The big names came out to play in the closing stages of the World Championship of Online Poker this week as major prizes were handed out in a number of exciting and entertaining competitions.
Among the biggest names was Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu, who added to his career earning millions by taking down the $2,100 buy-in HORSE contest for $61,865.47 after besting a field of 147 and Viktor “isildur1” Blom in the heads up.
A bigger winner, at least in monetary terms, was Michael “SirWatts” Watson, who claimed victory and $280,238.52 in the $10,300 buy-in Eight-Game Championship, despite a final table that included formidable professionals like Alexander “joiso” Kostritsyn, Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond, Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro, Calvin “cal42688” Anderson and Matthew “MUSTAFABET” Ashton….and a tense heads up against the scary online high stakes ace Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky ($212,729.16).
Then there was the $700 buy-in NLHE competition in which Hungarian pro Patrick “pads1161” Leonard took home $162,054.98 after beating Canada’s Thomas “sandman201” Tyler, who’s second placing was worth a still impressive $117,602.77.
The biggest pay-check of all went to Scots pro Ludo Geilich, who banked $462,182.17 after winning the 93-entry, $21,000 buy-in WCOOP PLO 6-Max High Roller, which attracted stellar players like Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen from Finland; Dani “supernova9” Stern from Canada and Connor “blanconegro” Drinan from Mexico. After a tough competition Geilich emerged the winner following a bruising heads up encounter with Fabrizio “SixthSenSe19” Gonzalez. The latter’s sterling effort was rewarded with a substantial runner-up prize of $355,730.97.
In related news, the 888Poker Super XL Series continued to excite as the $1,050 buy-in Main Event unfolded and German ace Dominik Nitsche tussled with Canadian player GetLuckyAK and d144n1 at the three-handed stage.
The trio agreed a chop which gave ultimate winner GetLuckyASK $261,214, runner-up d144n1 $210,810 and third placed Nitsche $206,400. The event pulled in 1,291 entries, creating a prize pool worth over $1.7 million and presenting railbirds with 13 hours of hard, aggressive poker.
Nitsche spread the entertainment more widely by running a Twitch livestream on a 5 minute delay.