By Lisa Yiasemides
Last night, it was another exciting night in the WPT World Online Championships. Event #05, the WPT Knockout Championship, finally got underway at 7pm (BST) with Day 1a in the Main, Mini and Micro buy-in events all taking place. The Championship event is a piece of WPT history in itself, as this is the first time a WPT Main Tour event has featured a progressive knock-out format.
There were plenty of well-known players at the virtual tables and with tonight being a Sunday, there is no reason to expect anything different from tonight’s flights either.
Over in the Knockout Warm Up events, the second of three starting flights took place yesterday evening and they will all run to a conclusion later tonight, with Day 2 kicking off at 7pm. If you were hoping to get involved, you still have one last chance to qualify for this $500,000 guaranteed comp with a turbo Day 1c on the schedule at 4pm.
Event #05: $3,200 Knockout Championship ($3M GTD)
It was clear to see that players have been looking forward to this one…457 entries have already been counted in this event, generating $1,371,000 towards the prize pool, and with only Day 1a in the books!
After 18 Levels of play, the clock paused and 57 players will proceed to Day 2. Standing at the top of the chip counts was Chance Kornuth, a player who has amassed $7.4 million in recorded tournament results, and who has had scored two six-figure WPT results in the past. Kornuth takes through 2,520,484 and $9,937 in cash after he eliminated five opponents.
Chance Kornuth
The only other player to end up on more than two million chips was Santiago Plante (2,094,228) who banked $5,812 in bounties for four knockouts. Lukas Wimmer (1,872,570) won four bounties for a total of $7,120, Mark Davis (1,583,429) took the fourth spot and collected $6,937 while reigning WPT Germany Champion Christopher Pütz completed the top five. He goes through with 1,563,629 and $6,468 in bounties.
Pedro Marques (1,551,259), Rui Miguel Nougueira Da Silva E Sousa – who won the $530 Knockout three days ago – bagged 1,308,423, Park Talbot ($1,155,899), Dzmitry Urbanovich (1,111,426) and Sylvain Loosli (901,334) did enough to get themselves into the top 20. Also winning a seat into Day 2 were Daniel Dvoress (889,164), Manig Loeser (698,958), Joao Vieira (617,563), Kristen Bicknell (585,429) and Renato Nomura (531,876).
They all progress knowing they have either made a profit or at least brought back a proportion of their buy-in. That naturally comes at the expense of some other big names though. It was a tough day for Connor Drinnan who exited in 60th place, shortly before the end of the day. Drinnan was also the last person to leave without winning a single bounty. He, along with Pascal Hartmann, Faraz Jaka, Elio Fox, Jack Salter, and Matt and Jaime Staples are a few of the players who will have to re-enter to stay in the competition.
Play for this and the Mini and Micro events will resume at 7pm tomorrow, Monday, August 17. Blinds will pick up from Level 19 – 7,000/14,000 (1,750 ante).
Event #05: $320 Mini Knockout Championship ($1M GTD)
Over in the Mini and with a huge $1,000,000 guarantee of its own, there were plenty of recognisable names in the player list. And it was a long player list too, with 1,453 total registrations counted and $435,900 collected for the prize pool – almost halfway to the guarantee with two flights still to go.
Milaim Tafaj (2,485,992) accumulated the most chips by the end and with $787 in bounties, that is more than double the buy-in won back already. Mark Roovers (1,945,116) and online specialist Yuri Dzivielevski (1,874,042) took second and third spots. Josephus J Van Den Bijgaart (1,858,610) and Will Stephenson (1,841,367) rounded out the top five stacks and all of them have turned a profit already.
Mike Leah (1,620,420) is also chipped up and has won what looks to the biggest amount in bounties so far after eliminating 12 opponents and collecting $1,087 for his hard work. Andreas Klatt (1,568,161), Dorian Rios (1,514,177), Anton Wigg (1,513,726) and Pascal Hartmann (1,451,726) all did enough to work their way up into a top 20 spot. They will all progress with the rest of the 209 survivors to Day 2 tomorrow.
Event #05: $33 Micro Knockout Championship ($300K GTD)
More than half of the prize pool is already in the pot after thousands sat down to play in the Micro event. A total of 5,365 entries were counted, putting $160,950 into the prize pool. With so many chips in play as well as the knockout format, it was no wonder to see some huge stacks emerging.
The biggest of all was Lee Jack (3,209,983) who will return with 229 big blinds for Day 2. Not a bad day’s work at all. Christos Baras (2,925,607) and Jörg Schneegass (2,816,807) also bagged stacks worth 200+ big blinds and it was enough to put them second and third in chips.
Fernando Luiz Ramos De Carvalho (2,669,994) and Jack Michael Nesbitt (2,586,401) took the last of the top-five spots in the counts, with a total of 718 advancing to the next stage of the competition.
$1,050 Knockout Warm Up ($500K GTD)
Day 1b in the Warm Up pumped up the action in more ways that one. First, more than double the number of registrations were logged (251, compared to yesterday’s 102) and second, Georgi Sandev of Bulgaria has set a new bar after almost eclipsing the 3-million barrier, taking 2,932,179. That is 650,00 ahead of Nick Yunis who was chip leader yesterday, and who goes through overall second in chips to Day 2 tonight.
Sandev also won a huge $5,250 after eliminating 12 people from the competition. Sergei Koliakov (1,677,173) did his best to keep up and won $2,703 for half as many knockouts. Alex Difelice (1,519,317) and Ramon Miquel Munoz (1,401,352) took third and fourth places, while Arsenii Karmatckii (1,302,039), who made the final table of last week’s 6-Max Championship event, finished up in fifth.
Alex Difelice
Christian Rudolph (892,427), Michael Tureniec (803,341), Viktor Ustimov (660,973), Tomi Brouk (535,394), Maria Ho (368,510) and Simon Mattsson (81,564) are a handful of the other notables who progress among the 31 players who survived, though the latter will return with less than six big blinds after finishing at the bottom of the counts.
$109 Mini Knockout Warm Up ($150K GTD)
Mickey Petersen (1,990,586) had the most productive night of the 906-strong field, accumulating almost 20 times the amount of chips he started the day with and banking $225 via five bounties to boot. His wasn’t the largest amount collected in bounties though, with $273 taken by Gabriel Schroeder (1,767,542) in second place.
Guilherme Franco (1,638,193), Christopher Williams (1,630,283) and Dutch pro Pim Giles (1,568,129) all made the top five too. They were joined by a host of big names, including Sylvain Loosli (1,366,445), Tyler Goatcher (1,297,73), Lars Kamphues (1,240,520) who all did particularly well too, ending up in the top 20.
Though it is too early to know what they are playing for (we will know once registration in Day 1c of each of these six events has been reached), what we can say is that we are only $2,700 away from reaching the $150,000 guarantee.
$11 Micro Knockout Warm Up ($30K GTD)
Meanwhile, over in the Micro tournament, the prize pool has already exceeded that of its guaranteed, with $31,940 in the pot so far.
Currently in the best position is Jhonattan Carvalho (2,419,944) after he finished at the top of the counts in Day 1b. He didn’t manage to beat Bonnie-Marie Knox or Aleksandr Pliushch who ended up first and second yesterday. That is where they will stay, with Carvalho doing enough to start in third place.
Kristaps Sipols (2,107,044), who finished with the second largest stack last night, has built the fourth largest stack overall, with only three others from across both starting flights accruing more than two million chips.
Tonight’s schedule
The schedule is jam-packed and also featuring on the menu tonight, is Day 2 of the Knockout Warm Up events, which start at 7pm.