Shoma ‘pp_syon’ Ishikawa wrote his name in the poker history books as the first player to ever win a World Series of Poker gold bracelet in an online event held outside of the United States. The international-facing segement of the 2020 WSOP Online kicked off on GGPoker on Sunday, July 19. There were meant to be three bracelet winners decided on the first day of action, but a bug saw the online site suspend action in the events #32 and #33, which meant that event #34 was the first and only to play down to a winner. The $525 buy-un super turbo bounty six-max no-limit hold’em event attracted a total of 2,214 entries to create a final prize pool of $1,107,000. Ishikawa earned his first WSOP gold bracelet and a total of $117,650 as the eventual champion.

Ishikawa’s win saw him become just the third player from Japan to win a WSOP bracelet, following in the footsteps of 2012 $5,000 pot-limit Omaha six-max winner Naoya Kihara and 2015 $1,000 no-limit hold’em champion Takahiro Nakai. This was his first WSOP score.

This event’s designation as a ‘super turbo’ tournament certainly held true. The tournament took roughly three hours and fifteen minutes to play down to a winner. A total of 314 players made the money, with a min-cash being worth $567. Among the notable players to make deep runs in this event were Chance Kornuth (311th – $567), Farrid Jattin (271st – $567), four-time World Poker Tour champion Darren Elias (266th – $567), Michael Soyza (136th – $779), two-time WSOP bracelet winner Mark Radoja (107th – $866), Fedor Holz (96th – $866), three-time bracelet winner Adrian Mateos (76th – $866), and Mike McDonald (26th – $2,188).

Diego ‘El Motron’ Ostrovich held the chip lead when the final table was set, with Gary ‘STARDOG13’ Johnson sitting in second. WSOP bracelet winner and WPT main event champion Daniel ‘Gyrocopter’ Strelitz was in third chip position, with Ishikawa sitting in fourth place. Tom ‘Pik00rs’ Delaine was the first to be eliminated. He got the last of his short stack in with 10Diamond Suit7Club Suit up against the QHeart Suit3Club Suit of Ostrovich. Queen high was good by the river and Delaine was sent to the virtual rail with $20,225, including his payout and bounties.

Yulian ‘Ector’ Bogdanov was the next to fall. He got all-in with 10Diamond Suit8Diamond Suit and at risk against the QClub SuitJClub Suit of Strelitz. Bogdanov flopped a pair of tens to take the lead, but Strelitz turned a pair of queens to regain the advantage. The river improved neither player and Bogdanov was knocked out in fifth place ($34,677).

Strelitz called all-in with 9Heart Suit9Diamond Suit facing a shove from Ostrovich on the button. Ostrovich held JDiamond Suit10Club Suit for two overcards. A ten on the flop gave Ostrovich the lead and he never looked back from there. Strelitz fell just a few spots short of earning his second bracelet, earning $50,431 in total for his deep run in this event.

Ostrovich continued his knockout spree by making the nut flush with AHeart SuitKSpade Suit to best the AClub Suit8Spade Suit of Gary ‘STARDOG13’ Johnson, sending him home with $51,801 in total earnings and bounties as the third-place finisher.

Ostrovich started heads-up play against Ishikawa with roughly a 3.5:1 chip lead. Ishikawa was able to close the gap considerably before the next big preflop confrontation arose, though. The two got all-in preflop with Ishikawaholding AHeart Suit9Heart Suit against the KSpade Suit10Club Suit of Ostrovich. Ishikawa made two pair on the flop and held from there to take a commanding lead of roughly 8:1. Ostrovich was left with just a few big blinds. He got his last chips in with 5Spade Suit3Diamond Suit and was called by the 9Heart Suit6Spade Suit of Ishikawa. The board ran out AHeart Suit8Heart Suit3Heart Suit9Spade Suit5Heart Suit and Ishikawa made a flush to secure the pot and the title. Ostrovich earning $86,972 with his runner-up payout and the bounties he accumulated along the way.

Final Result Event #34: $525 Super Turbo Bounty No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed

Cheers to Scott Hempel (“BudLightLime”), who won the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Deepstack at the WSOP Online Bracelet Series. The poker player who apparently enjoys cheap beer won $181,060 one day after reaching another bracelet-event final table.

Hempel took 7th on Friday in the $777 No-Limit Hold’em event for $22,250, a tournament won by Pat Lyons (“IchiiKawawa”). On Saturday, in the 18th event of the WSOP.com series, he improved his performance and earned his first bracelet.

The most recent World Series of Poker champion took down the 697-player tournament in just over seven hours. His six-figure cash paid out over $25,000 per hour of play at the online poker site. He has more than $200,000 in cashes the past two days. And he’s also now among the contenders for the $100,000 WSOP.com series leaderboard, a pseudo-Player of the Year award.

Quick Day at the WSOP Online Bracelet Series

Winning fast money is tough to beat. “BudLightLime” made quick work of his opponents at the final table thanks in large part to some big hands, and of course the fast-paced tournament structure.

When heads-up play against Myles Kotler (“Shipthemoney”) began, neither player had many big blinds. With the blinds at 600,000/1,200,000, and both players under 25 million chips, it was inevitable that the tournament would end quickly, and it did.

On the final hand, Hempel called an all-in bet with a 2.5-1 chip advantage with pocket tens against K-10. The best hand held up when the board ran out J-8-6-J-A. “Shipthemoney” didn’t ship the bracelet but he did ship a ton of money — $111,955, to be exact.

A number of big name pros were among the 143 players who cashed in the $1k. That includes two former world champions, Phil Hellmuth (“Lumestackin”), who took home $1,781 for 97th place and Ryan Riess (“bitc0in”), who also earned a small cash (32nd place for $4,219). Poker vlogger Ryan Depaulo (“joeyisamush”) picked up his fourth cash of the series, this one $1,969 for 84th place, a far cry from his bracelet title earlier in the week.

Landon Tice (“ActionDealer”), a 21-year-old poker pro on the rise, also ran deep, reaching his first World Series of Poker final table. The Florida native finished in 6th place in Saturday’s WSOP Online Bracelet Series event, a $29,817 score.

Low-stakes poker returns to the 2020 WSOP Online Bracelet Series on Sunday. At 3 pm PT, Event #19 kicks off, a $400 No-Limit Hold’em tournament on WSOP.com.

The 2020 online World Series of Poker saw its first non-American bracelet winner Saturday night as Belarus’ Raman “Acrogum” Afanasenka took down the $500 no-limit hold’em turbo deepstack six-max event.

Afanasenka bested a 1,691-entry field and a stacked final table that featured three bracelet winners to earn his first bracelet and $128,601.

With the victory, Afanasenka more than doubled his career earnings to $240,830. Before his bracelet win, Afanasenka’s largest cash was $48,910 for a victory in a $550 no-limit hold’em event during the 2018 Wynn Summer Classic.

Afanasenka denied Chance “BingShui” Kornuth his third bracelet and an epic comeback by coming out on top of their heads-up battle. Kornuth, who was down to 1/9th of a big blind earlier in the tournament, settled for a runner-up finish and $79,291.

The other two bracelet winners at the final table, Brett “Metanemesis” Apter and David “Twizzlers” Prociak finished third and fourth, respectively. Apter, who won the $1,500 no-limit hold’em shootout for $238,824 during last year’s WSOP, earned $57,071, while Prociak netted $41,472 for fourth place.

Former Full Tilt Poker Pro Erica “Huckcheevers” Lindgren finished sixth for $22,676 and Neeraj “nee0903” Nayak took fifth for $30,514.

Other notable finishers in-the-money finishers include Tom Cannuli (11th – $7,762), Brian Yoon (13th – $6,088), Ankush Mandavia (21st – $3,881), Dan Zack (32nd – $3,120), Eric Blair (35th – $3,120), Jesse Sylvia (40th – $2,587), Nick Pupillo (52nd – $2,207), and Ryan Laplante (69th – $1,598).

Afanasenka was at the top of the chip counts when the final six players reached the final table, followed closely behind by Kornuth, with Lindgren and Nayak at the bottom of the counts.

Afanasenka was nearly a one-man wrecking crew at the final table, scoring four of the five eliminations. Afanasenka eliminated Lindgren when his pocket sixes held against her A-J, knocked out Nayak when his A-2 wasn’t outflopped by Nayak’s 7-5 and sent Prociak home when he picked up pocket aces in the small blind against Prociak’s A-10 suited.

Kornuth eliminated Apter in third after he picked up pocket queens in the big blind and Apter shoved K-9 from the small blind. Kornuth flopped a set and faded a gutshot straight draw to square off against Afanasenka for the title.

Afanasenka held the chip lead at the outset of heads-up play, but by the time they got to the first break, Kornuth had overtaken the Belarusian. Afanasenka regained the chip lead when he slow-played a flopped flush, allowing Kornuth to bluff every street, including a river shove.

Shortly after, the two got all in with the title at stake in a race situation. Kornuth showed KClub Suit6Club Suit and was up against Afanasenka’s 3Heart Suit3Spade Suit.

Kornuth flopped two pair to take the lead, but the 3Club Suit came on the river to eliminate Kornuth in second.

020 WSOP Event #11 Final Table Results

Robert ‘bustinballs’ Kuhn is the latest player to emerge victorious with a 2020 World Series of Poker gold bracelet. The Barnesville, Ohio native defeated a field of 2,091 total entries in the WSOP Online $400 buy-in no-limit hold’em event to earn his first bracelet and the top prize of $115,850. This was Kuhn’s second major live tournament title, having previously won the 2016 WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Atlantic City $1,675 no-limit hold’em main event for $122,098.

This tournament attracted 1,450 unique players, who collectively re-entered 641 times to create a final prize pool of $752,760. With 2,091 total entries, the top 330 finishers made the money in this event, with a min-cash worth $602.

Plenty of accomplished players made deep runs in this event, including six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel ‘DNegs’ Negreanu (210th – $677), Ali ‘sasukeuchiha’ Imsirovic (79th – $1,280), Ari ‘philivey’ Engel (76th – $1,280), 2015 WSOP main event winner Joseph ‘fanofdapoker’ McKeehen (57th – $1,731), double bracelet winner Niupun ‘Javatini’ Java (35th – $2,936), five-time bracelet winner Berry ‘numbers86’ Johnston (34th – $2,936), two-time bracelet winner Calvin ‘projector52’ Anderson (18th – $4,592), and 2015 WSOP main event fifth-place finisher Thomas ‘.beast.’ Cannuli (17th – $4,592).

When the final table of nine was set, Kuhn held the chip lead with 7,572,410 or the roughly 31.3 million chips in play. Short stack Andrew ‘AndrewFreund’ Fruend was the first to fall when he ran A-8 offsuit into the pocket queens of Max ‘ndirish50’ Huster. Roland ‘prngls12’ Israelashvili followed him to the virtual rail when his 10Heart Suit10Diamond Suit failed to best the QSpade SuitQClub Suit of Kuhn. Israelashvili has now cashed in all three of the WSOP Online events held thus far this summer. He currently sits in fourth place on the all-time leaderboard for career cashes in WSOP bracelet events with 115.

Christopher ‘pokerher2014’ Fuchs got the last of his chips in with AHeart Suit7Heart Suit up against the 9Spade Suit9Club Suit of Theodore ‘klubot’ Lui. Fuchs failed to improve and was knocked out in 7th place ($16,184).

Richard ‘Doc33’ Federico scored the next three eliminations, sending Evan ‘Escott121181’ Scott (6th – $21,454), Max ‘ndirish50’ Huster (5th – $28,605), and Theodore ‘klubot’ Lui (4th – $38,466) home to take a sizable lead into three-handed play. Kuhn was able to battle his way back into the lead by the time the next key showdown arose. With blinds of 120,000-240,000 and an ante of 30,000, Kuhn raised to 810,000 from the small blind with KSpade SuitKHeart Suit. Federico three-bet to 2,332,500 out of the big blind with QClub SuitJClub Suit and Khun moved all-in for more than 15.4 million Federico called for just over 10 million. The board ran out JSpade Suit8Spade Suit6Diamond Suit5Heart Suit10Diamond Suit and Federico was eliminated in third place ($52,242)).

With that Kuhn took roughly a 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Ronald ‘rlksaces’ Keren. Over course of the first half-hour of action Keren was able to close the gap and even overtake the chip lead. Kuhn won a big pot with a turned straight to regain control, though, and had re-opened a sizable lead by the time the final hand was dealt. With blinds of 200,000-400,000 and an ante of 50,000, Kuhn raised to 800,000 holding 8Spade Suit8Heart Suit. Keren three-bet to 2,075,000 with the KSpade Suit10Spade Suit. Kuhn moved all-in and Keren called for his last 5,756,210. The ASpade SuitJDiamond Suit7Spade Suit flop gave Keren a flush draw and a straight draw to go along with his overcards, but the 4Club Suit on the turn and the 2Diamond Suit on the river were no help. Kuhn’s pair of eights were enough to secure the pot and the title.

Final Table Results of 2020 WSOP Event #3

Bellagio’s move to six-handed poker games is leading other rooms in Las Vegas to take measures that will allow them to offer the same. The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that the use of dividers allows Bellagio to permit one extra player per table over the standard five-handed games now taking place in Nevada, and makes masks optional rather than required.

Garrett Okahara, poker room manager at The Orleans, told the Review-Journal he has ordered dividers and hopes to install them by the end of this week so his room can also offer six-handed poker.

Video credit: reviewjournal.com

Like the handful of other poker rooms that have reopened, The Orleans has seen big business, with more than 20 games running at times on the weekends. That poker room opened on June 4, as was one of the first in Las Vegas to resume operations.

Although I assumed there would be pent-up demand upon opening, the demand has certainly exceeded my expectations to this point,” Okahara said in an email to the newspaper. “It can only get better with six players, too!

To Plexiglass, or Not to Plexiglass?

Caesars Palace, which saw double-digit tables running over the weekend, indicates that it will stick with five-handed poker for now, telling the Review-Journal that the room is “getting plenty of business” without dividers, and that “the players are happy.”

The Venetian and Golden Nugget have also not indicated plans to add dividers to allow six-handed poker.

The NGCB announced last week that casinos must require gamblers to wear masks when plexiglass dividers aren’t installed. Before that requirement, visitors reported that the vast majority of casino patrons didn’t wear masks, even though casinos encouraged face coverings.

South Point, the other Las Vegas poker room that reopened in June, requested to run six-handed poker without dividers. Poker room manager Jason Sanborn told the newspaper he believes the new mask requirement negates the need for plexiglass.

Daniel “Jungleman” Cates expressed remorse for ghosting a recreational player in a private online poker home game, but he denies ever having played against Dan Bilzerian and claims he wasn’t the only player who was ghosting.

On Saturday night, Bill Perkins teased an alleged poker cheating scandal that would make Postlegate “look like a church service.” After leaving everyone on Twitter hanging overnight, the hedge fund manager provided brief details of the incident.

Perkins claimed that he played in a private home game on a poker app against recreational players, or so he thought. In his vague post, he said he caught unnamed pro(s) playing under recreational players’ accounts, but wasn’t ready to release the names.

The following day, Dan Bilzerian outed Daniel Cates as the culprit on Twitter before later deleting the tweet. Although most poker fans on social media bashed Perkins for over-hyping the scandal, “Jungleman” was also criticized by many pros. The online poker legend finally responded to the allegations on Wednesday.

Cates: ‘I Don’t Think it’s Fair that I’ve Been Singled Out’

Cates released a statement in Google docs on Wednesday apologizing for his actions. In that statement, he admitted to playing under the account of an unknown player named “Sina Taleb.” He also used the “If everyone else is doing it, that makes it okay defense.” Cates says that he began playing with Taleb on May 8, and played just a few sessions under his account.

“I thought since many on the site were using pros to play for them (which was clear by the uniquely high level of play) at the time, it felt acceptable for me to be playing,” he wrote.

Cates claims he played very few hands against Perkins in the game. He apologized for Perkins getting caught in the crossfire of multiple pros ghosting recreational players.

“I’m very sorry for that,” he said.

Cates also said he doesn’t think it’s fair that he’s being singled out since others did the same thing. He acknowledged, however, that “as a role model for the poker community my punishment should be disproportionate compared to a normal player.”

In his statement, Cates wrote that he holds himself to a high standard of ethics, but says he sometimes makes mistakes and apologized for his actions.

“I will do my best in the future to behave better,” the online poker pro wrote.

‘Jungleman’ Disputes Bilzerian’s Accusations

Although Cates admitted to deceiving his opponents, he denied one accusation. Social media icon Dan Bilzerian claimed on Twitter that he and Perkins both played in the same games against Taleb, who was being ghosted by Cates.

Cates, however, says that he and Bilzerian didn’t play in the same games. Clearly, someone here isn’t telling the truth or is being misled.

The two poker players have a brief and rocky history together, regardless of how many hands they’ve played against each other. In March 2019, they briefly feuded on Twitter. How Bilzerian obtained his wealth has long been a hot topic of discussion. He claims much of it came from crushing private games against celebrities and wealthy business people. Cates, like many others, doesn’t buy it.

Cates will eventually face Phil Galfond in a future Galfond Challenge. No date has been set, but the two online poker legends recently played a mini Galfond Challenge, with Galfond winning. Perhaps, a match between “Jungleman” and Bilzerian would be more intriguing.