By Lisa Yiasemides
After more than ten days in the making, we are almost there. Tonight, we will have a new WPTDeepStacks Champion – that we know for sure. What we don’t know is which of the 18 finalists will be going home with the trophy.
The tournament moved on to its second stage yesterday, with the final Day 1s playing out before Day 2 got off the mark at 8 pm.* Tonight, the final will be covered on the live stream with James Dempsey your host once again. You can join the WPT Champion’s Club member from 8 pm on the partypoker Twitch channel and watch every moment of the action until the winner is crowned.
Running at the same time is the Mini WPTDeepStacks and there are some big names still among the 38 finalists. The buy-in may be a fraction of the price but the finale of this event promises to be no less exciting – there is a lot at stake with some huge cash prizes up for grabs here too!
Before we delve into the details of the flagship event and its Mini counterpart, let’s first take a look at the event which gave us the latest trophy winner of the series.
Second Chance – $1,050
There were 158 hopefuls who sat down to play the turbo event, putting $158,000 into the prize pool and creating a very attractive $36,324 prize for first place. That prize went to George Mcdonald after the Scot defeated Russia’s Andrei Chernokoz heads up, bringing to an end the tournament that lasted a little over four hours.
George McDonald
Tomás Paiva took third place and Simon Deadman and Fahad Al Thani completed the top five positions, with Luigi Shehadeh, Francois Billard and Gianluca Speranza ensuring the final table was notable all round when they took the last few seats.
Juha Helppi (9th) and Jan-Eric Schwippert (10th), Alex Foxen (15th) and Rui Ferreira (19th) were just some of the familiar names to reach the cash, with many more falling outside of the money in a tournament that attracted some serious poker talent.
WPTDeepStacks – $1,050
467 players qualified for Day 2 and those were reduced to 18 by the end of 15 Levels. Blinds had increased from 15 to 20 minutes as players progressed to the second day, and they increased once again towards the end of the night, going up to 25 minutes, which is where they’ll stay for the remainder of the tournament.
Russia’s Maksim Bukreev took the top spot at the end of it but Phillip Mighall is right behind him, a player who is no stranger to WPT online final tables, having reached fourth in the $2,650 Bounty Hunter and following it up with a win in the $3,200 Second Chance a week later.
The top ten stacks are littered with notable players, but arguably some of the biggest names will come back low in chips and attempt to spin their way to the final table. They include Joni Jouhkimainen (4,847,848) and partypoker’s Ludovic Geilich (3,957,765), who return with 20bb and 18bb stacks respectively and who will try to carve themselves as big a slice of the $3,554,000 prize pool as possible.
Maksim Bukreev
Those at the bottom may have some work to do but at least they are still in contention of that $557,658 prize that will go to the winner. In fact, the top five places all pay out six-figure sums and the final 18 return with the knowledge that at least $15,282 has been secured. That is not a bad position to be in at all and will certainly be the envy of those who are out of the running.
Some of the well-known players to get close but bust before the end were Govert Metaal (19th), Online Championship runner-up Viktor Ustimov (21st), Pieter Aerts (22nd), Rui Ferreira (23rd), Steven Warburton (27th), Connor Drinan (29th), Dmitry Yurasov (31st), Barry Hutter (33rd), Julien Martini (41st) and Team partypoker Nikita Bodyakovskiy (50th), who all reached the top 50 with 408 places paid.
Top 10 stacks going into Day 3
Mini WPTDeepStacks – $109
Running simultaneously will be the Mini event. There were 1,317 players who had progressed from the Day 1 flights but most of them fell, leaving just 38 still standing when the dust had settled. They are playing for as much as $156,957, with Murilo Branco Ruiz starting in pole position and best placed to challenge for the biggest share of that $1,040,000 prize pool. There is not a lot in it between the top four stacks though, as Alessandro Ferrari, Marc Wright and Ignacio Gaspari start close behind.
Griffin Benger and Michael Tureniec both have a top-ten stack, and the poker heavyweights will bring a lot of experience with them to the final day. They each start with in excess of 40bb, a reflection of the deep structure this event has offered players.
Michael Tureniec
Shawn Buchanan (10,283,994), Jan-Eric Schwippert (8,543,801), Luiz Antonio Duarte Ferreira Filho
(8,139,104) and Alexandre Reard (3,061,565) are a few of the well-known names who are still in contention and will return with a minimum of $2,122 locked up for their efforts.
Top 10 stacks going into Day 2
On today’s schedule
Aside from the final days of the WPTDeepStacks and Mini WPTDeepStacks, there is a $1,050 6-Max ($200,000 GTD) and $109 Mini 6-Max ($100,000 GTD) kicking off tonight. Both are two-day tournaments and offer the perfect chance to play whilst also watching the live stream.
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 25
With no new trophy winners yesterday, the leaderboard remains unchanged. However, Ustimov and Ferreira have both had deep runs that are yet to be counted and they will put some distance between themselves and the rest of the pack tomorrow.
*All times stated are BST