By Lisa Yiasemides
Another thrilling night of poker has taken place over on partypoker.com as the WPT Online Series continued with Day 3 last night. Another hugely successful evening saw five more champions crowned, with Scandinavian countries taking the lion’s share of the silverware, winning three of the five trophies up for grabs!
There were also three new entries into the series as the High Roller, 6-Max Bounty Hunter, Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter all got off the mark last night, but let’s start by taking a look at the latest WPT trophy winners.
PLO Highroller – $5,200
There were just seven players left in the PLO High Roller yesterday and all players pulled up their virtual chairs at 7 pm* having locked up at least $16,160 worth of a $505,000 prizepool. Little did they know that it would all be decided within two hours as Day 2 took just 1:48 to play out.
First to fall was British pro Sam Trickett, which meant the final six all received a pay jump as a result of his departure. Mark Demirjian ($20,957) exited next taking them to the final five, with Rui Ferreira, Matthew Wantman and Lauri Varonen joining them at the rail shortly after.
Sam Trickett
In the end, it was Norwegian player Ola Amundsgaard who went the distance, beating Day 2 chip leader Bеселйн Kаракйтуков to the post, though the two made a deal leaving only a $6,224 difference between first and second places, securing them both a six-figure win.
PLO Knockout – $1,050
There was still plenty of PLO action to be had, with Day 2 of the PLO Knockout also resuming at 7 pm.
This time it was Jesper Hougaard who took the title, trophy, and top prize with Rafael Camargo Freitas finishing runner up. Hougaard started the day with the chip lead and with only 10 players making it to the second day, it took the Dane three and a half hours to convert that lead into a win.
Spanish pro Javier Zarco actually took a bigger chunk of the $242,000 prizepool for coming in third place than Camargo Freitas did – proving the huge value potential available in collecting bounties. Ben Vinson was another big name in play, but he came unstuck in 9th place, taking $3,577.
Mini PLO Knockout – $109
The mini version of the tournament also continued at 7 pm and it took a little over four hours for a winner to be crowned. Aki Foudilainen was the victor that result meant that all three PLO trophies of the night would be heading to one of the countries in Scandinavia.
Jasper Wagemakers took runner up position, with Luigi Shehadeh close behind in third. David Penly (6th) and Timothy Chung (8th) also made the final table, which was a little further than Florian Duta (14th) was able to get to.
Superstack – $1,575
This tournament proved be extremely popular and attracted some serious poker talent on Monday night when it kicked off. Yesterday 54 of the 429 entries returned, and all of them were in the money. It took almost seven hours for Tamás Ádámszki to see off the last of his competitors as another six-figure sum was awarded when Kfir Igvi fell at the last to finish in second place.
Samuel Vousden and Joao Ferreira had their first final tables of the series, which was not the case for Sylvain Loosli who previously took 7th in the Opener for $51,070 – taking his total to $81,444 in those these two tournaments alone!
Sylvain Loosli
Shawn Buchanan (6th) narrowly missed out on a top-five finish. Team partypoker players Dzmitry Urbanovich (12th) and João Simão (16th) also ran deep, with Alexander Kostritsyn (19th) joining them in the top 20. Team partypoker Roberto Romanello, Patrik Antonius, David Peters, Romain Lewis, Anton Wigg and Mohsin Charania also cashed.
Mini Superstack – $162
The fifth trophy of the night went to Gereon Sowa who took $41,653 from the $246,900 prizepool after beating Henok Tekle Mariam heads up who got $29,554 for coming runner up. In a huge 1,646-strong field, Elias Vääräniemi, Gustavo Silva and Luiz Orrico concluded the top five spots. Also faring well were Ian O’Hara (11th) and Felix Bleiker (13th).
Concluding tonight
That completes our round-up of tournaments that have completed, now it’s time to take a look at the ones that resume for Day 2 tonight.
High Roller – $ 5,200
Once again some of poker’s most recognisable players turned up to play the High Roller and of those, it was Belarusian heavyweight and partypoker Ambassador Nikita Bodyakovskiy who accumulated the chip lead, with 774,272 chips at the end of 20 levels. Pascal Hartmann put up a good fight, coming in close second with 727,357 as Wiktor Malinowski (588,595) took third place in the counts.
Nikita Bodyakovskiy
The 225 entries smashed the $1,000,000 guarantee and 16 players remain in contention, among them are Dimitar Danchev (544,013), Christoph Vogelsang (487,830), Daniel Dvoress (173,446), Team partypoker Kristen Bicknell (169,647) and Mark Radoja (129,030), who have all secured at least $16,650 but could win anything up to a $229,386 for first!
Thomas Mühlöcker (23rd), Alex Foxen (26th), Nick Petrangelo (27th), Team partypoker Patrick Leonard (31st) and Patrik Antonius (32nd) all saw a return as 32 places were paid. Hossein Ensan, Dan Smith, Dan Shak, David Peters, Tim Adams, Mike Watson, Ole Schemion, Sam Greenwood and Team partypoker players Jeff Gross and Ludovic Geilich were just a few of the huge names who played but failed to make it through.
6-Max Bounty Hunter – $2,100
A total of 290 players paid the entry fee, creating a $580,000 prizepool – $80,000 more than the guarantee! Ten remain with Michael Addamo (1,868,198) returning as chip leader when play resumes at 7 pm tonight.
Guillaume Nolet (1,819,395) and Ramon Miquel Munoz (1,611,143) make up the top three as Barry Hutter (820,434) and Aleksejs Meless (749,424) complete the top five stacks. The final ten are guaranteed at least $4,863 (plus bounties) but will no doubt all have their sights firmly set on the $47,875 top cash.
Koray Aldemir (11th), Mark Radoja (12th), Dario Sammartino (17th), Kristen Bicknell (19th), Simon Deadman (20th), Mohsin Charania (27th), Patrik Antonius (29th) and Adrian Mateos (33rd) all made the cash too.
Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter – $215
A very impressive $341,6000 was collected for the prizepool, once again displaying the incredible popularity of this series as 1,708 players did their best to progress. By the end of 22 levels, 55 were left and Gustavo Restelatto Tochetto bagged biggest with 2,187,104 to play with.
Micky Blasi (1,946,366), Daniel Wendorf (1,805,610), David Hu (1,794,158) and Douglas Ferreira Souza (1,617,193) are best placed to challenge for the $19,709 (plus bounties) top prize.
WPT500 and WPT Super 50 continue
That leaves just the WPT500 and WPT Super 50, in which Day 1c played in both last night.
Another 514 registrations were logged in the $530 WPT500 and Michel Dattani (408,805) chipped up the most, with Waheed Ashraf (360,460) in second and Lawrence Bayley (341,313) nabbing the third spot. Tom Middleton (263,394) returns with a stack when Day 2 reconvenes on Sunday, May 11. Also guaranteed a seat are Sylvain Loosli, Steven van Zadelhoff and Parker Talbot. Kristen Bicknell and Patrick Leonard will both fly the partypoker flag, as they progress too.
Patrick Leonard
Jerry Ödeen (440,497) built a large stack in the $55 WPT Super 50 and was only outdone by Adam Crawford (886,128), Fabrizio Gonzalez (633,106) and Victor Artemenko (441,071) who finished above him in the counts.
Coming up tonight
One of the highlights of the series – the $1,050 Heads Up – starts at 6 pm sharp. Yes, that’s right there is no late registration period. That is all the more reason to register as soon as possible and join the likes of Dominik Nitsche; partypoker’s Jeff Gross, Kristen Bicknell and Patrick Leonard; Jerry Ödeen and Orpen Kisacikoglu and Ole Schemion who are already in the registrations list. Alongside it will run the $109 Mini Heads Up.
The highest buy-in of the festival so far – the $10,300 High Roller – starts at 7 pm, which has a $1 million guarantee! There will also be two one-day tournaments taking place, the $530 Turbo Bounty and $55 Mini Turbo Bounty to look forward to.
Leaderboard
Please note this is accurate up to May 4.
Leo Fernandez is in pole position at the moment with Zach Clark in second but remember it is still early days and it could all change at the top. These figures are updated at 2 pm daily.
*All times noted are BST