The online WSOP for 2020 is entering its first weekend and it isn’t wasting any time. Two more bracelets have been awarded over the past couple days on the New Jersey and Nevada based WSOP.com. It all leads to what is expected to be a big first weekend of action for the 2020 event.
Louis ‘PokeThese’ Lynch Wins Event #2
There must be some credit given. The events at the online WSOP don’t waste any time in completing. The tournaments themselves, with over 1000 entries each time, have usually wrapped up in roughly half a day. In a live setting, such a tournament would have taken three days to play out. This speed factor played out on Thursday in Event #2, the $1000 Eight-Max Deepstack No Limit Hold’em tournament.
Players received a 30K stack of chips for their $1000 buy in and could re-enter the tournament two times if they were knocked out. The 15-minute blind levels kept things moving along and registration for the tournament lasted for almost four hours (three hours, 55 minutes). In the end, it brought in a decent sized field.
Once the registration period was over, 647 players put up not just their buy-in but also 272 rebuys to make a 919-entry field. This generated a prize pool of $873,050, of which the champion would take $168,585.95). These numbers were definitively under a comparable event from the 2019 schedule, the $1000 Online Double Stack tournament, that pulled in 1333 last year online.
The lower number of players didn’t stop the action, however. Railbirds were thrilled by a deep run from Daniel ‘DNegs’ Negreanu, who would come up a bit short in 18th place, but another poker pro in Jason ‘haderade’ Somerville would pick up the banner. Somerville would make the final table, only to be ousted by Louis ‘PokeThese’ Lynch in a classic race, Somerville’s A-K versus Lynch’s pocket tens. For his efforts, Somerville walked off in sixth place for $27,762.99.
Lynch would ride that win over Somerville to the title. After Lynch defeated Kevin ‘GoneBananas’ Garosshen, he would enter heads-up play against Ryan ‘KOVID19’ Ko holding nearly a 3.5:1 lead. Lynch whittled the stack of Ko down, getting him to the point where Ko pushed all-in with a less than stellar Q-6 off suit. Problem was that Lynch woke up with a pocket pair of sixes that held up on the ten-high board to give Lynch the online WSOP bracelet.
1. Louis ‘PokeThese’ Lynch, $168,585.95
2. Ryan ‘KOVID19’ Ko, $104,242.17
3. Kevin ‘GoneBananas’ Garosshen, $73,423.50
4. Daniel ‘IntoTheRiver’ Fischer, $52,383
5. Sean ‘bahbababa’ Prendiville, $37,890.37
6. Jason ‘haderade’ Somerville, $27,762.99
7. Jon ‘jonnyg93’ Gisler, $20,691.28
8. Matthew ‘Michmeister’ Mich, $15,627.59
Numbers Down for Event #3 as Robert ‘bustinballs’ Kuhn Takes the Crown
For the first time at the 2020 online WSOP, there was an “apples to apples” comparison that could be made for tournaments. Event #3, a $400 No Limit Hold’em event, saw an original 1450 player field rebuy 641 times to create a 2091 entry field. This pales in comparison to a similar event that was on the 2019 World Series of Poker schedule.
This event was run in 2019 and was, by appearances, quite popular with those in their hotel rooms. Final entry numbers for the event last year was 2825 entries, more than 700 entries more than what showed up in 2020. The 2020 field would have a decent prize pool to fight over, however, racking up a kitty of $752,760 for the players to divvy up.
The big name at the final table for this event was the all-time leader in WSOP cashes, Roland ‘prngls12’ Israelashvili. Notching his 228th career cash at the WSOP (this takes into account Circuit events in addition to the WSOP in Las Vegas, Europe and Asia/Pacific), Israelashvili was able to work his way to eighth place before running into the player who started the final table as the chip leader, Robert ‘bustinballs’ Kuhn.
Israelashvili was the unfortunate soul on the wrong end of a cooler. Sitting with pocket tens, Israelashvili moved all in and Kuhn woke up with pocket Queens. Once an uneventful nine-high board ran out, Israelashvili earned his third cash in three efforts at the 2020 online WSOP, picking up $12,345.26 for finishing eighth.
Kuhn could not be stopped at this final table, entering as the chip leader and only keeping his foot on the gas from there. Down to three handed, Kuhn would eliminate ‘Doc33’ in third place to take a nearly 5:1 lead to heads up action against Ronald ‘riksaces’ Keren. While many thought it would be a quick battle, it turned out to be anything but quick.
Approximately a half hour into the heads-up match, Keren would force a fold out of Kuhn on a draw heavy 6-4-10-9-3 board with three hearts to take over the lead. Kuhn would strike back almost immediately, however, picking up a five million chip pot to reassume the lead. On the very next hand, Kuhn would end the tournament in dramatic fashion.
After an opening bet from Kuhn to 800K, Keren would three-bet the action and Kuhn pushed for his remaining stack. Pondering his situation, Keren opted for the call for less and turned up a K♠ 10♠ for battle against Kuhn’s pocket eights. The 7♠ J♦ A♠ provided multiple draws for Keren, but none of them would come home; the 4♣ teased Keren on the turn, but the 2♦ on the river ended the event and earned Kuhn the championship.
1. Robert ‘bustinballs’ Kuhn, $115,850
2. Ronald ‘riksaces’ Keren, $71,587
3. ‘Doc33,’ $52,242
4. ‘klubot,’ $38,466
5. Max ‘ndirish50’ Huster, $28,605
6. Evan ‘Escott121181’ Scott, $21,454
7. ‘pokeher2014,’ $16,184
8. Roland ‘prngls12’ Israelashvili, $12,345
9. ‘AndrewFreund,’ $9560