By Lisa Yiasemides
It’s almost time… the day we have all been waiting for has arrived at last! The final table of the WPT Online Championship is set and tonight eight will become one, as someone will walk away more than a million bucks richer as result!
The prizemoney is not the only thing players will be competing for with the illustrious title and the champion’s name etched on the iconic WPT Champion’s Cup also part of the winner’s package, plus entry into the exclusive Champion’s Club and a $15,000 seat in the Tournament of Champions next season!
The stakes are certainly high so it is fitting that James Dempsey will be your host this evening when the stream goes live at 7 pm* tonight. As a Champion’s Club member himself, James will understand all too well what will be going through the heads of the finalists as they try to navigate their way through the final table, and you can watch every moment of it on the partypoker Twitch channel.
The WPT Super 50 will also reach its conclusion this evening, when the epic tournament that has attracted almost 20,000 hopefuls since the series launched, returns to play down to a winner.
WPT Online Championship – $3,200
Christian Jeppsson starts in pole position with 17,573,926 in the bag but the battle will unlikely be easy as three of the four remaining top-five stacks have won at least one trophy so far this series, and they are Sam Greenwood (16,087,766), Pascal Hartmann (14,884,499) and two-time winner Viktor Ustimov (9,138,972). Alexander Stuart Clark (14,407,969) is also in a strong position and will be looking to score that first big win of the festival.
Christian Jeppsson
There is quite some jump in stack sizes between the top and the bottom of the chip counts, with Jukka Koskela (5,700,975), Nikolay Ponomarev (5,132,492) and Pascal Teekens (2,215,627) pulling up the rear. This is poker though and anything can happen (Daniel Dvoress can testify to that after his incredible final table run in the Super High Roller a couple of days ago).
They may be short stacked but they are guaranteed at least $66,776 for making it this far and they still have a shot at winning up to $1,048,088, which is more than can be said for the rest of the 35-field that started Day 3. Dmitry Yurasov (9th), Vicent Bosca Ramon (10th), Benny Glaser (11th) and Amichai Barer (12th) all came within in touching distance of the final table and took $51,120 each for their results.
Aram Zobian (15th), Fabrizio Gonzalez (19th) – who came close again after bubbling the WPT500 final table – and Matthias Eibinger (20th) managed to find their way into the Top 20, finishing ahead of Vlad Darie (22st), Martin Jacobson (23nd), Ema Zajmovic (25th), Orpen Kisacikoglu (27th), and Max Silver (30th) who were also among last night’s casualties.
WPT Super 50 – $55
Running since launch night, this tournament has been 18 days in the making but it will all conclude tonight. At the end of Day 2, only 44 players were left in contention, still in with a shot of living the poker dream and being able to turn $55 into as much as $124,075!
Luigi D’alterio (20,177,654) built the biggest stack by the end and starts just a whisker ahead of Dan Kothari (19,762,594) in second place. Petar Petrov (18,628,554), Leocir José Carneiro (17,503,087) and Andreas Fiedler (13,574,277) make up the rest of the top five stacks when play recommences at 8 pm.
Latest trophy winners
PLO Hi-Lo Knockout- $530
Two trophies were awarded last night, both in PLO Hi-Lo Knockout events, and the first went to Luiz Orrico in the $530 event. Team partypoker Jeff Gross was first to fall on the final table, followed by Day 1 chip leader Wagner Petry, who came unstuck despite a huge chip advantage at the start of the day to bust in 7th place.
Roberto Romanello
Andreas Klatt and Stanislav Tukov were next out before another partypoker representative, Roberto Romanello, departed in fourth. Alexander Burkart made it as far as third, which left Artem Voziyanov and Orrico to duel for the top prize, trophy and title, with the latter managing to lock up the win, rounding up the four-and-a-half-hour battle.
Mini PLO Hi-Lo Knockout – $55
Despite 15 players returning for the final day, the Mini event played out significantly faster, finishing after three-and-a-half hours, with bustouts coming thick and fast. Anton Mangilev was out first, followed by Kevin Macphee and Mykhailo Doronin. Alexander Burkart had managed to navigate his way to a second final table but couldn’t progress past fourth place. Alexandru Talica went one better but just missed out on reaching the heads-up phase of the tournament.
Roman Iisakkala gave it their best but had to settle for the runner up position with Maksim Volkov going the distance to take the second trophy of the night.
Concludes Tonight
High Roller – $10,300
A third final table will play out later as the second day in this two-day event resumes at 7 pm. Andras Nemeth (911,709) took the chip lead at the end of the night, a player who has already notched up two final table finishes after coming third in the $10,300 PLO High Roller and runner up in the $3,200 Second Chance. Could this be the event that nets the Hungarian his first title of the series?
Daniil Kiselev (637,468), Jorma Nuutinen (377,651) and David Peters (306,906) are the biggest obstacles in his way, while Fabrizio Gonzalez (289,449), David Gent (228,730), Mark Davis (189,778) and Dan Smith (88,309) should not be discounted either.
David Peters
The tournament attracted a very famous crowd indeed with Rob Lipkin, Rui Ferreira, Juan Pardo Dominguez, Vicent Bosca Ramon, Jake Schindler, Daniel Dvoress, Mustapha Kanit and Christopher Hunichen all reaching the top 16 paid.
6-Max Bounty Hunter – $2,100
Patrik Antonius (1,644,597) had the most productive night in the bigger buy-in bounty comp. He goes through with the chip lead as well as an enormous $11,141 in bounties banked already (almost double that of anyone else in the field). Alessandro Valli (1,003,749), who finished runner up in the $530 Turbo bounty the previous evening, is second in chips.
Patrik Antonius
Jacob Verloop (903,717), Gustavo Mastelotto (620,643), $1,575 Superstack winner Tamás Ádámszki (453,533), Pedro Garagnani (330,001), Istvan Habencius (322,256) and online star Alexandr Trofimov (271,504) all nabbed themselves a seat in the final too. Everyone has secured at least $5,913 but will be aiming for the $39,412 to prize.
Mini 6-Max Bounty Hunter – $215
There are 35 players still in the running in the Mini event and Dragos Trofimov (4,642,641) had chipped up the most by the end of 22 levels.
With over double his closest rival, Trofimov is in the best position to reach the top prize of $15,406 (plus bounties). However, Audrius Stakelis (2,159,079), Jakub Szczotka (1,824,917), Vlad Stefan Lache (1,711,226) and Jacobus Visser (1,668,502) all built stacks big enough to reach the Top 5 in the counts, and will no doubt do their best to challenge him.
Continues Tonight
WPTDeepStacks – $1,050
Day 1s in both the WPTDS and the Mini WPTDS events will run each day until Tuesday, May 26, with the second starting flights getting underway yesterday.
18 levels were on the cards and the 15-minute blind structure meant four-and-a-half hours of play before Day 1b was done. At the end of it, 288 players had been reduced to 43, with partypoker’s very own Ludovic Geilich (666,302) up at the top of the counts. Jan-Eric Schwippert (578,035), Tom Middleton (524,592), Shannon Shorr (350,810) and Alexey Savenkov (342,353) all fared extremely well too.
Ludovic Geilich
The big names didn’t stop there with WTPDS UK Champion Michael Tureniec, Marvin Rettenmaier, Zachary Gruneberg, Bruno Volkmann and Simon Deadman completing the Top 10. Plus, Ryan Riess, Pedro Marques, Christopher Hunichen, Boris Kolev Govert Metaal and Giuseppe Iadisernia all featured in the Top 20!
Mini WPTDeepStacks – $109
A total of 999 entries were counted in the WPTDS Mini and of those, 126 made it through to Day 2. Christoph Krammer (716,425), Richard Trigg (691,717), Valentin Troichenko (595,656), Paul Vas Nunes (569,717) and Renato Ribeiro (552,698) bagged the most chips ahead of Day 2 next week.
On tonight’s schedule
As well as the finals in the Online Championship and the WPT Super 50, High Roller, Bounty Hunter and Mini Bounty Hunter, there will also be an 8-Max, Mini 8-Max, 6-Max Turbo Bounty Hunter and Mini 6-Max Turbo Bounty Hunter on the cards for tonight.
Leaderboard
Please note this takes into account results up to and including May 18
The points from Elias Talvitie’s sixth-place finish in the Super High Roller two days ago added to his previous final table results, sees Talvitie move into third place on the Leaderboard. Only Samuel Vousden and Norbert Szecsi are ahead of him, with Rui Ferreira and Artur Martirosian taking the last two top-five spots.
*All times stated are BST