WCOOP 2021: Back-to-back Leonard, plus Brazilian superstars claim four

August 26, 2021inPoker

Another day, another win for one of the undoubted stars of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars. But there were also a swarm of Brazilians doing what they do best. All the details…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Back-to-back titles for Leonard
• More Brazilian brilliance
• Stakelis and Segebrecht add to hauls
• Prize pools push through $17 million

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Back-to-back Patrick Leonard

Leonard completes first-week double: We have spent a lot of time over the past few days admiring the skills of Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, and it’s time to do so again. The British pro last night won his second WCOOP trophy for this year, one night after he won his first. It takes Leonard’s lifetime WCOOP title haul to four and puts him in pole position to claim the Player of the Series title that he so narrowly missed during SCOOP. Leonard’s latest victory was in WCOOP-15-H, the $1K buy-in 2-7 single draw, for which he won $20,475 after beating a field of 70 entries. In terms of cash, it’s one of the smallest victories of his glittering career, but in terms of everything else, it’s hugely significant. Leonard has started this series like a man possessed, and records could be in sight if he keeps it up.

Yuri Martins defeated Nevanlinna

Don’t forget Martins…: Amid all the talk of Patrick Leonard’s performance, it almost went unnoticed that two other all-time WCOOP superstars were heads-up for a title in WCOOP-13-H, the $1,050 FLO8 8-Max. After most of the 98-entry field had departed, Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins and Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna were left, boasting a combined nine WCOOP titles between them. Before this tournament, Nevanlinna had five of those titles, to Martins’ four, but the Brazilian levelled it up after this showdown. Martins, who won three events this time last year, overhauled Nevanlinna’s chip lead to bank the $23,897 first prize and bring his WCOOP haul up to five. There’s obviously no writing off Nevanlinna. He’s sure to be back. But the sun is shining again on Yuri Martins, who has got his WCOOP off and running in customary style in the first week. He now has WCOOP titles in PLO8, NL 2-7 Single Draw, HORSE, NLHE and FLO8 and is an all-round beast.

Pedro Padilha: Another huge NLHE score

…and Padilha, for that matter: Brazilian poker is in a very good place at the moment, and just as Yuri Martins was winning his fifth WCOOP tournament, Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha was picking up his second. Padilha is a high-stakes NLHE expert and so his victories tend to come with enormous pay-checks too. Last night’s success was no exception: he beat the 101-entry field in the $10K High Roller, for which he won the biggest payout of WCOOP 2021 so far, $208,311. That money headed to Padilha after he negotiated a heads-up deal with fellow Brazilian Pablo “pabritz” Brito Silva, with Silva taking a consolation prize of $203,118. This event was streamed live on the PokerStars YouTube and Twitch channels, and will have been roared on by thousands of Brazilians. There’s simply no stopping the South Americans already.

One more Brazilian rolls off production line: Leo Duarte’s online tournament record, documented at Pocket Fives, shows the kind of development path that all micro-stakes grinders wish for. He has a ton of results from tournaments costing less than $1 on PokerStars, from about six years ago, before more recently picking up scores in events with slightly higher buy-ins. Duarte, whose screen-name is “leoduarte13”, won a $109 buy-in event in Blowout Series in January, but last night went a notch better, claiming a maiden WCOOP triumph. He prevailed in the $109 Mini Super Tuesday, beating a field of 6,057 entries, and booking a win worth $86,084. It should keep him on the right path to matching some of the other Brazilian bosses who are crushing tournaments left and right.

Audrius Stakelis raising the stakes

Stakelis holds off Lodge for $175K win: Lithuania’s Audrius “Stakelis24” Stakelis won the first WCOOP title of his career in the “Mini” Super Tuesday during last year’s series, and banked himself a little more than $62K in the process. One year later, Stakelis has moved up the stakes in quite emphatic fashion. Last night, he won the actual Super Tuesday Special Edition, which had a $1,050 buy-in and, more importantly, a prize pool of close to $1.1 million. With 1,071 entries, Stakelis’s first prize was also huge: $174,896, a three-fold increase on his payout last time. Stakelis had to hold off Harry “Iamapoopie” Lodge to close it out heads-up, but he puts Lithuania back on the WCOOP board and boosted his own bankroll yet again.

Claas Segebrecht: Enormous bounty haul

Segebrecht tames Lex and bencb: There were high hopes for Team PokerStars going into the last day of WCOOP-16-H, where both Lex Veldhuis and Ben “bencb789” Rolle had decent stacks among the last 12 players. However, Rolle went out in ninth, two off the final table (this was 7-Max) and then Lex was out in eighth, bubbling the final. They each took $5K from the main prize pool, and Rolle edged Lex in bounties, with $10,734 to $6,625. With those two out of the way, Claas “SsicK_OnE” Segebrecht took over and crushed everyone en route to his second career WCOOP win. Segebrecht, from Austria, took $108,266 along with the trophy, a remarkable $61,961 of which came in bounties. The Brazilian “rafits bob” was beaten heads up, and won “only” $8,000 in bounties, by comparison.

TODAY’S RESULTS

*denotes deal
†inc. bounties

STAT TRACKER

When prize pools from this series hit $27,105,967, WCOOP will have paid prizes of $1 billion through its first 19 and a bit years. We’re now within $10 million of that figure as prize pools this time are already at $17,333,344. It’s been a busy start to WCOOP 2021.

Tournaments completed: 42
Entries: 179,142 (inc. 44,018 re-entries)
Prize pools: $17,333,344
First-place prizes: $2,490,132 (inc. $499,940 in bounties)
Tournaments ongoing: 12
Tournaments starting today: 18

Stats refer to completed tournaments only

STATES OF PLAY

• The highest earning online poker pro, Joao “Naza114” Vieira leads the last 31 players in the $530 buy-in NLHE rebuy event, which is paused overnight. There are a ton of big names still involved, including Harry “Iamapoopie” Lodge, Juan “Malaka$tyle” Pardo, and Andras “probirs” Nemeth. There’s $62K up top after the field of 212 entries had 305 rebuys and 117 add-ons.

• Vieira also has a stack in the $1,050 PLO (WCOOP-18-H), where 41 players remain. Vieira is 27th in a field currently led by another brilliant Joao: Joao “IneedMassari” Simao. Former WCOOP Player of the Series “WhatIfGod” is placed sixth at present in that one.

• The biggest prize pool on offer to players on Thursday is in WCOOP-17-H, the $2K NLHE. “Gbisback” of Argentina is leading the way, with 35 left, and a first prize of $130,500. Chris “ImDaNuts” Oliver is second, with Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet and Niklas “Lena900” Astedt in the top 12. Dominik “Bounatirou” leads the medium buy-in version of this tournament.

TWITCH WATCH

Spraggy is back at the WCOOP tables, but we watch this hand from Lex Veldhuis’s viewpoint. Lex had a chance to take Spraggy’s bounty, and was clearly tempted. But in the end he sat back and let someone else do the dirty work. The important thing was that Spraggy’s bounty was claimed…

TWEET OF THE DAY

Back to back wins, and back to back Tweet of the Day accolades, for Patrick Leonard. Incredible.

Back to back WCOOP Titles, just won the $1k 2-7 Single Draw, the most fun tournament on the schedule? LETS GO!!!! #vlogrungood pic.twitter.com/twzb8QjmIh

— Patrick Leonard (@padspoker) August 25, 2021

COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

It was a very Brazilian day in WCOOP on Wednesday, with the Latin American country accounting for four of the day’s nine champions. Brazil now has double the title haul of any of their competitors.

Current standings:

8 titles — Brazil
4 — Austria, Russia, UK
3 — Netherlands
2 — Estonia, Ukraine
1 — Andorra, Argentina, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Sweden.

PLAYER OF THE SERIES UPDATE

It’s still only the first week, but with two titles in the bag, and all the pedigree in the world, Patrick Leonard is making a strong play for this Player of the Series gong. Here are the latest standings:

OVERALL

1 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard (UK) – 370 points
2 – FONBET_RULIT (Russia) – 290
=3 – Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha (Brazil) – 235
=3 – renemastermi (Germany) – 235
=5 – Camilancefieldg (Canada) – 230
=5 – nmi128 (Netherlands) – 210

Prize: $25,000 to the winner

HIGH

1 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard (UK) – 265 points
2 – Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha (Brazil) – 195
3 – Dinesh “NastyMinder” Alt (Austria) – 180
4 – nmi128 (Netherlands) – 160
=5 – Andrey “kroko-dill” Zaichenko (Russia) – 130
=5 – Pedro “pvigar” Garagnani (Brazil) – 130

Prizes: 1st — $15,000; 2nd — $10,000; 3rd — $5,000

MEDIUM

1 – FONBET_RULIT (Russia) – 175 points
2 – Saage (Finland) – 155
=3 – _sennj_ (Norway) – 145
=3 – FAL1st (Russia) – 145
5 – Dart Serg (Russia) – 140

Prizes: 1st — $10,000; 2nd — $7,500; 3rd — $5,000; 4th — $2,500; 5th — $1,500; 6th-10th — $1,000

LOW

1 – renemastermi (Germany) – 170 points
2 – Camilancefieldg (Canada) – 145
=3 – disneyyman (Poland) – 140
=3 – OMGRubCasco (Uruguay) – 140
5 – CnISayWanker (United Kingdom) – 135

Prizes: 1st — $5,000; 2nd — $2,500; 3rd — $1,500; 4th — $1,000; 5th — $500; 6th-10th — $300; 11th-20th — $150

Read a full explanation of this year’s promotions.

TODAY’S ACTION

It was already going to be a busy day, with Events 20 through 25 kicking off, but there’s also the postponed Event 12 on Thursday’s WCOOP calendar. The highlight of the day is still the Thursday Thrill Special Edition, which has a $55 and a $5,300 High Roller version, and a Medium buy-in ($530) with a $1 million tournament guarantee. Look out too for the Limit Stud Hi/Lo and the Limit Hold’em. That’s how it used to be.

WCOOP-12: NLHE 8-Max PKO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $50K, $250K, $300K

WCOOP-20: NLHE
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $50K, $200K, $250K

WCOOP-21: FLHE 6-Max
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $15K, $30K, $65K

WCOOP-22: NLHE 8-Max, PKO, Thursday Thrill
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,300
Guarantees: $500K, $1m, $750K

WCOOP-23: Limit Stud Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $15K, $40K, $75K

WCOOP-24: NLHE Freezeout (exc. H)
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Guarantees: $85K, $200K, $350K

WCOOP-25: NLHE 8-Max, Turbo, PKO, Freezeout
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $50K, $200K, $250K

WATCH THE ACTION ON TWITCH AND YOUTUBE

Live broadcasts of WCOOP 2021 go out every Monday through Wednesday featuring cards up coverage of the biggest final tables and expert commentary from James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton and a host of special guests. Click for full details.

You can watch on the PokerStars YouTube channel, the PokerStars YouTube UK channel, or PokerStars’ Twitch channel.

Broadcast schedule:

PokerStars TV WCOOP Broadcast Schedule

POKER NEWS LIVE UPDATES

Our friends at Poker News will be bringing you live updates from a number of events during WCOOP. Head to their Live Reporting pages to see the action unfold in real time.

Poker News WCOOP reporting schedule:

WCOOP 22-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Thursday Thrill SE], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 22-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, High Roller], $750K Gtd
WCOOP 34-M: $2,100 NLHE [8-Max], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 34-H: $25,000 NLHE [8-Max, Super High Roller], $3M Gtd
WCOOP 42-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max], $700K Gtd
WCOOP 51-H: $2,100 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Thursday Thrill SE], $800K Gtd
WCOOP 52-H: $10,300 8-Game [High Roller], $500K Gtd
WCOOP 63-M: $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO], $1.5M Gtd
WCOOP 63-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, High Roller], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 71-H: $2,100 NLHE [8-Max, Super Tuesday SE], $650K Gtd
WCOOP 80-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, High Roller], $750K Gtd
WCOOP 91-L: $55 NLHE [8-Max, NLHE Main Event], $1.5M Gtd
WCOOP 91-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, NLHE Main Event], $2.5M Gtd
WCOOP 91-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, NLHE Main Event], $10M Gtd
WCOOP 92-M: $1,050 PLO [6-Max, PLO Main Event], $750K Gtd
WCOOP 92-H: $10,300 PLO [6-Max, PLO Main Event], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 94-H: $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Series Saver], $1.25M Gtd
WCOOP 01-H: $109 NLHE [Phase 2], $1M Gtd

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