Bulgarian Stoyan Madanzhiev won the USD 5000 buy-in WSOP or World Series of Poker Online Main Event and earned almost USD 4 million. He prevailed in a field with more than 5800 players and total prize money over USD 27 million. It is a record for an online tournament. Madanzhiev won a total of USD 3,904,686, and he had no previous wins in the WSOP events this year.
GGPoker.com hosted the international series after the traditional World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas was postponed due to the coronavirus virus outbreak. In the early rounds of the main event, the players were allowed three buy-ins and were allowed to play from a location where online poker was legally permitted.
The final round of the event was held on Saturday, with only 38 players. Interestingly, Brian Piccioli, an American, was in the lead when the final round started but eventually languished in the 23rd spot. Wenling Gao (China) came in second in the final standings, and Tyler Rueger (US) took the 3rd position.
In the final hand, Stoyan cracked the 2nd place finisher’s pocket aces with a straight, and Gao ended up in the second position with total earnings of USD 2.7 million. Tyler came in 3rd with winnings of USD 1.9 million, and the fourth position was taken by another American, Thomas Ward, who took home USD 1.35 million.
The online edition of the WSOP was held over two legs. The first leg was held in July on WSOP.com for the physically located Nevada/New Jersey players. The 2nd leg was an international series held on GGPoker.com from 19th July for the physically located outside the US’s boundaries. So in the 2nd leg, the US citizens had to travel to Canada or Mexico to play the events on GGPoker.
The flagship WSOP is typically held every summer at the Rio Convention Center, but the 2020 event was postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
