By Frank Op de Woerd

It was the last day of the last weekend of the World Poker Tour Online Championships yesterday, and the tournaments reflected that. The biggest names in poker all logged on to partypoker and competed in tournaments big and small.

From the $11 Micro Weekender to the $25,500 High Roller Championship, it was a sight to behold as you saw all the events in action. Take a look at recaps from the Superstack, Weekender, Big Game, the High Rollers, and the Turbo Championship.

Yesterday’s winners

Event #11 – Main: $3,200 Turbo Championship ($1M GTD)

A field of 433 entries gathered for the Turbo Championship, no small feat for a $3,200 buy-in event.

Francesco Romanello was the first to bust the event. Daniel Reijmer, playing from Mexico, followed not much later, bought back in, and busted again shortly after. Gustavo Mastelotto from Brazil bubbled the event in sixty-fourth place, paving the way for the remaining sixty-three players to be guaranteed a min-cash of $6,560.

Richard Dubini (49th) and Jeff Gross (43rd) were the sole two partypoker pros to finish in the money, both receiving $7,209.

With 12-minute levels and just a single reentry allowed, things went rather quickly. After a little under eight and a half hours of play, only one man was left standing, and he walked away with $188,316. Bulgarian high roller Dimitar Danchev was declared the champion, having forged a deal with Belarussian poker player Aliaksei Boika (2nd, $156,843) and Alfred Karlsson (3rd, $184,832) from Sweden.

Event #11 – Mini: $320 Turbo Championship ($300K GTD)

Dutchman Floyd Rosner beat a field of 1,353 entries in the mini edition of the Turbo Championship, walking away with $66,041. With many more players but 10-minute levels instead of 12, this event took around eight and a half hours to complete.

There was no deal in this event, so Rosner took the full first-place prize home without making any concessions. Alexandre Espirito Santo Mantovani from Brazil finished second for $44,726, Patrick Hyllegaard Pedersen from Denmark finished third for $30,103.

Rosner’s countryman Lars Vlieg was the first to bust. Remarkably, Anton Suarez from Sweden busted in 1,345th and 1,344th place. Vitor Abreu from Portugal, playing from Malta, bubbled in 204th place, with Daniel Wilson being the first to go out in the money (203rd, $629).

Event #11 – Micro: $33 Turbo Championship ($100K GTD)

The $33 buy-in Micro edition went to a Dutchman as well; Ronald Fokker bested a field of 3,890 entries. Fokker walked away with $17,537, 531 times the buy-in of the event. Despite playing for huge stakes – especially compared to the buy-in – there was no deal in this event as Fabio Maritan Pereira’s second place was worth $11,810. Marcus Christer Ekman finished third for $7,895.

Andrew Sullivan was the first to bust with Andrew Wayman bubbling.

Patrick Leonard, undoubtedly looking for points for the Rising Star Leaderboard, finished in 306th place for $74 and was the only partypoker-sponsored player to cash. Well-known German player Fabio Sperling made a deep run but fell in 14th place for $799.

$10,300 WPT High Roller ($500K GTD)

The WPT $10,300 High Roller needed fifty entries to make its $500,000 guarantee and did exactly that.

Daniel Dvoress was the first to go out, followed by Bert Stevens and Kahle Burns both busting twice in quick succession. Poker retiree Fedor Holz bubbled when he exited in tenth place, setting up the remaining nine with $20,500 at the minimum.

Rob Yong

partypoker partner Rob Yong gave it his all but ultimately couldn’t grab the title. He finished runner-up for $107,500, with only online beast Benjamin Rolle to do one better. The German superstar of (online) poker triumphed for $155,000.

WPT Superstack
The WPT Superstack saw players start with 200,000 in chips for all three buy-in levels, 200 big blinds to start. The $1,050 event attracted a field of 191 entries, the $215 edition saw 481 entries gather, and the Mini $22 variant had 1,993 entries.

German player Leonard Oliver Maue triumphed in the most expensive edition of the Superstack, turning $1,050 into $43,950. From Germany as well, Patrick Kunert beat all of the competition in the $215 edition, a score with $18,632. Anton Toma turned $22 into $5,742 in the Mini, having agreed on a deal with runner-up Marcin Niedzwiecki ($5,525).

WPT 7-Max Weekender
The 7-Max Weekender had its Day 1c turbo flight for all thee buy-in levels at 4:05 pm (BST), followed by Day 2 at 7 pm (BST).

In the $1,050 edition of the event, eighty-five players started Day 2 with forty-eight coming from Day 1c. Mario Navarro Arrocha from the United Kingdom took the lionshare of the $550,000 prize pool, his first-place prize was worth $82,548 ($39,591 + $42,957). Jonathan Proudfoot received $60,196 ($39,536 + $20,660).

The $109 Mini version of the Weekender attracted a field of 2,058, with 358 players making Day 2. Benjamin Wilhelmsen from Norway triumphed. He collected $12,970 from the regular prize pool plus $10,723 in bounties for a hail of $23,693. Tamas Csuhai finished runner-up for $17,669 ($12,948 + $4,721).

Josh King from Canada beat a massive field in the Micro $11 edition of the Weekender. On Day 2, he stayed ahead of 664 players to take home $3,374 for first. He collected an additional $1,520 in bounties for a total score of $4,894.

Continues tonight

Event #10: $25,500 High Roller Championship ($5M GTD)

The $25,500 High Roller Championship had its Day 1b on the docket last night, another chance for players to try and get through to Day 2.

Ultimately, the event collected 111 entries, of which seventeen progressed to Day 2. Together with the 88 that signed up for Day 1, that brings the total to 199 entries. With eleven making it through to Day 2 on Day 1a, that means twenty-eight players are still in contention for a piece of the $5,000,000-pie.

Christopher Fitzgerald from Canada did best on Day 1b, turning 100,000 into 1,312,702 chips. Daniel Rezaei follows him with 1,176,375 and team partypoker’s Jason Koon with 1,007,130.

Those are the only three Day 1b players to start Day 2 with over a million. Rounding out the Top 5 are Bujtás László (910,909) and Marius Gierse (893,094.

Besides Jason Koon, Ludovic Geilich (797,634) is the only other partypoker-sponsored player to make it through. Their colleagues, Patrick Leonard, Joni Jouhkimainen, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Renato Nomura, and Isaac Haxton all tried but busted before the day’s end. The latter attempted twice but split before the bell rang both times.

Play for Day 2 of this event gets underway at 7:05 pm (BST) tonight, starting with level 19 (7,000/14,000, 1,800 ante). Play will be halted when seven players remain. The event is already in the money, with the twenty-eight players guaranteed a cash of $53,500. The payout in full is as followed in this gigantic online event:

With an average stack of 710,714 (52 big blinds), the top 5 chip counts is as followed:

$5,200 WPT Big Game ($1M GTD)
The $5,200 buy-in WPT Big Game got underway at 6 pm (BST) and ultimately saw 200 entries collected. Parker Talbot was the first to bust, followed by John Mooney, Michael Sklenička, and Almedin Imsirovic.

A small battalion of partypoker-sponsored pros gave it a shot. Still, Ludovic Geilich and Isaac Haxton were the only ones to reach the money after Belgian high roller Bert Stevens bubbled in thirty-third place. Geilich finished in twenty-first place for $12,548, a bit more than the $10,440 min-cash.

Isaac Haxton will return to the virtual felt tonight as he sits in sixth position with nine players remaining. The final nine return to action tonight at 7:05 pm (BST) with blinds of 250,000 and 500,000 (62,500 ante). Shane Okeeffe was the last player to bust before play was halted, his tenth position was worth $17,868.

Leading the final nine is Sven Joakim Andersson, with 41,145,146 in chips. He’s closely followed by Jan-Eric Schwippert (38,153,669). Benjamin Roller sits in third with 29,324,915. Aleksandr Nosov (10,195,402) and Artur Martirosian (10,242,222) are the shortest coming back. Scott Margereson (22,505,144), Rok Gostita (16,885,589), the aforementioned Isaac Haxton (16,723,406), and Marius Gierse (15,596,509) make up the rest of the final table.

Isaac Haxton

The remaining players are guaranteed $20,880, with first paying almost ten times that: $201,424. For the runner-up, there’s $146,613 reserved. Third gets $104,602.

$530 WPT Big Game Mini ($300K GTD)
The Big Game Mini saw a field of 576 entries gather, all vying for that $55,222 first-place prize. After seven hours and forty-eight minutes of play, nine remain left in contention.

Well-known Swedish pro Simon Mattsson bubbled the event in seventy-third, guaranteeing the remaining seventy-two players a cash of at least $1,350. Rainer Kempe and Simon Deadman missed out on money as well, going out in seventy-fourth and seventy-fifth respectively.

Diego Bittar from Brazil was the last to bust (10th, $3,960) before the tournament was paused. The final nine return to action tonight at $7:05 pm (BST) with $4,710 already locked up. They’ll return to blinds of 700,000 and 1,400,000 with a 175,000-ante.

Benjamin Chalot leads the pack with a massive 178,993,738 in chips. That’s well over double as Jelmer De Visser brings to the table, his 85,508,296 makes him second in chips. Janis Loze brings 22,533,419, which makes him the short stack going in.

$55 WPT Big Game Micro ($100K GTD)
The $55 WPT Big Game Micro attracted a field of 1,704 entries, with 39 surviving the first 28 levels.

Kleber Gregolon from Brazil turned his one million starting stack into 102,170,772, the chip equivalent of over a hundred players! Tomáš Hasil from the Czech Republic sits in second with 86,662,378. Dutchman Remco Lieftink takes third with 81,464,244.

Krzysztof Górecki bubbled in 217th place; the remaining 216 players were guaranteed $130 from that moment on. Jeff Gross was the last player to bust on Day 1 of this 2-day event, his fortieth place finish netted him $330.

The thirty-nine players coming back tonight have that same $330 locked up. The first-place prize is set at $16,640, with the only other five-figure score assigned for the runner-up, who is to collect $11,832. Alexey Ivanov is the shortest returning; his 8,317,983 is worth almost six big blinds when play resumes.

Tonight’s schedule