For the second straight Sunday, WSOP.com offered tournaments from three high-profile series today. In addition to a gold bracelet and a ring, four titles in the 117-event "Fall Online Championships" series were also contested.
The bracelet and ring events saw a familiar all-star cast making deep runs, along with some less well-known players, whereas the Online Championships tournaments and their more modest buy-ins allowed budget-conscious recreational players to take a shot at glory.
The gold bracelet
Top billing on today's schedule went to the "$1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship," also known as online bracelet event #5. 145 players were seated for the first hand, with that number growing to 555 by the time late registration closed four hours later. This created an impressive prize pool of $768,600.
When six-handed play began, "dwilbs" had twice the chips of their nearest competitor. The identity of dwilbs is unclear, but they appear to be based in New Jersey where they play mostly on WPN. Over their last 94 tournaments, they have posted a slight loss.
Japan's Kazuki "hyahhoo3" Ikeuchi trimmed that chip lead by eliminating Qinghai "011pokerdr" Pan in third place, out-flopping Pan's AQ with A9. It then appeared that Ikeuchi simply out-aggressed his opponent. Knocked down to 10bb, dwilbs shoved from the button with 94o, and was called by Ikeuchi's QQ. A nine on the flop gave dwilbs hope, but the board ran out clean for Ikeuchi, who won $152,798 in addition to the gold bracelet.
The circuit ring
While some online poker sites provide us with catchy names for their big tournaments, WSOP.com prefers the descriptive. Thus today's gold ring event was billed as the "WSOP Circuit Super Series Event #16: $250k Guaranteed No Limit Hold'em Main Event 3x Re-entry 8-max (Official Ring)."
The $525 buy-in tournament attracted 422 entrants and a total of 213 rebuys, creating a prize pool of $317,500, with $50,610 for first place.
In the heads-up tussle for the ring, two experienced players collided. Early this month, "NJ_AcesmarkA" won the BIG 500 on WSOP.com, along with a gold bracelet and just shy of $90k. Jordyn "ThLstCrdBndr" Miller made a bid to stop the run there. Miller has a number of deep online runs to his credit, as well as live cashes this month at the Venetian and WSOP.
In the final hand, Miller took an aggressive line with a draw and fired the river when it bricked. NJ_AcesmarkA called, and won the title.
The rest
Four titles were awarded today in the Online Championships, leading off with the $11 R&A "Warm Up." "Chips.McGee" saw off a field of 461 players to take home $5,444.
OC#31, a $100 "Player Appreciation Tournament," attracted 491 entrants and 341 rebuys. "DrPayne" lived up to his name as far as second-placed "The_Razor" was concerned, by winning the heads-up duel and $16,293.
The $55 buy-in, 6-max OC#32 was notable in that it failed to meet the $50k guarantee posted by WSOP.com, suggesting to some observers that the online tournament poker market on the NV/NJ servers may be reaching saturation point. Brian "Penny6" Mancilla and Josh "papagallo" Prager made the final two, with Mancilla prevailing and winning $12,250.
"Sunday's 6 Max" rounded out the day with 125 entrants in the $100 buy-in tournament. Player "prpirate420" won the title and $5,223, defeating "_mlb_" in the heads-up joust.
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