It was an extraordinary Sunday in the Blowout Series, thanks to a $5 million guarantee, a WCOOP champion — and the always remarkable Lex Veldhuis. Read all about it…
BLOWOUT BULLETIN
Veldhuis entertains the masses en route to second place: Lex Veldhuis, poker’s streaming hero extraordinaire, gave his legions of fans an almighty sweat last night, battling on at least four fronts in the Blowout Series. Without question, most of the focus was on the two-day $2,100 buy-in PKO tournament (Event 21-H) where Veldhuis went into the day as chip leader and quickly made it to the final table. With tens of thousands of people watching live, Veldhuis made it to the heads-up duel against “3DTemujiN“, the No 1 ranked player in Kazakhstan. (If that sounds like faint praise, don’t be mistaken. 3DTemujiN is also a SCOOP winner and has been the final table of the WCOOP PLO Main Event.) The pair guaranteed themselves $30,836 from the main prize pool and then did battle for the final bounty, with Veldhuis coming up short in this one. It meant 3DTemujiN became the champion, earning a total $59,844, including the final $29K bounty, while Veldhuis settled for $51,219 and second place. He was, however, happy. And that’s not all: Veldhuis also finished 12th in the $5,200 PKO High Roller, for another $20K.
YEahhhhh did a thing today! Super super happy with how I played today. God run continued as well. Feels sooooo good early in a series especially. pic.twitter.com/PMyiWJn7x2
— Lex Veldhuis (@LexVeldhuis) January 4, 2021
PTFisherman23 hauls in another one: In case there were any doubts that Andre “PTFisherman23” Marques‘ victory in the WCOOP Main Event was a fluke, the Netherlands-based Portuguese just laid them to rest. Marques last night won on the Blowout Series too, picking up $110,474, including $55K in bounties, in the $530 8-Max PKO (Event #26-M). In doing so, he beat a field of 1,697 entries and adds another six-figure score to the remarkable $1.15 million he won during WCOOP.
One for Watson: The High Roller Club combined with the regular Sunday schedule today for the Sunday Warm-Up HRC edition, with a $1,050 buy-in. The field was full of the usual suspects and the title went to one of the most familiar of all of them: Canada’s Mike “SirWatts” Watson. The former PCA champ, and multiple ‘COOP winner, saw off “Leqenden” of Belarus heads up, and also denied Brazil’s LĂşcio “WizardOffAz” Lima a second title in the same night. Lima won the $1,050 Deep Stacks earlier in the day (Event #20-H) for $38,532, but had to settle for fourth in this one. Instead Watson earns the first Blowout Series title of his career and pushes documented lifetime cashes in online tournaments to $6.5 million. According to Pocket Fives, Watson is the current Canada No 1 and ranked fourth in the world.
THE SERIES EXPLAINED | SCHEDULE & RESULTS | ALL BLOG REPORTS
Customary title for Graftekkel: The Netherlands is having a terrific Blowout Series so far with eight outright victories and numerous more deep runs, including Lex Veldhuis, of course. But last night’s customary victory for the brilliant Jans “Graftekkel” Arends goes down as one for Austria, his adopted country. Wherever he is, Arends is an absolute monster and last night his most recent victory came in the high buy-in version of the Sunday Kickoff (Event #24-H), with a $530 buy-in, 546 entries and a prize pool of $273,000. Arends beat them all and won $35,757 in total, including $14,726 in bounties. It’s always worth hearing from this absolute boss. The medium buy-in version of this event brought a first Blowout Series success for Japan when “ryu1.1125” beat a field of 5,784 to bank $27,090, including bounties. That’s the Circle of the Sun on the Blowout Series map.
A few more High Rollers: The Sunday schedule allowed for a couple more High Roller events, one of which concluded and the other of which is paused overnight. Event #28-H was a $2,100 buy-in PKO and it gave a first win of the series to Bruno “great dant” Volkmann, another Brazilian crusher whom we’ve got to know quite well over the years. Volkmann has won twice in WCOOP and has lifetime documented cashes of $7.6 million. (He’s come second in SCOOP events four times.) He closed out this one for $87,189, including bounties, with Julian “nailuj90” Stuer in second. Gianluca “Tankanza” Speranza finished in third. The other High Roller cost $5,200 to enter and paused with nine players left. Finland’s “EEE27” leads the charge, from Timothy “Tim0thee” Adams, with Ole “wizowizo” Schemion, Andras “probirs” Nemeth, Matthias “iambest2” Eibinger and Patrick “pads1161” Leonard also still with chips. There’s $71K up top, plus about the same in bounties.
Big Blowout! blows out guarantee: With a guarantee of $5 million and a buy-in of only $215, it might have seemed that tournament organisers had been a bit too ambitious again with respect to the series second Big Blowout! tournament. But the fears were allayed as 22,932 players showed up on the first day, and made an additional 6,775 re-entries, meaning the prize pool already stands at $5.94 million. Registration remains open until start of play today. The winner is likely to receive in the neighbourhood of $600K. Play resumes at 2.05pm ET, so you have all day still to qualify.
LATEST RESULTS
Event | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Total prize |
Event #20-L: $11 NLHE, Deep Stacks | 14,542 | $142,512 | Troll4You | Denmark | $14,265* |
Event #20-M: $109 NLHE, Deep Stacks | 2,444 | $244,400 | Gwolde | Netherlands | $35,856 |
Event #20-H: $1,050 NLHE, Deep Stacks | 218 | $218,000 | WizardOffAz | Brazil | $38,532* |
Event #21-L: $22 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, Mini Saturday KO SE | 65,000 | $1,300,000 | SH3IK3 | Canada | $62,014†|
Event #21-M: $215 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, Saturday KO SE | 4,281 | $856,200 | ALLEXarm | Russia | $89,020†|
Event #21-H: $2,100 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, HRC Saturday KO SE | 172 | $344,000 | 3DTemujiN | Kazakhstan | $59,844†|
Event #24-L: $5.50 NLHE, PKO, Mini Sunday Kickoff SE | 27,823 | $136,333 | BananBomb | Czech Republic | $8,496†|
Event #24-M: $55 NLHE, PKO, Sunday Kickoff SE | 5,784 | $289,200 | ryu1.1125 | Japan | $27,090†|
Event #24-H: $530 NLHE, PKO | 546 | $273,000 | Graftekkel | Austria | $35,757†|
Event #25-L: $11 NLHE, 8-Max | 17,316 | $169,697 | Mathecf | Brazil | $18,129 |
Event #25-M: $109 NLHE, 8-Max, Sunday Warm-Up SE | 4,481 | $448,100 | Wenderr | Brazil | $63,914 |
Event #25-H: $1,050 NLHE, 8-Max, HRC Sunday Warm-Up SE | 421 | $421,000 | SirWatts | Canada | $75,462 |
Event #26-L: $55 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO | 15,375 | $768,750 | bucanero33 | Argentina | $53,102†|
Event #26-M: $530 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO | 1,697 | $848,500 | PTFisherman23 | Netherlands | $110,474†|
Event #28-L: $22 NLHE, 8-Max, Turbo, PKO, Mini Sunday Cooldown SE | 19,393 | $387,860 | GeorgeGunner | Greece | $25,587†|
Event #28-M: $215 NLHE, 8-Max, Turbo, PKO, Sunday Cooldown SE | 2,454 | $490,800 | juicetus | Austria | $48,736†|
Event #28-H: $2,100 NLHE, 8-Max, Turbo, PKO, HRC Sunday Cooldown SE | 194 | $388,000 | great dant | Brazil | $87,189†|
*denotes deal
†inc. bounties
STAT TRACKER
Tournaments completed: 81
Total entries: 885,266
Total prize pools: $28,381,958
First-place prizes: $3,147,781 (inc. bounties)
Tournaments ongoing: 2
Tournaments starting today: 9
Note: Stats refer to completed tournaments only
TWITCH WATCH
Lex was a dominant chip leader with three left in the $2K, but two coolers essentially did for him. The first brought 3DTemujiN back from the dead and the second, a little while later, brought him the title.
COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD
Seventeen tournaments finished on Sunday night, with Brazilians winning four of them. That stretched the South Americans’ lead at the top of the leader board, with the Netherlands still running them closest. The Brits and Russians, who usually go shoulder to shoulder at the top of these leader boards, are nowhere to be seen. There were two titles for the Dutch, two for Canada and two for Austria, as Japan and Kazakhstan won their first.
Latest standings:
13 titles – Brazil
10 – Netherlands
7 – Canada
5 – Sweden, UK
4 – Russia
3 – Estonia, Mexico, Romania
2 – Argentina, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland
1 – Croatia, Finland, Guernsey, Hungary, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Panama, Poland, Ukraine.
STARTING TODAY
Event #29: NLHE, Progressive KO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $100,000, $350,000, $350,000
Event #30: NLHE, 8-Max
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $50,000, $125,000, $150,000
Event #31: NLHE, Heads-Up, Zoom, Turbo, Progressive Total KO
Buy-ins: $2.20, $22, $215
Guarantees: $50,000, $125,000, $150,000