Dvoress thwarted in final moments of WPT Online Main Event

After five days of play, the 2021 WPT Online Main Event crowned a winner.

Going into the final table, the crowd and bookies' favorite was Daniel Dvoress. With $15.9 million in previous tournament winnings, Dvoress was one of the best players at a pretty tough final table. He went into the last day with a substantial chip lead over everyone else in the field. Plus, he's running hot in 2021, with his first win in the GGPoker Super Millions coming a couple of weeks ago, and a third-place finish in a recent Partypoker Millions back in February.

However, in the end, Dvoress repeated his third-place finish. Instead of taking the expectant title, he left Christian Rudolph to take the event down in a heads-up battle with Brazilian pro Fabiano Kovalski.

Kovalski has about $610k in live cashes, while Rudolph doesn't have a Hendon Mob page yet. Both were in the bottom half of chip counts going into the final table. Neither would have got much action on placing where they did. Especially against Dvoress. That's poker for you.

Rudolph's win put him at the top of a field of 1,065 entries across the two day ones, making for a prize pool of $3,195,000. He won $487,443 for his victory.

The WPT announced Rudolph's win on Twitter.

"There is a new #WPTOnline Champion!" The World Poker Tour tweeted. "Congratulations to Christian Rudolph for winning $487,443 and putting his name on the Sexton Cup on @partypoker."

Big names come out to play

There were several big names in the running on the final day.

In 9th place by chip count, Rainer Kempe bottomed out the leaderboard. Stoyan Obreshkov, from the 2020 WSOP Online Main Event final table, started the day in 7th place by chip count. Though ultimately, Obreshkov was the first out. Yuri Dzivielevski was just above Kempe and Obreshkov in 6th place. With Kovalsky and Dvoress, that made more than half of the final nine serious pros.

No one was short-stacked though. Even Kempe started the day with 29 big blinds. With 40 minutes per blind level and internet speed dealing, skill was still a big factor.

The table was live-streamed on partypokerLive with Kristen Bicknell, James Dempsey, and Henry Kilbane in the commentary booth.

Partypoker tweeted as Dvoress left the stage.

"We lose @DDvoress in 3rd place after an epic 3 way battle," partypoker wrote. "He takes home $249,324 for his efforts. Only 2 remain."

At the end of the day

After heads up play started, Rudolph and Kovalski agreed to a heads up deal that narrowed the gap between first and second place. The prizes were originally set at $526,562 for first and $362,674. Rudulph had a 2:1 chip lead, but with blinds rapidly rising, he was happy to cut down on his variance.

The end came at the 1,250,000/2,500,000 blind level.

Kovalski raised from the big blind with 9♦️8♦️ and Rudolph called with A♣Q❤️. The flop of T♦️Q♣4♦️ gave Kovalksi a diamond flush draw and an inside straight draw to the jack.

Rudolph bet about 1/3 pot with top-pair top kicker, and Kovalski shoved.

Rudolph called with very little thought and the RNG dealt out the turn (5❤️) and the river (A♠). This gave Rudolph the hand, the tourney, and a place on the Mike Sexton Cup, with two pair aces and queens.

WPT Online Main Event final table results

Featured image source: Twitter