WSOP 2020 Online Finds First Five Bracelet Winners

A primarily American crowd of players gathered virtually last week to kick off the first-ever WSOP 2020 Online series. And they’ve been doing so in significant numbers thus far, despite the tournaments not offering guaranteed prize pools.

The coronavirus pandemic gave the World Series of Poker little choice but to put some of its series online this year. After meticulously planning out a 101-tournament series – mostly live poker events – for Las Vegas this summer, Covid-19 swept across America and shut it all down.

The WSOP then delivered a schedule of 85 online poker tournaments, 31 of which would be on the WSOP.com ring-fenced sites in Nevada and New Jersey throughout the month of July. The other 54 events will play out on GGPoker and its poker skins starting in mid-July for the rest of the world.

Coverage of the online events is severely lacking its pizazz, its stories and excitement, photos and videos from the scene at the Rio in Vegas. Much of it is cut-and-dry reporting, so poker fans can expect some great writing but not much to spice it up. *shakes fist at Covid*

The World Series of Poker and PokerNews provide live updates and recaps of each tournament, in as much detail as possible. We will provide a fairly basic rundown of the events, which are compiled by accessing those live reports:

—PokerNews WSOP 2020 Online landing page

—WSOP 2020 Online updates page

Summer isn’t the same without the @WSOP

Tonight it’s back! I’ll be commentating from the black booth home studio the entire month of July! Come join us tonight & every night @PokerCentral @YouTube https://t.co/5zJDnWw1O7 the show begins every night when we’re at the final table

— David Tuchman (@TuckonSports) July 2, 2020

Note that every US-based WSOP 2020 tournament plays out in one day. Reentries are as noted below.

The first five events played from July 1-5, and these were the results.

US Event 1: $500 NLHE Kickoff

A standard No Limit Hold’em event served as the launching pad for the 31-day, 31-event series. It permitted two reentries and brought in a solid field.

Buy-in: $500

Unique players: 1,195

Reentries: 520

Total entries: 1,715

Prize pool: $771,750

Paid players: 248

Minimum payout: $772

Winner:  Jonathan “Art.Vandelay” Dokler ($130,425.75)

2^nd place:  Justin Turner ($80,416.35)

3^rd place:  Tony Dunst ($57,881.25)

4^th place:  Shawn Daniels ($42,060,37)

5^th place:  Michael Balan ($30,947.17)

6^th place:  Kyle Shappelle ($22,998.15)

7^th place:  Daniel Park ($17,287.20)

8^th place:  Mark Liedtke ($13,119.75)

9^th place:  Taylor Van Kriegenbergh ($10,109.92)

This event winner hails from Ohio. Dokler won his first gold bracelet by beating a significant field of players, notably Phil “Lumestackin” Hellmuth. That notable aimed for his 16^th bracelet but fell in 11^th place.

Congrats to Jonathan ‘ArtVandelay’ Dokler who beat 1,714 entrants to win WSOP Online bracelet #1. But check out who @NormanChad says will not be winning this summer ! pic.twitter.com/9K50Hd2PpL

— WSOP (@WSOP) July 2, 2020

US Event 2: $1K NLHE 8-Handed Deepstack

The second day doubled the buy-in to $1K and offered more chips. Again, players could reenter up to two times, and many of them did just that.

Buy-in: $1K

Unique players: 647

Reentries: 272

Total entries: 919

Prize pool: $873,050

Paid players: 143

Minimum payout: $1,484

Winner:  Louis “PokeThese” Lynch ($168,585.95)

2^nd place:  Ryan Ko ($104,242.17)

3^rd place:  Kevin Garosshen ($73,423.50)

4^th place:  Daniel Fischer ($52,383.00)

5^th place:  Sean Prendiville ($37,890.37)

6^th place:  Jason Somerville ($27,762.99)

7^th place:  Jon Michael Gisler ($20,691.28)

8^th place:  Matthew Mich ($15,627.59)

US Event 3: $400 NLHE

The third event was the lowest buy-in bracelet event thus far on the night before Independence Day. But quite a few players ponied up to participate, some even taking advantage of the two reentries.

Buy-in: $400

Unique players: 1,450

Reentries: 641

Total entries: 2,091

Prize pool: $752,760

Paid players: 330

Minimum payout: $602

Winner:  Robert “BustinBalls” Kuhn ($115,849.76)

2^nd place:  Ronald Keren ($71,587.47)

3^rd place:  Richard Federico ($52,241.54)

4^th place:  Theodore Lui ($38,466.03)

5^th place:  Daniel Huster ($28,604.88)

6^th place:  Evan Scott ($21,453.66)

7^th place:  Christopher Fuchs ($16,184.34)

8^th place:  Roland Israelashvili ($12,345.26)

9^th place:  Andrew Freund ($9,560.05)

Welp tonight may have been my most surreal day ever. I won a WSOP bracelet for 115k and in addition another 21k score to add. Thank you guys so much for all the love and support tonight. This doesnt get better than this feeling and you guys were part of it! GG us pic.twitter.com/QvRlI9uhIQ

— Pokerguru740 (@pokerguru740) July 4, 2020

US Event 4: $500 NLHE Super Turbo

On Independence Day in America, the fourth event of the WSOP 2020 Online offered fast action and two reentries. The holiday didn’t stop a reasonably-sized field from looking for a bracelet…fast.

Buy-in: $500

Unique players: 828

Reentries: 351

Total entries: 1,179

Prize pool: $530,550

Paid players: 180

Minimum payout: $743

Winner:  Matthew “Bodeyster” Bode ($97,090.65)

2^nd place:  Brian Frasca ($59,952.15)

3^rd place:  Caitlin Dillon ($42,603.16)

4^th place:  Frank Marasco ($30,771.90)

5^th place:  Kevin MacPhee ($22,389.21)

6^th place:  David Bernsen ($16,500.10)

7^th place:  Ryan Dodd ($12,361.81)

8^th place:  Shawn Daniels ($9,337.68)

9^th place:  Jason Luxenberg ($7,162.42)

Congrats to Matt Bode for winning the WSOP Online Event #4 – $500 NLH Turbo on July 4th and $97,090.65 ! pic.twitter.com/flEPO0EXMZ

— WSOP (@WSOP) July 5, 2020

US Event 5: $1K NLHE Freezeout

Sundays are always big days for online poker, and players did line up for one of the few WSOP 2020 events that didn’t offer reentries. The freezeout was a welcome tournament for many.

Buy-in: $1K

Total players: 854

Prize pool: $811,300

Paid players: 126

Minimum payout: $1,623

Winner:  Allen “Acnyc718” Chang ($161,286.44)

2^nd place:  Phillip Yeh ($99,708.77)

3^rd place:  Felipe Leme ($69,771.80)

4^th place:  Andrew Campbell ($49,570.43)

5^th place:  Timothy Begley ($35,697.20)

6^th place:  Alexander Condon ($26,123.86)

7^th place:  John Forlenza ($19,390.07)

8^th place:  Josh Greenberg ($14,603.40)

9^th place:  Quintin Trammell ($11,195.94)

What’s on Tap This Week?

Starting today, the next seven events will provide one non-hold’em event, another freezeout, and some bigger stacks. The tournaments are lined up as follows:

July 6:  $600 PLO-8 6-Handed (3 reentries)

July 7:  $800 NLHE Knockout Deepstack (2 reentries)

July 8:  $500 NLHE Freezeout

July 9:  $1K NLHE 6-Max (2 reentries)

July 10:  $600 NLHE Monster Stack (2 reentries)

July 11:  $500 NLHE Turbo Deepstack 6-Handed (2 reentries)

July 12:  $500 NLHE Big 500 (3 reentries)