By Lisa Yiasemides
Last night was another exhilarating night at the virtual tables. Close to $2.3 million was awarded in prizes and some very recognisable names secured themselves a trophy by the end of the night.
Meanwhile, the Main Event got underway with Day 1a surpassing already high expectations, setting a precedent for the remainder of the flagship event. But more on that later, for now let’s cast a look back at yesterday’s winners.
PLO – $3,200
The final table had already been set when the remaining eight returned at 7 pm* last night. Ihar Pliashko ($12,096) hit the rail first, followed by winner of the $5,300 PLO High Roller Ola Amundsgaard ($12,096), Richard Ashby ($15,936) and Ferenc Deak.
Jake Schindler
Day 1 chip leader Joao Vieira busted in fourth as Espen Myrmo managed to go one step further, which confirmed the heads-up line up. Mads Amot gave it their best but American pro Jake Schindler went the distance and taking the maximum prize available with no deal made.
Mini PLO – $320
There were 12 still in with a shot of the $22,561 first-place prize in the Mini PLO when play resumed at 7 pm. Rui Ferreira has finally made it to the top spot after coming close several times this series already. Once again, no deal was agreed on, so Ferreira maximised his profit whilst Jamil Kanji had to settle for the runner up spot.
Calvin Anderson (10th) and Dermot Blain (9th) just missed out on a final table seat with André Filipe Santos (8th), David Hu (7th) and Andreas Torbergsen (6th) all getting further.
With numerous final-table results as well as this win under his belt, Ferreira is now in fantastic shape on the Online Series Leaderboard, which you can read more about a little later.
The Weekender – $1,050
Niklas Åstedt continues to make his presence known in this series taking down the Weekender after eliminating some seriously stiff opposition. The Swede, whose online tournament winnings are reported to be around $18 million, was the last player standing after beating Tyler Goatcher heads up. Reigning WPTDeepStacks European Player of the Year Sonny Franco came in third, Fredrik Andersson in fourth and Manig Loeser made it as far as fifth place.
Sonny Franco
Fellow German Stefan Schillhabel (6th), Jens Lakemeier (7th) and Javier Zarco (8th) all reached the final table and the big names didn’t end there with Conor Beresford (10th), Ankush Mandavia (11th), Chad Eveslage (14th) and $1,575 Superstack winner Tamás Ádámszki (18th) also getting deep runs and outlasting players including Team partypoker representatives Roberto Romanello and Anatoly Filatov, David Peters, Mark Radoja, Mike Watson and Dylan Linde .
The tournament almost doubled its $500,000 guarantee with 979 entries in the three starting flights generating a prizepool of $979,000!
The Mini Weekender – $109
The Mini Weekender was no less popular as a total of 4,095 players did their best to win a slice of the $409,500 prizepool…more than double the guarantee! There were 510 who had made it through to the second day and Matthew Wilkins was the last player standing at the end of an epic ten-and-a-half-hour battle.
With no deal made, Wilkins took the maximum prize and Júlio Fantin walked away runner up, outlasting Ricardo Arraiano, Ivan Zufic, Pedro Jorge, Paul A Allen, Thomas William Bingham and Philippe Dauteuil, who all earned themselves a place at the final table.
Mix-Max Turbo Bounty – $1,050
Another tournament to go over the guarantee was this one and a total of $326,000 in prizemoney was handed out by the time the tournament had concluded. Taking more than 20 percent of the prizepool was Russian pro Viktor Ustimov. Robin Andreas Berggren came closest to derailing him and got second place with Lucas Reeves, Simon Deadman and Marc-Olivier Grandmaitre making it to the top five, the latter of which collected a huge $10,469 bounty – the second biggest in the field.
Viktor Ustimov
Sam Grafton (13th), Ryan Riess (17th), Ludovic Geilich (20th), Alex Foxen (23rd), Kristen Bicknell (25th), Parker Talbot (31st) and Mohsin Charania (32nd) also made it to the money stages.
Mini Mix-Max Turbo Bounty – $109
Adrian-Sorel State topped the enormous 1,935 field, with Lukas Soucek coming in close behind. The numbers reflect the popularity of bounty tournaments across all stake levels at the moment.
Niklas Åstedt (7th) and Julien Perouse (8th) both made the final table too, with Greg Mueller (14th), Frederik Brink Jensen (15th), Ema Zajmovic (16th) and Jerry Ödeen (20th) all making it to the top 20.
Continues tonight
Online Championship – $3,200
The main attraction began last night with Day 1a kick-starting four days of Main Event action that will play out until Wednesday, May 20, when the final table takes place.
The first of four starting flights attracted 808 entries, which means almost half of the $5 million guarantee has been collected with another three flights still to play out! Abdelhakim Zoufri (791,887), Kevin Macdonald (668,081) and Julio Ribeiro (590,228) were the biggest three stacks at the end of play, with Benny Glaser (548,623) also stacking up.
The first instalment saw no shortage of big names, with the entire player list reading like a who’s who of the poker world, with notable survivors including the likes of Tim Adams, Matas Cimbolas, Zach Clark, Michael Addamo, Marvin Rettenmaier, Simon Brändström, Jorryt van Hoof, Ivan Luca, Darren Elias, Ole Schemion, Faraz Jaka and Dan Smith just some of those who survived 16 levels to qualify for Day 2!
Matas Cimbolas
There were some equally well-known players that didn’t progress, but we have a feeling it’s not the last we’ve seen of Viktor Blum, Fedor Holz, Sorel Mizzi, Anthony Zinno, Christoph Vogelsang, Patrik Antonius, Kenny Hallaert, Dietrich Fast, Dario Sammartino or partypoker’s Nikita Bodyakovskiy as they have three more Day 1s to choose from.
WPT500 & WPT Super 50 continue
Ezequiel Waigel was chip leader in Day 1h of the WPT500, taking 435,201 through. He finished ahead of Yuan Yuan Li (372,147) and Rui Bouquet (363,423) who came closest, in second and third places. Jerry Ödeen (329,637), partypoker’s Ludovic Geilich (268,627) and Main Event Day 1a chip leader Abdelhakim Zoufri (251,847) all chipped up too.
Ezequiel Waigel
Maksym Klopotok (646,092), Patrick Mahoney (469,043) and Marcus Ford (456,718) took the top three spots in the counts in the WPT Super 50, whilst Matt Staples (332,060) also accumulated an impressive stack by the end.
Today sees the final two WPT500 Day 1s taking place before Day 2 starts at 8pm tonight, ahead of the final day tomorrow, also at 8 pm and which will feature on the live stream.
Coming up tonight
To add to all that, there is also the $10,300 PLO High Roller ($1 million guaranteed), $2,100 PLO ($300,000 guaranteed), $215 Mini PLO ($50,000 guaranteed), a $530 6-Max Turbo ($100,000 guaranteed) and the $55 Mini 6-Max PLO ($50,000 guaranteed) all to look forward to!
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 9
The only change on the top of the Leaderboard is that Rui Ferreira has extended his lead and is now 50 points clear of Paul Höfer.
However, with last night’s win under Ferreira’s belt, and Niklas Åstedt’s win and final table result to be included later today, it is entirely possible there will be some significant changes coming up in the standings.
*All times referred to are BST.