Wsop 2020 Online Main Event Closes In on $25M Gtd

Rose Varrelli | August 29, 2020 | Updated on: July 28th, 2022

It’s moving quickly now. The last tournaments of the 2020 World Series of Poker are playing on the GGNetwork (GGPoker and Natural8) with only about one week remaining on the schedule.

As a reminder, the WSOP 2020 Online offered the first 31 of its 85 tournaments in the United States market, and international events began with Event 32 on the GGNetwork. Thus far, these are the international tournament recaps:

Throughout the Natural8 tournaments, players have tried to claim bracelets for Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. So far, these players were successful:

Event 34: Shoma “pp_syon” Ishikawa of Japan
Event 37: Hun Wei Lee of Australia
Event 38: Aaron “fishnchip” Wijaya of China
Event 46: Sung Joo “ArtePokerTV” Hyun of South Korea
Event 47: Paul Teoh of Malaysia
Event 64: Kartik “Mandovi” Ved of India
Event 68: Anson “Tara@0z” Tsang of Hong Kong
Event 71: Huahuan “F7588” Feng of China

Let’s get to the latest WSOP 2020 results:

Event 69: $1,500 NLHE Marathon

Total entries: 1,438
Prize pool: $2,049,150
Paid players: 206 (minimum payout = $3,243)
Winner: Nick “rdcrsn” Maimone (US) $302,472

Players responded well to this tournament, creating a prize pool exceeding $2 million. And when it was done, a US player claimed the bracelet. But he battled opponents from Brazil, Portugal, Russia, Canada, Estonia, and Belgium at the final table to get that win.

Event 70: $25,000 NLHE Poker Players Championship

Total entries: 407
Prize pool: $10 million (actual prize pool of $9,971,500 just missed the $10M GTD)
Paid players: 55 (minimum payout = $57,592)
Winner: Christian Rudolph (Germany) $1,800,290

Poker fans railed this action in a way that was reminiscent of the poker boom, when avid poker fans railed high-stakes online poker tables. A German player took the top prize in the end, by beating four players form the US and one each from Latvia, Belarus, Lithuania, and Brazil.

Event 71: $50 NLHE Big 50

Total entries: 44,576
Prize pool: $2,050,496 (easily surpassing the $1M guarantee)
Paid players: 2,300 (minimum payout = $203)
Winner: Huahuan “F7588” Feng (China) $234,433 ($211,282)

With the lowest buy-in of the 2020 WSOP, the Big 50 also drew the largest field ever in a WSOP tournament. The final two players and two others at the final table were from China, but the rest of the players represented Netherlands, Austria, Argentina, Thailand, and the UK

Event 72: $1,500 LHE Championship

Total entries: 337
Prize pool: $480,225
Paid players: 47 (minimum payout = $3,312)
Winner: Ajay “Ross_Geller” Chabra (US) $77,475

A small but loyal limit hold’em crowd turned out for this action, and a US player won, defeating opponents from Canada, Russia, Japan, Ukraine, and Luxembourg.

Event 73: $1K NLHE 6-Handed

Total entries: 2,202
Prize pool: $2,091,900
Paid players: 314 (minimum payout = $2,145)
Winner: Jim “grousegrind” Lefteruk (Canada) $299,511

Short-handed action delivered a winner for Canada and other final table players representing the UK, Portugal, Argentina, Ukraine, and Estonia.

Event 74: $1,500 PLO

Total entries: 972
Prize pool: $1,395,100
Paid players: 134 (minimum payout = $3,412)
Winner: Thi Truong (Canada) $215,938

A little Omaha broke up the week of tournaments and attracted a good crowd. A Canadian player defeated opponents from Italy, Brazil, Lithuania, Germany, and the US to win her first piece of WSOP gold jewelry.

Main Event Flights Nearly Over

The Main Event is the biggest deal in poker each year. With the 2020 action online, it changed to offer players a buy-in of only $5K, up to three entries per player, and dozens of starting flights.

Players have been registering in solid numbers, as shown by these flight numbers so far:

Day 1A: 464 players, 99 survived, Samuel Vousden leads with 717,497 chips
Day 1B: 114 players, 25 survived, Xuming Qi leads with 620,372 chips
Day 1C: 110 players, 19 survived, Karim Khayat leads with 656,260 chips
Day 1D: 68 players, 7 survived, Stuart Wallensteen leads with 625,267 chips
Day 1E: 83 players, 16 survived, Vlad Martynenko leads with 819,099 chips
Day 1F: 129 players, 19 survived, Milakai Vaskaboinikau leads with 796,176
Day 1G: 194 players, 32 survived, Armol Srivats leads with 649,699 chips
Day 1H: 113 players, 18 survived, Jonathan Dokler leads with 1,021,967 chips
Day 1I: 233 players, 41 survived, Freez112 leads with 749,186 chips
Day 1J: 349 players, 66 survived, Christopher Putz leads with 757,963 chips
Day 1K: 72 players, 9 survived, Mateusz Chrobak leads with 735,959 chips
Day 1L: 88 players, 8 survived, Kahle Burns with 1,387,282 chips
Day 1M: 98 players, 18 survived, james5388 leads with 849,104 chips
Day 1N: 159 players, 36 survived, Martin Ilavsky with 689,711 chips
Day 1O: 118 players, 21 survived, Thomas Eychenne leads with 791,634 chips
Day 1P: 239 players, 44 survived, stamina22 leads with 994,190 chips
Day 1Q: 126 players, 23 survived, Francis Anderson leads with 724,747 chips
Day 1R: 247 players, 54 survived, Anant Purohit leads with 577,772 chips
Day 1S: 237 players, 44 survived, TILTTTT1999 leads with 908,569 chips
Day 1T: 437 players, 83 survived, Warley Galvao leads with 931,221 chips

At this point, the tournament shows 3,678 entries, which sets the prize pool at $17,470,500. The WSOP and GGPoker put a $25 million guarantee on it, though. The next few flights could be nail-biters for executives who don’t want to pay an overlay.

One Week to Go!

The final events of the series are either playing out now or preparing to begin. Next weekend will wrap things up. Here is the last of the schedule:

Event 75 – August 29: $300 NLHE Double Stack
Event 76 – August 30: $400 NLHE Forty Stack
Event 77 – August 30: $5K NLHE Main Event (2nd of 3 days, freezeout flights, $25M GTD)
Event 78 – August 30: $1K NLHE Turbo 6-Handed
Event 79 – September 1: People’s Choice – Most popular (details to be announced)
Event 80 – September 2: People’s Choice – Pros vote (details to be announced)
Event 81 – September 3: People’s Choice – Spin the wheel (details to be announced)
Event 82 – September 5: $1,050 NLHE Beat the Pros Bounty
Event 83 – September 6: $10K NLHE WSOP Super Millions ($5M GTD)
Event 84 – September 6: $100 NLHE WSOP Millions (final day, 1 reentry/flight, $2M GTD)
Event 85 – September 6: $500 NLHE Closer