The opening day of the 20th edition of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is in the books. Here’s what happened as the curtain came up on 2021’s WCOOP…

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

∙ Series kicks of with packed Sunday schedule
∙ Ukrainian double in Cooldown; Shaban goes close
∙ $1m+ prize pools in three events
∙ Mixed games kick off on Monday’s schedule

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BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Hold’em bonanza on opening night: Seven events — i.e., 21 tournaments — got started on the first day of WCOOP 2021, three of which had prize pools of at least $1 million. They included the Sunday Million Special Edition, with a buy-in of only $55, and the $5,200 High Roller, whose 200 entries put the prize pool at a precise million. While the former tournament still has two days to run, the High Roller concludes this evening, and featured a star-studded final. The Brazilian Pedro “pvigar” Garagnani is leading the last nine, but Christian “WATnlos” Rudolph, Dinesh “NastyMinder” Alt, Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden, Sam “Str8$$$Homey” Greenwood and David “dpeters” Peters are among those still challenging for the $195,690 first prize.

Shaban makes final on opening night: Twitch viewers very nearly enjoyed the best ever entertainment late on Sunday night when Arlie “PrincePablo” Shaban streamed his way to the final table of the $55 Sunday Cooldown SE. The energetic Canadian, who won during the Blowout Series in January, was one of the final eight in a field of 6,212, which is no mean feat. This time Shaban’s run ended in fourth, which earned him $7,803 plus $2,523 in bounties, and kept his viewers enthralled until the clock ticked close to midnight in Canada — and way later elsewhere in the world. The tournament was won by “gunnersfun” of Ukraine, who banked $27,717, including bounties. “goodday2211”, also of Ukraine, won the low buy-in version of this event, turning $5.50 into $4,089. (Shaban, meanwhile, is also still alive in the Sunday Million Special Edition, which resumes today.)

nmi128 adds to Bounty Builder win: The Netherlands-based “nmi128” first came to our attention in October 2020 when they won a $530 PLO 6-Max event and picked up more than $30K, including bounties. Last night, nmi128 learnt how much more profitable hold’em tournaments can be when they won the $530 buy-in Sunday Cooldown, worth $79,042 including bounties. There were 971 entries to this one, including many of the bosses who were winding down their Sunday sessions. But nmi128 showed them no mercy and claimed a first WCOOP title, and trophy.

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TODAY’S RESULTS

*denotes deal
†inc. bounties

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STAT TRACKER

A whole host of tournaments got under way on Sunday, some with some huge prize pools. But our stat tracker looks only at completed tournaments, so it currently looks like this:

Tournaments completed: 3
Entries: 17,998
Prize pools: $849,094
First-place prizes: $110,849 (inc. $54,651 in bounties)
Tournaments ongoing: 18
Tournaments starting today: 9

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TWITCH WATCH

All the streaming big guns came out to play on the opening night of WCOOP, and there’s no bigger than the Dutch sensation Lex Veldhuis. Lex was on great form, although there’s a player named “Ra1m0nd” who might not agree. Here’s the first absolutely stinking bad beat of WCOOP, with Lex on the right side:

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MORE ABOUT WCOOP:
SCHEDULE & RESULTS | SATELLITE GUIDE | SERIES HIGHLIGHTS
RESULTS 2002-2020 | 20 YEARS OF WCOOP | YEAR-BY-YEAR | MULTIPLE CHAMPIONS
OFFICIAL WCOOP PAGE | ALL BLOG REPORTS | DOWNLOAD AND PLAY!

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TWEET OF THE DAY

Arlie couldn’t close it out, but he could see the many, many positives from an excellent early run:

What a start to #WCOOP !!! I played hard for the win but ended up snagging a 4th place for $10,325! @PokerStars pic.twitter.com/dsPP2MFyrW

— Arlie Shaban (@ArlieShaban) August 23, 2021

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PLAYER OF THE SERIES UPDATE

It is obviously far, far too early to think about the Player of the Series race, but here’s a reminder of the prizes everyone will be looking for this time around. Read a full explanation of this year’s promotions too.

OVERALL LEADER BOARD WINNER:

$25,000

HIGH LEADER BOARD PRIZES

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

MEDIUM LEADER BOARD PRIZES

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

LOW LEADER BOARD PRIZES

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

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COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

With only three tournaments concluding on Sunday night, we are still very much in the embryonic stage of the countries leader board. Nevertheless: Go Ukraine! They took two of the three titles on offer.

Current standings:

2 titles — Ukraine
1 – Netherlands

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TODAY’S ACTION

After Sunday’s hold’em fest, we have plenty of variety on Monday’s schedule. You can play HORSE or NLO8, alongside two big PKO hold’em events.

WCOOP-08: NLHE 8-Max, PKO
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Guarantees: $500,000, $650,000, $600,000

WCOOP-09: HORSE
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Guarantees: $30,000, $60,000, $100,000

WCOOP-10: NLHE 8-Max, PKO, Freezeout
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $100,000, $350,000, $300,000

WCOOP-11: NLO8 8-Max, PKO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $10,000, $35,000, $60,000

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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:

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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 04-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max], $1.5M Gtd
WCOOP 04-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 14-M: $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, Super Tuesday SE], $1M Gtd
WCOOP 14-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller], $1M Gtd
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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