The 2020 WSOP Online is turning out to be a grand success with record turnouts across its several tournaments. A few days back, we saw a record-breaking field for its Event #71: BIG 50 that drew a whopping 44,576 entries to set a new world record. Setting up a new milestone for online poker at the series is Event #77: $5K NLH Main Event that drew 5,082 entries to smash its $25M GTD and hit a historic prize pool worth $27,559,500 – the biggest-ever prizepool in the history of online poker.
Before the start of the 19th flight, it looked like the Main Event will suffer a major overlay but a surge in turnouts towards the end helped the tournament to smash its specified guarantee. The final flight – Day 1W – was a smashing success with 858 entries, out of which 241 players made it to Day 2.
Just 38 of the 1,171 players, who started Day 2, survived through Sunday’s play. 2017 WSOP Main Event 6th-place finisher, Bryan Piccioli, who sits with $2.49 Million in live WSOP cashes, finished Day 2 with 18,417,494 chips. The 728 were assured a min-cash of $11,834 and this is 20th cash for Piccioli at the ongoing series, and he will now be eyeing a life-changing top prize of $3.90 Million! Just two other players managed to hit the 15-million chip mark. Scotland’s Michael Kane is second in chips with a stack of 15,907,969, while Bulgarian Stoyan Madanzhiev is third with 15,299,783 chips.
With a bracelet and more than a dozen of FT finishes, Team India has been impressive at the series. Indians came out in big numbers to compete in the Main Event, with at least 19 of them making ITM finishes. One Indian-origin player Dinesh “NastyMinder” Alt is still in contention. Alt, who won the PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker Main Event in 2016, is sixth with 11,681,173 chips.
The final 38 players will now return to the felt on Saturday to play down to a champion. Thanks to the record-setting turnout, each of these players has locked in $39,214 already, while the winner will walk away with the coveted World Champion title and a life-changing $3.90 Million in the top prize!
Final 38 Chip Counts:
- Bryan Piccioli – 18,417,494
- Michael Kane – 15,907,969
- Stoyan Madanzhiev – 15,299,783
- kellyyy – 13,108,575
- Craig Timmis – 12,809,181
- Dinesh Alt – 11,681,173
- TiroGiro – 11,116,489
- Benjamin Rolle – 10,789,181
- HappyDX – 10,553,281
- Joao Santos – 10,433,786
- Tyler Cornell – 10,152,249
- Dingxiang Ong – 9,320,927
- Xuming Qi – 8,842,916
- WhyEsEl – 8,635,342
- Stefan Schillhabel – 8,412,841
- Satoshi Isomae – 8,359,674
- Maicon Gasperin – 8,171,017
- Joshua Mccully – 7,906,110
- Tyler Rueger – 7,692,938
- Tzai Wei Phua – 7,338,038
- Martin Arce – 6,131,772
- Jonas Lauck – 6,118,751
- Avidan Cohen – 5,880,731
- Manuel Saavedra – 5,847,283
- Lucas Tabarin – 5,695,282
- Phachara Wongwichit – 5,153,525
- Chris Brewer – 4,908,096
- Julien Perouse – 4,866,548
- Samuel Vousden – 4,241,694
- Michael Lech – 4,192,636
- Thomas Ward – 4,083,422
- Mateusz Rypulak – 4,079,246
- Ricky Tang – 3,397,845
- Arkadiy Tsinis – 2,394,388
- Freek Scholten – 2,248,788
- Julian Stuer – 2,111,979
- Aleksandr Trofimov – 1,602,207
- Evgeny Galakhov – 958,516