Urmo Velvelt Wins WSOPC Event #9: $315 BOUNTY GIANT ($115,036)
Estonia has earned the first victory during the 2020 GGPoker World Series of Poker (WSOP) Winter Online Circuit as Urmo Velvelt took down Event #9 $315 BOUNTY GIANT for $115,036 in cash and bounty prizes.
It was a giant field indeed as 4,852 total entries created a prize pool of $1,455,600, and Velvelt defeated Brazil's "Dexman1" in heads-up for his first WSOP Circuit Ring.
It was the far biggest recorded cash for Velvelt thus far who staged a comeback on the nine-handed final table, which he entered as the bottom stack with just 18 blinds. However, the Estonian steamrolled through the late stages in dominating fashion. That is particularly reflected by his PKO bounty portion of $56,726, which accounts for nearly half of the winnings.
The final table also featured "GROSZEK 5", Jerome "gorgiAAs" Finck, and Brian Green, among others.
Final Result WSOPC Event #9: $315 BOUNTY GIANT
| Place | Winner | Country | Bounty Prize | Total Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Urmo Velvelt | Estonia | $56,726 | $115,036 |
| 2 | Dexman1 | Brazil | $15,204 | $73,366 |
| 3 | GROSZEK 5 | Poland | $23,781 | $64,566 |
| 4 | Yuratom | Ukraine | $1,357 | $29,921 |
| 5 | BornToFlip | Russia | $9,889 | $29,894 |
| 6 | Kojaque | Ireland | $8,525 | $22,536 |
| 7 | Jerome "gorgiAAs" Finck | France | $5,994 | $15,806 |
| 8 | Brian Green | United States | $4,509 | $11,382 |
| 9 | FlamurALB | Poland | $4,588 | $9,401 |
The Action of the Day
If the opening minutes were any indication of things to come, they were spot on indeed. GGPoker ambassador Felipe Ramos had his queens cracked by king-queen in the very first hand and subsequently re-entered without having any major impact. Many others such as Aku Joentausta, Dara O'Kearney, Jack Salter, Daniel Dvoress, and Kenneth Smaron hit the rail much earlier than they were hoping for as the field raced towards the money bubble.
During the frantic registration period, the field was cut down to one third already and the only time there was no all-in and call for five minutes was during the scheduled breaks. The likes of Christian Rudolph, Chris Moorman, Rainer Kempe, Guillaume Nolet, Thomas Muehloecker, and Simon Lofberg all headed home without a portion of the cash pool.
Close to the money bubble, Grayson "TurdFerguson" Ramage ran ace-king into the aces of Johan "YoHViraL" Guilbert and a few minutes later it was Rafi "rafimo3110" Mordechai that came up short and bowed out in 585th place. He was one of several players that received their buy-in back as tournament dollars thanks to the GGPoker bubble protection for buy-ins below $1,000.
The pace of eliminations remained incredibly high and former big stacks such as Guilbert, Viktor Ustimov, Jens "Tankanza" Lakemeier, and Shawn Daniels all bowed out. "Dexman1" jumped into the top spot by quite a margin after first catching John "JBradley" Bradley bluffing twice and then knocking out Dmitry "Altbbb" Yurasov with aces versus ace-king on the final four tables.
Among the notables to come up short of the nine-handed final table were Andrei "Why@" Popugaev, Viktor "metallist353" Podofedenko, Tyler "TheRayGuy" Cornell, Roger Tondeur, and Michael "girfabanger7" Schmalnauer. The latter fell victim to the hot run of "GROSZEK 5", who entered the final table as only player above 100 big blinds.
Final Table Action
Urmo Velvelt was one of three players with a short stack but scored a double right away to then knock out "FlamurALB" a few hands later. Brian Green ran his queens into kings and ace-queen in three-way action to become the next casualty while "Yuratom" tripled up.
Jerome "gorgiAAs" Finck bluffed into the set of "Dexman1" and found no wheel on the river to fall in seventh, followed by "Kojaque" and "BornToFlip". Velvelt held the lead in four-handed play and "Yuratom" finished his ladder up in fourth when they lost a flip with jacks to the ace-queen of "Dexman1".
Velvelt was ultimately responsible for the final two eliminations. He won with eights against the sevens of "GROSZEK 5" and only needed nine hands to have "Dexman1" on the ropes below 10 blinds. However, "Dexman1" doubled five times in total to even regain the lead only to then come up short with an overpair of nines when Velvelt had turned trips sixes.
That wraps up the PokerNews live reporting for tonight but the next WSOPC Bounty Event already awaits in two days when WSOPC Event #11 $1,050 Bounty Hunters Championship will play down to a winner.