The $5,000 MAIN EVENT Championship was far and away the biggest event on the 2021 GGPoker World Series of Poker Online schedule. The $5,000 buy-in tournament featured a guaranteed prize pool of $20 million and 27 opening days. Aleksei Vandyshev was the last man standing in this massive event, earning himself a WSOP gold bracelet and the tournament’s top cash prize of $2,543,073.
All told, the MAIN EVENT Championship drew 4,092 entrants over its 27 opening days. The $19,437,000 generated in the prize pool didn’t quite reach the $20 million guaranteed, leaving the players in the event with a bit of extra equity in the form of a $563,000 overlay. Day 2 started with the 720 players that remained from the 27 Day 1’s and played down to the final table.
The final table took place on Saturday, September 11. Lon Mceachern and Norman Chad were on the call for the official GGPoker broadcast of the event on Twitch and YouTube, which was shown on a 30 minute delay with the cards up.
Vandyshev laid low until heads-up play
Edson Tsutsumi Jr. entered the final table as the tournament’s chip leader with 60,403,591 in chips, which translated to roughly 100 big blinds at the starting level of 300,000/600,000 ante 75,000. Vandyshev wasn’t far behind with 54,232,812 chips, and Joe Serock rounded out the top three in chips with 45,567,634. The other six players at the final table all had stacks below 20,000,000.
Vandyshev had only one knockout at the final table before getting to heads up, taking out Dawid Smolka in eighth place when Vandyshev’s king-nine and Smolka’s king-seven got all the chips in on a king-high flop for Smolka’s last 6.9 million. Tsutsumi Jr. did most of the heavy lifting at the final table with four knockouts, including each of the last three before heads up to take a 2-to-1 chip lead into his heads-up battle with Vandyshev.
Heads-up play lasted for just over an hour before the final hand was dealt. Vandyshev had the slight chip lead when he was dealt pocket tens against Tsutsumi Jr.’s pocket sevens. Tsutsumi raised to 5,250,000 from the button, and Vandyshev bumped it up to 24,907,000. This was met by an all-in from Tsutsumi Jr., and Vandyshev called, creating a 213,074,712 chip pot. The board ran out clean and Aleksei Vandyshev was champion. Edson Tsutsumi Jr. earned an impressive $1,907,035 for his runner-up finish.
Final Table Payouts
1. Aleksei "Ha KojleHu" Vandyshev: $2,543,073
2. Edson "CrownUpTsu" Tsutsumi Jr.: $1,907,035
3. Nikita "VSMPZD" Kuznetsov: $1,430,073
4. Christine "Yunaa" Do: $1,072,405
5. Joe "assisup4rent" Serock: $804,191
6. Espen "COVFEFE-19" Jorstad: $603,058
7. Renan "legal" Meneguetti: $452,229
8. Dawid Smolka: $339,124
9. Dimitrios Farmakoulis: $254,308
Featured Image Credit: Flickr - World Poker Tour
