As we head into the final day of the 2021 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars, we witness a crazy day of doubles, clean-sweeps and tightly-fought Main Events. All the details…
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Chew leads as WCOOP heads to grand finale!
Nemeth wins PLO Main as Petersen finishes second, twice
Doubles for Tournier-Moraes and kurzatvvarz
Brazil locks up leader board
Can Fintan grab title at the death?
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Chew aiming to put Indonesia on the WCOOP board
Chew! Chew! Australian railroads to Main Event lead: Australia’s Stevan Chew now plays his online poker based in Indonesia, but doesn’t appear to be suffering from homesickness. Last night, he motored to an enormous chip lead in the $5,300 buy-in WCOOP Main Event, heading the final nine in the flagship tournament of online poker’s most prestigious series. Playing as “random_chu“, Chew has more than 147 million in chips, almost double that of his closest challenger, Lithuania’s “necgaidziai”. There’s close to $1.5 million scheduled for the winner, and Chew is the man to catch in the race for that enormous prize. The chasing pack is hugely talented, however. Pascal “Pass_72” Lefrancois, sits in third, fresh from a huge SCOOP victory in a similar tournament this spring. Behind him is Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger, the Day 2 chip leader, who is often mentioned when people discuss the best online players of their generation. Meanwhile “Juicy_J_93”, currently in sixth, and “CrazyLissy” (ninth) will both be looking for a second career WCOOP title. It all finishes tonight, with the PokerStars Twitch and YouTube broadcast watching on. Brazil’s “Gabriellln” leads the $530 medium event, which is also at its final table, while “pagan_junior” of Sweden is top of the charts in the $55 low event.
Nemeth was one of two Hungarians to deny Petersen
Petersen denied by Hungary, twice: There was some incredible symmetry at work in the medium and high PLO Main Events, where the final two players in each of them came from Hungary and Denmark. The Hungarian won both encounters — “Nizkm9” in the medium and Andras “probirs” Nemeth in the high — but even more remarkably, the Dane was actually the same player in both tournaments, Alex “AlexKP” Petersen. They say you never remember the person who comes second, but it would be rude not to in this instance. Petersen went heads-up for two WCOOP PLO Main Events on the same night, which is an exceptional achievement. However Nizkm9 and Nemeth were both ruthless, the former winning a first WCOOP title along with $128,665 and the latter a career third, after a double last year. Nemeth’s prize was $308,556, and makes up for his own second-place finish earlier in the series. Petersen, for the record, won $90,593 and $237,169, which are both in his top 10 all-time wins. But he is still hunting a second WCOOP title, having won his first in 2010.
A brilliant double for Tournier–Moraes
Tournier-Moraes doubles up: What’s a few weeks it’s been in the home of Rafael Moraes and Lauriê Tournier–Moraes. September began with the news that Rafael, also known as “GM_VALTER” online, had signed for Team PokerStars Pro, representing Brazil alongside Andre Akkari. But then Lauriê took over. During the second week of WCOOP, Lauriê, who plays online as “LaliTournier” won the medium buy-in heads-up title, defeating a field of 1,024 for the $15,486 first prize. Then last night, Lauriê did it again, picking up a second victory of the series in the $1K Series Saver, and banking an enormous $182,595, including bounties. That’s two titles for the Moraes home this series, but both of the trophies will sit on Lauriê’s side of the mantlepiece. That’s a fantastic achievement by anyone’s standards.
A new 6+ monster is crowned: At some point in the past year, the Polish player named “kurzatvvarz” set himself up as a Twitch streamer, apparently intending to showcase his skills at the PokerStars tables to anyone who wanted to watch. But according to that same channel, kurzatvvarz last streamed about seven months ago. Apparently it wasn’t for him. That’s a real shame for all of those potential viewers, however, because kurzatvvarz could have been a very valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn 6+ hold’em, otherwise known as short deck. Last night kurzatvvarz won the $1K buy-in 6+ event during WCOOP, only a week or so after he also won the $530 buy-in WCOOP 6+ tournament. That’s two WCOOP titles in the same year, both in “high” buy-ins and both in 6+ events. That is no fluke, even in a variant where variance is enormous. kurzatvvarz’s first victory came over a field of 135 entries and was worth $14,168. His second triumph was over a 106-entry field and earned $25,330. It might be worth keeping an eye on that Twitch channel in case this clearly brilliant player decides to make a comeback.
MORE ABOUT WCOOP:
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Brazil’s series saved(!): If any country didn’t need their series saving, it was Brazil. The South Americans had already won 53 titles, the most of any country ever in WCOOP. But then last night, Brazil pulled off a clean sweep in WCOOP 94, the event billed as the “Series Saver”, winning the low, medium and high designation. The latter went to Lauriê “LaliTournier” Tournier–Moraes, as discussed above, but Cassio “pardalnegro” Roese also won $17,845 for winning the $11 tournament and Elson “batataxpp” Borges dos Santos won $87,635 for the $109 “medium”. That brought Brazil’s tally to 56, and clinched the overall leader board. See below for more details.
Three deals end phase tourneys: The Phase events are always the largest during these major PokerStars series, thanks to their multiple starting flights allowing essentially unlimited entries to players. It’s how come the organisers can advertise a $1 million guarantee for a tournament that has a $5.50 buy-in, for example. That particular phase event — WCOOP 01-L — attracted 141,219 entries over its multiple phases, and when it played to a winner last night, left two players potentially turning their five bucks into six figures. “hestoji“, of Russia, and “dbells14” of the UK opted to do a deal heads-up, in which dbells14 took the biggest slice of the prize, locking up $101.415. However, hestoji won the final battle, taking their total payout to $98,961, plus the coveted trophy. Although the runner up earned $3K more, it was win-win from such a tiny buy-in. The $22 “medium” event also ended in a deal, with Canada’s “morans350” chopping heads up with “Uoriner” of Russia, before closing it out for $113,995. (There were 45,743 players across the multiple phases.) And the pattern repeated in the $109 “high” event, where Luis “figalex25” Figallo of Peru chopped with “CBon’s 72” of Malta, before Figallo took the trophy and $152,853.
Theologis, at long last: Although WCOOP 2021 is drawing slowly to its conclusion, there was just time on Tuesday night for Alexandros “Pwndidi” Theologis to put right one of this tournament series’ big omissions. Theologis, who is originally from Greece but won a SCOOP title representing North Macedonia and is now based in Austria, had never won a WCOOP title, despite securing a documented $7.3 million in online tournament earnings, according to Pocket Fives. However, Theologis blazed through the 664-player field in last night’s $530 freezeout, picking up $56,520 and his first, belated, WCOOP title. As a measure of Theologis’s prior success, that score is not even in his top 10 biggest. So it’s long overdue. (Incidentally, Theologis beat “Ant1K1lller” heads-up, denying Kyrgyzstan it’s first ever WCOOP winner.) In the “medium” buy-in tournament of this event, Canada’s “roo_400” won a second career WCOOP title, along with $33,260. roo_400 first won in 2019.
TODAY’S RESULTS
*denotes deal
†inc. bounties
STAT TRACKER
WCOOP 2021 still has one day left, but the stat tracker has hit two significant landmarks. Firstly, winners in tournaments during this series have been paid more than $15 million. Pretty good. But total prize pools have now passed the $100 million mark. Pretty, pretty good. Remember, these stats don’t even include the hold’em Main Events, which conclude this evening. We know there’s close to $16 million going on to that prize pools total, at the very least.
Tournaments completed: 288
Entries: 1,344,919 (inc. 260,057 re-entries)
Prize pools: $101,953,687
First-place prizes: $15,416,347 (inc. $2,735,331 in bounties)
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Tournaments starting today: 9
Stats refer to completed tournaments only
TWITCH WATCH
It’s been an exceptional WCOOP for PokerStars’ streamers, with titles for Spraggy and tonkaaaa and several deep runs, including one High Roller second place, for Lex Veldhuis. Fintan “easywithaces” Hand hasn’t had the run of the green for most of the series, but everything could change for him on the final night of the series. Hand sits ninth of 39 returning in the $2K Super Tuesday Special Edition, with $112K up top. Here’s a huge hand he won, which put him into the chip lead at one point last night:
TWEET OF THE DAY
Lex puts his finger on it for all of us who have watched or played WCOOP this time around.
Ahhh there it is; the mixture of relief it’s over and sadness there isn’t more. Can’t wait for the next big series.
— Lex Veldhuis (@LexVeldhuis) September 15, 2021
COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD
We’ve seen it coming from the very first week, but the big news today is that Brazil is now unassailable at the top of the countries leader board. Brazilians won another three titles overnight, putting the country’s tally to 56, and a clear 20 ahead of Russia (even though Russians also won three on Tuesday night). There are only 18 ournaments still in play, and so even if Russia pulls off a remarkable haul on WCOOP’s last day, it won’t be enough. It’s official: the WCOOP Countries Leader Board champion is Brazil. By an absolute landlide. Congratulations!
Current standings:
56 titles — Brazil
36 — Russia
25 — UK
18 – Netherlands
15 — Austria, Canada
11 — Sweden
10 — Poland
8 — Finland, Hungary
7 — Belarus, Germany, Norway
6 — Mexico, Ukraine
5 — Czech Republic, Latvia
4 — Argentina, Lithuania
3 — Bulgaria, Peru, Romania
2 — Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Ireland, Japan, Moldova
1 — Andorra, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Morocco, New Zealand, Panama, San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland, Uzbekistan.
PLAYER OF THE SERIES UPDATE
Talal Shakerchi, with his three wins and multiple deep runs, still leads the overall leader board heading into the final day. But Patrick “pads1161” Leonard is back up to third, and has a stack in at least one of the big events paused overnight. Another nine get started today, so it’s still too early to call it for sure.
OVERALL
1 – Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi (UK) – 1,705 points
2 – FONBET_RULIT (Russia) – 1,645
3 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard (UK) – 1,555
4 – Camilancefieldg (Canada) – 1,550
5 – Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak (Russia) – 1,410
Prize: $25,000 to the winner
HIGH
1 – Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (Brazil) – 910 points
2 – Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi (UK) – 895
3 – Joao “Naza114” Vieira (Netherlands) – 855
4 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard (UK) – 725
5 – Pablo “pabritz” Brito (Brazil) – 620
Prizes: 1st — $15,000; 2nd — $10,000; 3rd — $5,000
MEDIUM
1 – FONBET_RULIT (Russia) – 685 points
=2 – Camilancefieldg (Canada) – 575
=2 – Matt “OLD TIME GIN” Stone (Canada) – 575
4 – FAL 1st (Russia) – 550
5 – Jerry “Perrymejsen” Odeen (Sweden) – 540
Prizes: 1st — $10,000; 2nd — $7,500; 3rd — $5,000; 4th — $2,500; 5th — $1,500; 6th-10th — $1,000
LOW
1 – ekvilibryst (Ukraine) – 670 points
2 – WTFOMFGOAO (Russia) – 615
3 – Camilancefieldg (Canada) – 610
4 – ILoveScarfGuy (Croatia) – 595
=5 – FONBET_RULIT (Russia) – 590
=5 – renemastermi (Germany) – 590
Prizes: 1st — $5,000; 2nd — $2,500; 3rd — $1,500; 4th — $1,000; 5th — $500; 6th-10th — $300; 11th-20th — $150
TODAY’S ACTION
It’s the final day of WCOOP action, but there’s still a chance to get involved. Three events are starting, and will all play to a finish tonight. They include the “Final Freeze”, the biggest of which has a $5,200 buy-in, and the Series Wrap-Up, which is a hyper turbo and will get done in the blink of an eye.
WCOOP 100: NLHE 8-Max, Final Freeze
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Guarantees:$175K, $250K, $500K
WCOOP 101: PLO 6-Max
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees:$30K, $100K, $200K
WCOOP 102: NLHE 7-Max, Hyper-Turbo, PKO, Series Wrap-Up
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees:$60K, $250K, $275K
WATCH THE ACTION ON TWITCH AND YOUTUBE
Watch the final broadcast of WCOOP, as the Main Events crown their champions, from 1pm ET today. There will, as ever, be cards up coverage and expert commentary from James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton and a host of special guests. Click for full details.
You can watch on the PokerStars YouTube channel, the PokerStars YouTube UK channel, or PokerStars’ Twitch channel.
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