Since mid-July, GGPoker has been hosting the WSOP Online Series. Players from around the world have been able to compete in online poker tournament events for a chance to win a gold WSOP bracelet. Over the past two weeks, players have taken part in starting flights for the Main Event. A total of 23 starting flights took place and now the Main Event will be the biggest in the history of online poker.
Details of the Main Event
The Main Event saw 5,802 players sign up to compete. A field of 1,171 return to Day 2 of the event. The prize pool was set for $25 million but with so many players competing, it is now pushed up to well over $27.5 million!
A total of 728 players will earn prize money with the lowest cash out being just over $11,000. On Sunday, the field was narrowed down to just 38 players. It took 12 hours to get to this point. They will return on September 5th to compete to see who the Main Event champion will be. The winner will secure a massive first-place prize of just over $3.9 million.
Leading the Charge
As the event returns this weekend to the felt, Bryan “smbdySUCKme” Piccioli is the chip leader. From New York, Piccioli lives in Las Vegas and decided to give the GGPoker Main Event a go. He holds the largest chip stat at just over 18.4 million. He has a good lead, but Michael “All Love” Kane and Stoyan “Nirvana76” Madanzhiev are not far behind with over 15 million in chips each.
Piccioli is a favorite in the competition have already done well this summer during the WSOP Online Series. He earned 14 cash outs in Nevada before he relocated to play via GGPoker. He has chased out six times there for a total of 20 WSOP prize wins.
Big Names Fall Short
Well-known poker pros also took part in the Main Event, hoping to add another WSOP gold bracelet to their collection. GGPoker had ambassadors Felipe Ramos and Fedor Holz taking part. Both made it to Day 2 but fell short of earning a payout.
Poker pro Phil Hellmuth also took part, hoping to cash out yet again in the WSOP Main Event. However, he was knocked out just 20 shots shy of earning a payout. He was not happy about his exit and was thinking he would make it longer than he did.
There is big money waiting for the top finishers. As mentioned, first-place takes home $3.9 million. Second will earn $2.7 million while third takes home $1.9 million. Even fourth place gets in on the million dollar action, rewarding the finisher with $1.3 million.
We will stay tuned to the event and see how it plays out this weekend. Will the chip leaders be able to stay on top and finish high? Or will the underdogs fight their way to the top to earn one of the large top five payouts of the event?
