2021 WSOP Online Ends on GGPoker with ME Overlay

Last updated on September 16th, 2021

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The full online portion of the 2021 World Series of Poker wrapped this week. The 33 tournaments hosted by GGPoker awarded 33 gold WSOP bracelets.

Prior to this series, there were two versions of 2021 WSOP Online in the US market. One was for players located in New Jersey and Nevada, and the other gave a few opportunities to players in Pennsylvania. We provided results for those here, along with the first half of the GGPoker online bracelet events for international players:

US (Nevada and New Jersey), Part 1: Events 1-19 results
US (Nevada and New Jersey), Part 2: Events 20-33 results
US (Pennsylvania): Events 1-8
International on GGPoker, Part 1: Events 1-17

The remainder of that series played out through the rest of August and for nearly two weeks into September. Most of the tournaments resulted in solid player numbers and prize pools that exceeded the guarantees. Let’s take a look:

Events Leading to the Main Event

Event 18: $5K buy-in Short Deck Championship = 144 entries, $684K prize pool
–Radmir “KOPOBA” Sadirov (Russia) won for $169,111
Event 19: $840 buy-in NLHE 6-Handed Bounty = 2,053 entries, $1,642,400 prize pool
–Andrii Derzhypilskyi (Ukraine) won for $154,322
Event 20: $1,500 buy-in NLHE Monster Stack Freezeout = 1,080 entries, $1,539,000 prize pool
–Eduardo “Ghazbaran” Rodrigues (Brazil) won for $212,815
Event 21: $25K NLHE Super High Roller Championship = 255 entries, $6,247,500 prize pool ($5M GTD)
–Alexandros Theologis (Greece) won for $1,212,033
Event 22: $400 buy-in NLHE Colossus = 10,903 entries, $4,099,528 prize pool ($3M GTD)
–Armando D’Avanzo (Italy) won for $409,007
Event 23: $600 buy-in NLHE Deepstack Championship = 2,820 entries, $1,607,400 prize pool
–Nuno “Albertov” Capucho (Portugal) won for $190,274
Event 24: $1,050 buy-in PLO Bounty = 896 entries, $896K prize pool
–Dmitry Yurasov (Russia) won for $92,711
Event 25: $777 buy-in NLHE Lucky Sevens 7-Handed = 2,014 entries, $1,486,634 prize pool
–David “ZONEDin” Jackson (USA) won for $194,178
Event 26: $888 buy-in NLHE Crazy Eights 8-Handed = 2,350 entries, $1,982,460 prize pool
–Alexandru Papazian (Romania) won for $241,128

Main Event Onward

Event 27: $5K NLHE Main Event Championship = 4,092 entries, $20M prize pool ($20M GTD)
–Aleksei “Ha KoJleHu” Vandyshev (Russia) won for $2,543,073

Event 28: $2,100 buy-in NLHE Bounty Championship = 1,064 entries, $2,128,000 prize pool
–Dominik Panka (Poland) won for $185,228
Event 29: $1,500 buy-in NLHE Fifty Stack = 1,308 entries, $1,863,900 prize pool
–Vlad Martynenko (Ukraine) won for $250,198
Event 30: $525 buy-in NLHE Beat the Pros Freezeout = 1,594 entries, $797K prize pool
–Jase “RetiredFedor” Regina (Canada) won for $75,342
Event 31: ¥815 NLHE Zodiac Autumn Festival = 7,036 entries, ¥5,275,593 prize pool (¥2,888,888 GTD)
–Henry “Coke@Macu” Luo (Hong Kong) won for ¥563,257
Event 32: $210 buy-in NLHE Million$ Double Bounty = 14,162 entries, $2,832,400 prize pool ($2M GTD)
–Ruslan “Sovs20” Rishko (Canada) won for $282,586
Event 33: $500 buy-in NLHE Closer = 7,103 entries, $3,373,925 prize pool ($2,021,000 GTD)
–Arnaud Enselme (France) won for $360,223

Main Event Overlay

Last year, many poker fans will remember that the entirety of the WSOP tournaments began online. When the World Series of Poker set it up, the GGPoker portion of the series seemed like the primary focus with its 85 bracelet-awarding events. That one also had a WSOP Online Main Event. There had been no mention of any further 2020 WSOP tournaments, so many assumed that the GGPoker one was it.

Sure, there were some differences from the WSOP Main Event in past years. The online one had only a $4,750 buy-in (as opposed to $10K) and 23 starting flights (as opposed to three or four). And the online one had a guarantee on the prize pool – a whopping $25M.

Players flocked to that tournament, which closed its registration with 5,802 entries and a $27,559,500 prize pool. It not only exceeded the guarantee but became the largest prize pool for an online poker tournament in history. And in the end, Stoyan Madanzhiev of Bulgaria won more than $3.9M for the win, the largest first-place payout in online poker history.

Congrats to Stoyan Madanzhiev for winning the WSOP Online Main Event and $3,904,685, the largest 1st place prize in online poker history ! @GGPokerOfficial pic.twitter.com/0vH6MpXNpo
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) September 6, 2020

This year, GGPoker and the WSOP knew a few things. First, the online WSOP wasn’t going to be the only chance to win bracelets in 2021. Second, the pandemic poker boom faded somewhat from its 2020 highs. And third, the treatment of Madanzhiev as a not-the-real-Main-Event-champion last year soured the prestige for some.

So, when the WSOP 2021 Online “Main Event” didn’t reach its guarantee and gave players an overlay of $563K. Madanzhiev had a little shade to throw at that one.

And congrats on the $563,000 Overlay for the players who will cash 🤑
— Stoyan Madanzhiev (@Stoyan_Mad) September 5, 2021

2021 WSOP Online Totals

The 2021 WSOP events in the US market resulted in these numbers:

-Total number of unique players: 20,513
-Total number of reentries: 9,099
-Total number of entries: 29,612
-Total number of payouts: 4,408
-Total prize money awarded: $19,758,797

The numbers were not available to most people from the GGPoker series, but Pokerfuse accessed the information and reported them for the international 2021 WSOP Online on GGPoker and Natural8.

-Total number of unique players: unknown
-Total number of reentries: unknown
-Total number of entries: 127,969
-Total number of payouts: 6,079
-Total prize money awarded: $90,175,863

Pokerfuse also reported that GGPoker profited more than $4.4M in profit from the series.