Addamo Shines As Wpt World Online Championships Ends

When the World Poker Tour first announced the inaugural WPT World Online Championships on PartyPoker, it was still relatively new territory.

For 18 seasons, the WPT focused on live poker tournaments around the world with a plan to include some online poker at some point. But the coronavirus pandemic forced it offer online action sooner and in greater volume than planned.

In partnership with PartyPoker, the WPT WOC scheduled nearly two months of poker tournaments with nearly $100 million in prize pool guarantees. The series was massive with dozens of tournaments bearing the WPT name, though only 12 of them were primary WPT-branded events.

The series ended up running even longer than planned due to conflicts with the World Series of Poker action on GGPoker, and the WOC finally ended just this week.

After 71 days of online poker action, we have the results.

Winners and More Winners

Most of the 12 primary events on the schedule included three buy-in levels. For example, the events with a $3,200 buy-in also offered a $33 buy-in micro version and $320 mini version. All carried guarantees. Most of them also offered more than one starting day and at least one reentry.

For the purpose of simplification, these are the results of the main buy-ins – the highest of the options for each event, except for the Main Event and High Roller action.

Event 1: $3,200 PLO Hi-Lo Championship ($500K GTD)

• 145 entries
• $500,000 prize pool (included $65K overlay)
• 18 paid players
• Paul Tedeschi of UK won for $92,105

Event 2: $3,200 PLO Championship ($1M GTD)

• 342 entries
• $1,026,000 prize pool
• 54 paid players
• Alex Manzano of Chile won for $176,132

Event 3: $3,200 NLHE 8-Max Championship ($3M GTD)

• 1,062 entries
• $3,186,000 prize pool
• 136 paid players
• Gavin Cochrane of UK won for $540,664

Event 4: $3,200 NLHE 6-Max Championship ($3M GTD)

• 999 entries
• $3,000,000 prize pool (included $3K overlay)
• 120 paid players
• Nick Petrangelo of Canada won for $494,550

Event 5: $3,200 NLHE Knockout Championship ($3M GTD)

• 1,035 entries
• $3,105,000 prize pool
• 136 paid players
• Daniel Smyth of Ireland won for $415,391 ($208,803.83 prize plus $204,588.92 in bounties)

Event 6: $3,200 NLHE/PLO Mix-Max Championship ($3M GTD)

• 989 entries
• $3,000,000 prize pool (included $33K overlay)
• 132 paid players
• Andrey Kotelnikov of Russia won for $488,508

Event 7: $109 (Micro) NLHE Main Event ($1M GTD)

• 8,465 entries
• $1,000,000 prize pool (included $153,500 overlay)
• 1,304 paid players
• Luiz Antonio Silva of Brazil won for $148,985

Event 7: $1,050 (Mini) NLHE Main Event ($5M GTD)

• 4,600 entries
• $5,000,000 prize pool (included $400,000 overlay)
• 600 paid players
• Renan Carlos Bruschi of Brazil won $504,583

Event 8: $10,300 NLHE Main Event ($10M GTD)

• 1,011 entries
• $10,110,000 prize pool
• 136 paid players
• Phil Mighall of UK won for $1,550,298

Event 9: $3,200 NLHE Heads-Up Championship ($500K GTD)

• 166 entries
• $500,000 prize pool (included $2K overlay)
• 32 paid players
• Steve O’Dwyer of Netherlands won for $135,000

Event 10: $25,500 NLHE High Roller Championship ($5M GTD)

• 199 entries
• $5,000,000 prize pool (included $25K overlay)
• 28 paid players
• Mikita Badziakouski of Belarus won for $1,062,730

Event 11: $3,200 NLHE Turbo Championship ($1M GTD)

• 433 entries
• $1,299,000 prize pool
• 63 paid players
• Dimitar Danchev of Bulgaria won for $188,316

Event 12: $102,000 NLHE Super High Roller Championship ($3M GTD)

• 40 entries
• $4,000,000 prize pool
• 6 paid players
• Michael Addamo of Australia won for $1,284,114

Where was Australia?

PartyPoker may operate on a “global” scale, but there are many countries from which PartyPoker cannot accept players. Australia is one of them.

This is not to say that Aussies may not play. They often do travel to online poker-friendly countries to compete in series such as this. We know that Michael Addamo did just that, though he classified himself as a UK player instead of Australia in the official lists.

However, since it was so difficult for Aussies to play – especially via travel amidst a global pandemic – there were few claiming WOC wins…with the exception of the aforementioned Addamo.

Top Player Rankings

There were two leaderboards tracked throughout the entirety of the series.

The primary leaderboard awarded points to every player competing in tournaments with buy-ins of $300 and higher. There were $75K in total prizes to award to those players, and the top-five final standings were:

• 1^st place: Artur Martirosian ($50K)
• 2^nd place: Scott Margereson ($10K)
• 3^rd place: Phillip Mighall ($5K)
• 4^th place: Dimitar Danchev ($3K)
• 5^th place: Roberto Romanello ($2K)

The “Rising Star” leaderboard delivered points to all players in tournaments with buy-ins under the $300 mark. And there was $25K set aside for this competition. The final top five players were:

• 1^st place: Luiz Antonio Silva ($10K)
• 2^nd place: Patrick Leonard ($6K)
• 3^rd place: Vyacheslav Nikulin ($3,500)
• 4^th place: Andres Ojeda ($2K)
• 5^th place: Gabriel Merenda ($1K)