Stoyan Madanzhiev falls just short of his second bracelet

Jon Pill
Posted on: August 16, 2021 12:48 PDT

Stoyan Madanzhiev found himself four spots from his second bracelet today. The World Series Of Poker Online's 2020 $5,000 Main Event champion ended up taking 5th. He final-tabled GGPoker's WSOP Online Event #12: $1,000 Double Stack No-Limit Hold 'em, but fell short of the gold.

The $1k double stack ultimately went to Hinojas Jerome who beat Felipe “Mojave” Ramos for the title, bracelet, and $635,576 in cash.

Madanzhiev has clearly gotten over the disappointment of having his WSOP victory retroactively devalued by a second Main Event. His anger with the WSOP and GGPoker seems to have subsided. At least, it has done so sufficiently for him to be hitting up the 2021 Online series in a big way.

His beef with the WSOP goes back to last year, when the WSOP took back his title of 2020 WSOP Main Event Champ. The WSOP put on a second semi-live Main Event and put Madanzhiev's title back up for grabs.

The winner of the second Main Event became the WSOP and GGPoker's official Main Event champion for 2020.

At the time, Madanzhiev wrote that "If I had known I wasn’t playing the “actual” world series of poker, I probably wouldn’t have reentered. Or maybe even played." He even went so far as to call the initial branding of the $5k online championship as a "false advertising trap" on Twitter.

Bracelet denied

The event attracted 5,894 entries, making for a $5,599,300 prize pool. By the time there were just 5 players left, the blinds were at 1,000,000/2,000,000 with a 250,000 ante.

Jerome had a touch over 100 million in chips.

Madhanzhiev had 27 million after putting his ante and big-blind in. Play folded around to Jerome in the small blind. He looked down to find Q♣6❤️.

With A♣5♠ in the hole, Madhanzhiev shoved. With 61,408,838 in the pot, the digital dealer burned and turned.

The flop of 4♦️2♣K♣ gave Madhanzhiev the high card advantage with a backdoor flush and inside draw to the wheel. The K❤️ on the turn, held his advantage, leaving Jerome with just the three remaining 6s and three remaining Qs in the deck as outs.

The river was the Q❤️, pairing Jerome and sending Madhanzhiev to the rail in 5th.

After busting, Madanzhiev wrote: "I know it would be too much to win 2 WSOP bracelet events both 6k entries, in a year, when I have like 300 MTTs for the last year. But it felt really close when I was chip leading at 6 players left... $200k cash."

He is clearly trying not to tilt, ending the tweet with "GG... next."

Madhanzhiev received $200,986 for his 5th place finish.

Featured image source: Instagram