The 2020 WSOP Online series is a wrap with the US pro Connor Drinan winning the final bracelet at the series. One of the elite grinders in the game, Drinan took down Event #83: $10K WSOP Super MILLION$ to claim his first career WSOP bracelet and an impressive $1,423,049 in top prizemoney.
Drinan did amazingly well at the WSOP Online. He returned to Las Vegas to battle it out for the first half of tournaments on WSOP.com and then flew to Mexico to compete in the second half of the series on GGPoker. In total, Drinan cashed as many as 20 tournaments, including three final tables. He ended up the series in a thundering fashion as he went on to eliminate his six opponents at the FT of this final event of the series, including Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Aubakirov (2nd for $1,041,414).
Drinan held a massive chip lead when he started heads-up battle with Daniyar Aubakirov. However, Aubakirov secured two double-ups at different points in the heads-up to keep it interesting. Drinan fought his way back and had over 4:1 chip lead when Aubakirov moved his final 15 BBs all in with As Jc. Drinan called with Ac 9s. The Ah Kh 4s flop gave both top pair, but Aubakirov’s kicker was in play. The turn was the 8s and the 9c on the river gave Drinan the title, and his first career gold bracelet.
Drinan was one of the high-profile players who had taken Daniel Negreanu up on his $100,000 must-win bracelet bet. Apart from winning his first gold bracelet, Drinan also took down the six-figure side bet against the GGPoker Ambassador and six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu.
A strong field of 899 saw the $5 Million guarantee easily crushed, with $8,720,300 in total prize pool shared by the top 134 finishers. Plenty of notable players managed to finish in the money, including two-time bracelet winner Upeskha De Silva (132nd – $21,483), three-time bracelet winner Adrian Mateos (103rd – $21,483, Jake Schindler (100th – $21,483), three-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (95th – $25,029), six-time Chris Ferguson (54th – $29,160), Stephen Chidwick (43rd – $33,973), Sam Trickett (27th – $33,973), and recent bracelet winner Melika Razavi (13th place – $80,109).
It turned out to be a phenomenal series for Team India with more than a dozen of FT scores. Fetching the best score for India in this event was Suraj Mishra who finished 6th for $288,836 (INR 2.12 Crores). Mishra had also finished 2nd at the Mini Main Event for $586,157 (~INR 4.38 Crore).
Mishra started the final table of the event as a chip leader but lost his lead in between. He was in great shape to retake the lead but received a brutal bad beat with his pocket tens losing to pocket nines of Drinan as the board ran out Ad 9d 7h 5d Kc, thus ending his run in the 6th place.
Final Table Payouts
- Connor Drinan – $1,423,049
- Daniyar Aubakirov – $1,041,414
- Viktor Ustimov – $755,754
- Chris Oliver – $548,450
- Sylvain Loosli – $398,010
- Suraj Mishra – $288,836
- Christopher Kruk – $209,609
- Arsenii Malinov – $152,113
- Kenneth Smaron – $110,389