOOP-72-M: $109 NLHE 8-Max Turbo PKO | 6,212 | $621,200 | silskyer | Netherlands | $67,338.08† |
| WCOOP-72-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max Turbo PKO | 1,041 | $1,041,000 | dlanger610 | Canada | $168,729.52† |
†inc. bounties
*denotes deal
STAT TRACKER
Events completed: 202
Entries so far: 850,172
Prize pools so far: $78,598,679
First prizes so far: $12,335,584.94
In-the-money finishers so far: 134,205
Tournaments starting today: 3
(Note: completed events only)
INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS!
We’ve been catching up with a heap of winners from this year’s WCOOP, all of whom have been happy to share the secrets of their successes. Click through for first-person accounts of WCOOP triumph, from those who have been there many times before to newcomers sampling the limelight for the first time.
• “Mr. No way”: It’s not easy beating “Colisea” heads up. Or is it?
• Germany’s “Gaul4200”: “$44K is a lot of money for a 20-year-old student in Germany”
• Joris “BillLewinsky” Ruijs: Two-time winner says “It’s like when you jump out of a plane”
• Russia’s “myIT4”: A friend told him to “fight to the end!”. He did.
• Filipe “Zagazaur” Oliveira: The 2019 breakout star on winning three titles in a week
• Espen “_sennj_” Sandvik: “It’s my first win in an official tournament”
• Rodrigo “guinHuuh” Freire: Brazilian’s roller coaster ride turns $11 into $13K
• Patrick “prepstyle71” Serda: No more pizzas for the three-time winner
• Jeffrey “Jefffrr8” Reardon: He wanted a five-figure score. He got one.
• Maxime “Daghemuneguu” Chilaud: Malta-based Frenchman wins first WCOOP of the series
• Norway’s “19_Kumite_79”: First two-day event, biggest field, biggest cash
• Viktor “TsiTool” Kovács: Puts Hungary on the WCOOP map
• Italo “sep_itl1914” Carandinas: Brazilian chooses his own adventure
• Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara: Woken up by a kick from his 3-year-old, plays Razz and wins!
• “snovalshik1”: first-timer, who turned $5.50 into $3,408
• Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin: Won PLO while streaming live
• Alex “dynoalot” Difelice: Second win, but “I feel I have a ways to go.”
• Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha: Akkari’s acolyte, who sets the record straight
• Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb: Seventh title, surely not the last
TWITCH WATCH
Fintan “easywithaces” Hand was the standout performer among last night’s Twitch streamers and he begins Day 2 of the $5,200 Main Event with the second biggest stack across the whole tournament. Here’s a huge hand he won towards the end of the night, which sent him rocketing up the counts.
TOP TWEETS
It’s not quite normal Twitch standard, but former champion Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz gave us a glimpse of how he doesn’t always run as pure as people think:
AA in the $5,200 #WCOOP Main Event 😳😳🤑🤑🤯🤯😬😬 #poker pic.twitter.com/nysmYgT5Gb
— Fedor Holz (@CrownUpGuy) September 22, 2019
OK, here’s one more glance into the joyous world of Fintan “easywithaces” Hand”
Tomorrow could be a monster day.
We play to a winner in the $1k Warm-Up with close to $200k for 1st.
Look at that stack in the $5,200 main. Naughty shit. pic.twitter.com/RJb4ARGMgc
— Fintan Hand (@EasyWithAces) September 23, 2019
And good luck on Day 2 guys, wherever in the world you’re playing WCOOP:
Wohooo! Pasé de día en el Main Event $55 de WCOOP ☺️
Quedamos 770 de los 37k+ iniciales y ya estamos ITM 🌈 sigue mañana a las 14!
Faltan siglos, quedamos muchos pero igual estoy contenta solo por pasar. A meterle mañana 🤙🏽 pic.twitter.com/Fx6ihDM2W8
— Pamsi (@pamelabalzano) September 23, 2019
La deuxième bullet à été la bonne
on fait day2 du Main Event de @PokerStars #WCOOP @PokerAcademie @aim_millions pic.twitter.com/u6uMdBxdRz— clement richez (@bibibiatchEZ) September 23, 2019
WCOOP-72-M: $109 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO, Sunday …
日本人最後になってしまった。ダブルアップ希望 https://t.co/GKP3cjuts6 pic.twitter.com/T08uDSTENR— きむ (@kimsa_ism) September 23, 2019
Alright, I made another 3 day two, let’s ship one #WCOOP 💪💪❤️#ModernPokerTheory #poker #pokerstars #PokerOnline #PokerTournament #NoLimitHoldem #ChipPorn pic.twitter.com/YzuVvMJphP
— Michael Acevedo (@GTOPoker) September 23, 2019
LEADER BOARD UPDATE
On the one hand, the changes in the leader board standings overnight have been subtle. But on the other hand, they have been seismic. For the first time this WCOOP, Filipe “Zagazaur” Oliveira didn’t trouble the cashiers and that meant, against all odds, that he has been shunted from top spot in both the High and the Overall leader boards. Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira made a deep run in WCOOP-64-H to edge level with Oliveira in the high standings, while the relentless cashing machine that is Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna pushed him ahead in the overall standings, by a matter of five points. It’s very tight. Very tight indeed.
Overall:
1 – calvin7v Finland 1,265
2 – Zagazaur Netherlands 1,260
3 – RuiNF Netherlands 1,185
4 – TruthBeTold7 Canada 1,160
5 – shaundeeb Mexico 1,005
=6 – Colisea Latvia 970
=6 – krakukra Russia 970
8 – goleafsgoeh Canada 890
9 – aDrENalin710 Russia 830
10 – WTFOMFGOAO Russia 820
Low buy-in:
1 – FONBET_RULIT Russia 530
2 – krakukra Russia 430
3 – -Rebus1980- Russia 410
4 – Voziyanov15 Russia 405
5 – TruthBeTold7 Canada 380
Medium buy-in:
1 – Colisea Latvia 555
2 – shaundeeb Mexico 395
3 – pantri Paraguay 390
4 – Zagazaur Netherlands 370
5 – calvin7v Finland 355
High buy-in:
=1 – Zagazaur Netherlands 655
=1 – RuiNF Netherlands 655
3 – calvin7v Finland 630
=4 – theNERDguy Brazil 485
=4 – Naza114 UK 485
COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD
Another two wins for players based in Great Britain, with none for anyone in either Russia or Brazil, gave the Brits hope of a leader board victory. They’re still three behind the Russians but now three ahead of the Brazilians. This is another race going to the wire.
27 titles – Russia
24 – UK
21 – Brazil
13 – Canada, Germany
11 – Netherlands
9 – Finland
7 – Austria
6 – Romania, Norway
5 – Ukraine, Lithuania, Mexico, Sweden, Poland
4 – Malta, Hungary
3 – Belgium
2 – China, Argentina, Lebanon, Denmark, Ireland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Japan, Croatia
1 – Thailand, Uruguay, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia, Chile, Macau, Taiwan, Greece, Armenia.
ONGOING TOURNAMENTS
In addition to the Main Events in both hold’em and PLO (see above), a large handful of other tournaments are under way.
Thomas “WushuTM” Muehloecker is chip leader in the $1,050 Sunday Warm-up, where he leads the last 83 of 1,425. There’s a $110K first prize and a $1.425 million prize pool.
The second phase of WCOOP-01 also got under way on Sunday, and this one is huge. In the high buy-in version, 11,254 players took part through all phases, leaving 1,273 in the money at the start of Phase 2. Now only 27 of them remain, with Bartholomiej “bartek901” Machon leading the way. The winner is set for $200K. The medium buy-in ($22) attracted 56,650 players, with 36 now left, while there were 129,080 entries to the $2.20 tournament. Russia’s “itsapoka” is ahead of the final 34, who are aiming for a $25K first prize. From a $2.20 buy-in. It’s a poka indeed!
WCOOP-01: NLHE Phased – Buy-ins: $2.20, $22, $215
WCOOP-68: NLHE Sunday Kick-Off – Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
WCOOP-69: NLHE PKO Sunday Warm-Up- Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
WCOOP-70: WCOOP Main Event – Buy-ins: $55, $5,200
WCOOP-71: PLO Main Event – Buy-ins: $109, $1,050, $10,300
STARTING TODAY
Only three more tournaments — the three buy-in levels of WCOOP-73 — are yet to begin in this year’s series, so you’ll need to be in front of your computers at 6pm WET for your last chance. Buy-ins are $11, $109 and $1,050 and guarantees are $200K, $500K and $1 million, so there’s still time for a saver if things haven’t gone well for you these past weeks.
Registration is also still open on the $5,200 Main Event, so why not have a stab at that? Registration closes just before the 6pm WET restart.
PREVIOUS ROUND-UPS
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