Three more players became double champions as this exceptional World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) moves into its final week of play. All the latest…

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Clean sweep for Brazil in Sunday Slams
• Glaser wins! Of course.
• Three more double champs brings list to 13
• Consistent Lyapin takes over at top of leader board
• The worst hand of razz ever played?

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BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Vitorbrasil completes Slam triple for Brazil: With Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins having already won the high buy-in version of the Sunday Slam, and Dante “dantegoyaF” Goya winning the low buy-in (see below), it fell to Vitor “Vitorbrasil” Peixoto Moreira to complete the sweep in the $530 buy-in version. To do so, Moreira had to defeat Philipp “philbort” Gruissem heads up at the end of the latest event streamed live on the PokerStars Twitch channel. Gruissem had one career WCOOP title before, from 2017, and although Moreira was the lesser known player, his Pocket Fives profile shows lifetime tournament cashes of close to $2.5 million on PokerStars. When he eventually closed it out, denying Gruissem, Moreira added another $210,236.64, including $72,433.28 for the final bounty. It completed the job: three out of three Sunday Slams for Brazil.

It wouldn’t be a ‘COOP without Glaser: If you thought there was one obvious omission from the list of champions this year, your mind can now be at rest. Despite drawing a blank in the opening two weeks of WCOOP, Benny “Rungodlike” Glaser last night won his customary title, beating the field of 79 entries in the $2,100 HORSE. Glaser has two WCOOP victories in his career already, plus five in SCOOP, and this latest one came against one of the toughest fields in the variant that tests all-round skills. Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins was fifth, Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara was second (a third runner-up finish for him during this WCOOP) but Glaser came out on top for $43,055.

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MORE ABOUT WCOOP 2020:
OFFICIAL SITE | SERIES HIGHLIGHTS | SCHEDULE (pdf) |
SATELLITE GUIDE | LEADER BOARDS | RESULTS | ALL BLOG REPORTS

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Goya beats the low Slam: The list of double champions from WCOOP 2020 also now includes Brazil’s Dante “dantegoyaF” Goya, who won the huge $55 buy-in Sunday Slam. It demonstrated his ability to beat tournaments of vastly contrasting textures. On the first couple of nights of WCOOP this time, Goya beat the concentrated elite field — 127 entries — in WCOOP-03-H: $5,200 PLO 6-Max, High Roller, which was worth $168,607.68. But the “low” buy-in Sunday Slam was in a different order of volatility, with 23,459 entries and lasting three days. Goya was the last man standing in both, however, and this latest victory earned him $80,550.25, including $20,581.02 in bounty payments.

“Wall131TCI-I” makes it two too: Quickly following in “dantegoyaF”’s footsteps, “Wall131TCI-I” also won his second WCOOP title of this year when he closed out victory in the 53-M: $55 PLO8 8-Max, winning $11,239.19. Earlier in the series, the German player beat a field of 689 entries in the 20-M: $109 HORSE to earn a first WCOOP title, and that tally doubled in the early hours of Wednesday morning when the last of the 1,465-entry field was defeated in the PLO8. That final opponent happened to be Finland’s Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna, aka last season’s WCOOP Player of the Series. Nevanlinna has come close a few times this year – including ninth in the high buy-in version of this tournament – but hasn’t added to his career tally.

Add “papan9_p$” to the doubles list: The roll call of double champions from 2020 shows no signs of being complete, and Viktor “papan9_p$” Ustimov also added his name to the list last night. Ustimov won the $1,050 buy-in Win The Button event, with 274 entries and a $274,000 prize pool, banking $52,284.18. Ustimov earlier won WCOOP-31-H: $530 NLHE 4-Max, for $54,378.13, and his total winner’s haul passes $100K as a result. In all, we now have 13 double champions for WCOOP this year, two of whom have three titles, and still a week of competition to go.

Koplimaa and Aleskins in the game: Guntis “poker@luffyD” Aleskins and Markku “markovitsus” Koplimaa are used to coming out on top of tough fields. Aleskins did it in the Super Tuesday in 2017, and Koplimaa has more than $8 million in tournament winnings on PokerStars. Both did it again last night to win the first WCOOP titles of their career. With all of Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb, Joao “joaovbarb” Barbosa, Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin, “tinnoemulder”, Christian “eisenhower1” Jeppsson, and “bartowskiFR” making the deep stages of 52-H: $530 NLHE 6-Max, PKO, it was Aleskins who saw them all off for a $76,946.38 score, including $33,525.05 in bounties. Meanwhile, Koplimaa battled his way through a field of 6,829 entries to win the $11 Win The Button tournament, banking $9,514.48.

Another second for Lyapin: Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin has been one of the undoubted stars of this WCOOP and is now top of the Player of the Series leader board. But it’s also been a case of what might have been. Lyapin last night finished second in a tournament for at least the third time, narrowly failing to beat his fellow Russian “IExPlayI“, who claimed the $33,236.59 first prize in WCOOP-53-H: $530 PLO8 8-Max. Lyapin, who streams his action live on Twitch, had to make do with another $24,050.83 this time, and another silver medal. However, Lyapin is still alive and in the last eight of of the $215 FL 2-7 Triple Draw, which finished today. He is, of course, second.

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THOSE DOUBLE CHAMPIONS IN FULL

Just in case anyone has lost count, here’s the full list of double champions from WCOOP 2020 so far:

Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos, Dante “dantegoyaF” Goya, “deivid29”, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Niklas “Lena900” Astedt, Murilo “Muka82” Figuiredo, Viktor “papan9_p$” Ustimov, Andras “probirs” Nemeth, Rafael “pycadasgalax” Furlanetto, Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes, “The_Truht”, Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins, “Wall131TCI-I”. Of those, Leknes and Martins have three titles apiece.

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TODAY’S RESULTS

†inc. bounties
*denotes deal

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STAT TRACKER

Events completed: 162
Entries so far: 669,189
Prize pools so far: $60,316,452
Players ITM: 97,779
First prizes so far: $9,083,166.77
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Tournaments starting today: 9

(Note: completed events only)

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INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS!

We’ve been talking with a few WCOOP winners to hear about their tourney triumphs (and perhaps to pick up a few tips for ourselves). Check out our latest interviews from this year’s winners so far:

• Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane on what he’s learned in 10 years as a high-stakes pro
• Brazilian Brunno ‘botteonpoker’ Botteon in the winner’s circle again
• Preben “prebz” Stokkan continues to progress and crush
• Mike “SirWatts” Watson again collecting cashes, final tables
• “Bryn12” drifts through life and WCOOP towards top of leaderboard
• $2K Sunday Slam champ Matas “NoTilit” Cikinas confirms power of the cat avatar
• “va1umart” finds value, pockets nearly $80K for Event #21-M win
• Mario “brandon0903” Mastropietro’s WCOOP win relieves pressures of $400k court case
• That winning feeling carries Tiago “Tayguera” Guimarães to #13-M title
• Tyler “Juicy_J_93” Jardine sends warning to Pot limit Omaha players
• A bountiful $10K Sunday Slam for Dimitar Danchev
• Heads up! Ankush Mandavia wins third title in $530 TKO HU Zoom
• Marksman_M casually streams huge WCOOP win to three Twitch viewers

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TWITCH WATCH

As we know, Ben “Spraggy” Spragg is playing all the low buy-in events this year, chasing leader board points, and that means he’s playing some unfamiliar games against opponents who are also perhaps trying the games for the first time. Spraggy seemed to enjoy himself at least in the following hand, which he called “the worst hand of Razz I’ve ever seen”:

It all ended for Spraggy in one big showdown against Benny “Rungodlike” Glaser:

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TOP TWEETS

It just wouldn’t be a ‘COOP without a tweet like this:

😁🏆
Shipped the $2k HORSE #WCOOP! pic.twitter.com/5xGnTVmvQy

— Benny Glaser (@BennyGlaser) September 16, 2020

As for Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara, this is his version of the Glaser tweet. To repeat, he now has three runner-up finishes during this WCOOP:

3rd 3rd before, 2nd 2nd this WCOOP, how about this time?

— Naoya Kihara⛅木原直哉 (@key_poker) September 16, 2020

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LEADER BOARDS

Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin may have “only” won one tournament this series, but his consistency — and multiple final-table finishes — are rewarded in his elevation to the top of the overall leader board. With $25,000 on the line for the winner of that, it’s a fine position to be in. Obviously, Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins isn’t done yet either, and this race will probably go all the way to the wire.

Overall

1 – Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin, Russia, 1,000 points
2 – Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins, Brazil, 940
3 – aleksandrs10, Latvia, 900
4 – Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak, Russia, 870
5 – chininhaltig, Germany, 840

Prize: Overall – $25,000 plus trophy

High buy-in:

=1 – Niklas “Lena900” Astedt, Sweden, 495 points
=1 – Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins, Brazil, 495
3 – Joao “Naza114” Vieira, Netherlands, 450
4 – Mike “SirWatts” Watson, Canada, 435
5 – Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin, Russia, 380

Prizes: Winner $12,500; 2nd $10,000; 3rd $7,500

Medium buy-in:

=1 – Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak, Russia, 370 points
=1 – Murilo “Muka82” Figueiredo, Brazil, 370
3 – Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins, Brazil, 360 points
4 – chininhaltig, Germany, 340
5 – Rinat “Zapahzamazki” Lyapin, Russia, 320

Prizes: Winner $8,500; 2nd $6,000; 3rd $3,000 (top 15 are rewarded)

Low buy-in:

1 – aleksandrs10, Latvia, 450 points
2 – B–rabbit444, Norway, 410
=3 – Voziyanov15, Russia, 375
=3 – Ben “Spraggy” Spragg, United Kingdom, 375
5 – rastafari898, Germany, 370

Winner $5,000; 2nd $3,000; 3rd $2,000 (top 25 are rewarded)

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COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

Another two each for the UK and Brazil on Tuesday night keeps those countries in a tight race at the top of the countries leader board, with the Europeans one notch ahead. But Russian players also won four titles to bring them back into contention.

Latest standings

27 – UK
26 – Brazil
22 – Russia
10 – Germany
7 – Netherlands, Norway
6 – Canada
5 – Ukraine
4 – Austria, Poland, Latvia, Hungary
3 – Argentina, Finland, Bulgaria
2 – Belarus, Malta, Romania, Lithuania, Sweden, Estonia
1 – Slovenia, Taiwan, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ireland, Jersey, Serbia, Peru, Luxembourg, Greece, Monaco, Croatia, Japan and Georgia.

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ONGOING TOURNAMENTS

WCOOP-56-L: $22 NLHE 8-Max
Entries: 7,901 | Prize pool: $158,020
Players left: 124 | Chip leader: jackadam (Hungary)

WCOOP-56-M: $215 NLHE 8-Max, Mini Super Tuesday SE
Entries: 2,069 | Prize pool: $413,800
Players left: 81 | Chip leader: darkmaestro7 (Russia)

WCOOP-56-H: $2,100 NLHE 8-Max, Super Tuesday SE/b>
Entries: 386 | Prize pool: $772,000
Players left: 54 | Chip leader: Cashcid Linc (Germany)

WCOOP-57-L: $22 FL 2-7 Triple Draw
Entries: 1,076 (inc. 302 re-entries) | Prize pool: $21,520
Players left: 14 | Chip leader: kelvetica (Russia)

WCOOP-57-M: $215 FL 2-7 Triple Draw
Entries: 317 (inc. 119 re-entries) | Prize pool: $63,400
Players left: 8 | Chip leader: ALEX2PAIRS (Russia)

WCOOP-57-H: $2,100 FL 2-7 Triple Draw
Entries: 68 (inc. 25 re-entries) | Prize pool: $136,000
Players left: 9 | Chip leader: Keep3r (Austria)

WCOOP-58-L: $5.50 NLHE 8-Max, PKO
Entries: 11,549 | Prize pool: $56,590.10
Players left: 140 | Chip leader: IamtheDerbst (Germany)

WCOOP-58-M: $55 NLHE 8-Max, PKO
Entries: 5,609 | Prize pool: $280,450
Players left: 212 | Chip leader: DarkBitcoin (Russia)

WCOOP-58-H: $530 NLHE 8-Max, PKO
Entries: 842 | Prize pool: $421,000
Players left: 63 | Chip leader: vincelis (Lithuania)

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STARTING TODAY

Expect action aplenty in WCOOP-60, which combines all the wonderful volatility of PLO 6-Max with a re-buy format. Should be a lot of fun. Meanwhile the biggest guarantee is attached to the $5,200 buy-in Midweek Freeze, where players will be looking at a slice of a minimum $500K prize pool.

1.05pm ET: WCOOP-59: NLHE 8-Max Midweek Freeze
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Guarantees: $175,000, $350,000, $500,000

2.05pm ET: WCOOP-60: PL Omaha 6-Max Rebuy
Buy-ins: $5.50+R, $55+R, $530+R
Guarantees: $35,000, $125,000, $300,000

3.05pm ET: WCOOP-61: NLHE 6-Max, PKO
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $60,000, $250,000, $350,000

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PREVIOUS ROUND-UPS

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