A proper tournament schedule requires proper time to play it out. The World Poker Tour and PartyPoker teamed up to offer a significant schedule of events for the WPT World Online Championships, creating a solid structure and plenty of time for players to compete and play side events.
While there are many daily tournament offerings throughout the series, which began in mid-July and will continue through mid-September, there are only 12 official WPT-branded events. And almost every one of them play out with three buy-in levels, two starting days, and then a playdown to the final table and another day for the final table.
We’ve been keeping track:
--Events 1 and 2: Paul Tedeschi and Alex Manzano win--Events 3 and 4: Gavin Cochrane and Nick Petrangelo win
Event 5 and Event 6 are now complete, taking the series to its halfway point. All other major WPT events will finish in September, with the final one – a $100K buy-in High Roller – wrapping things up on September 16-17.
For now, let’s get to the latest results.
Event 5: WPT NLHE Knockout Championship
The Micro version of this event required a $33 buy-in and drew 10,122 entries for the $300K guarantee. Only 1,330 players made it to Day 2 to play for pieces of the $303,660 prize pool. When it was over, Gabriel Merenda collected $17,946.49 in first-place prize money plus $9.271.81 in bounties.
Alongside that one, a Mini version offered a $320 buy-in for a $1 million guarantee. There were 3,377 entries, creating an actual prize pool of $1,013,100. Of the starting fields, there were 481 players surviving to Day 2. In the end, Daniel Koloszar was the last player standing to collect $60,800.32 in prize money and an additional $47,784.22 in bounties.
The actual championship event required $3,200 to play but guaranteed $3 million in the prize pool.
Buy-in: $3,200Total entries: 1,035Total prize pool: $3,105,000Paid players: 136Minimum payout: $3,555.221st place: Daniel Smyth (Ireland) $415,391 ($208,803.83 + $204,588.92 in bounties)2nd place: Manig Loeser(UK) $279,358 ($208,492.98 + $70,866.22 in bounties)3rd place: Joao Maureli (Brazil) $174,510 ($142,061.51 + $32,449.23 in bounties)4th place: Pim Gieles (Netherlands) $118,980 ($95,502.03 + $23,478.51 in bounties)5th place: Pedro Marques (Croatia) $89,069 ($66,687.63 + $22,382.80 in bounties)6th place: Artur Martirosian (Russia) $63,874 ($37,281.38 + $16,593.75 in bounties)7th place: Shyngis Satubayev (Kazakhstan) $24,254 ($29,699.32 + $18,562.50 in bounties)8th place: Matheus Resende (Brazil) $32,725 ($23,504.85 + $750 in bounties)
With the same buy-ins as the previous tournament, there were three versions of the mix-max game.
The Micro version had a $300K guarantee for the $33 buy-in, garnering 8,256 entries. That was only enough to put $247,680 into the pot, so the WPT and PartyPoker covered the rest to make it $300K. Ronni Ravnholt Borg won the event for $33,850.93.
There were 3,007 total entries for the $320 buy-in, but that was only enough for $902,100 in the pot. The hosts had to kick in close to $100K to uphold the $1 million guarantee. Conor O’driscoll took this one down for $121,980.
Following the trend, the Main Event missed its guarantee of $3 million but not by much.
Buy-in: $3,200Total entries: 989Total prize pool: $2,967,000 (overlay)Paid players: 132Minimum payout: $6,4891st place: Andrey Kotelnikov (Russia) $488,5082nd place: Stuart Guite (UK) $366,6053rd place: Sven Joakim Andersson (Sweden) $271,9034th place: Oleg Vasylchenko (Ukraine) $190,5005th place: Maciej Gasior (UK) $124,5006th place: Dimitar Danchev (Bulgaria) $89,0167th place: Jerry Wong (Canada) $69,300
Someone has been happy to get back to online poker after years on the road. Kristen Bicknell had been traveling the world for some time but settled into Canada during the quarantine for the coronavirus pandemic. First up, she won her third career World Series of Poker bracelet.
Not bad.
Then, as a PartyPoker ambassador, Bicknell began tearing up the tables on PartyPoker during the WPT WOC. Nearly two weeks ago, she won the $5,200 buy-in NLHE 7-Max High Roller for $79,275. Next up, she won the $1,050 NLHE Knockout Turbo for $13,835, plus an additional $19,375 in bounties.
Halfway through the series, Bicknell is in first place on the leaderboard with 201.17 points, quite a distance ahead of Scott Margerson and his 159.48 points and fellow PartyPoker Ambassador Roberto Romanello with 152.73 points.
She told PartyPoker that she’s been enjoying the series but had an eye on the leaderboard, which will award $50K to the winner. And she hinted at doing something unique with the winnings. “Anything that I do win from the leaderboard promotion will be awarded back to poker players on PartyPoker,” she said. “Fingers crossed I do end up taking it down, and there will be something exciting for you all to take part in!”
https://twitter.com/partypoker/status/1298636644258648068?s=20
Next Up on the Schedule
The second half of the WPT WOC includes everything from heads-up to high rollers and the Main Event: