WCOOP 2022: Nine for Vieira, eight for Leknes on day of multiple multiples

September 21, 2022

News

by Howard Swains

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10 Minute Read

What was already an incredible 2022 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) became even more amazing as some of the series all-time greats excelled once again. Don’t miss today’s sensational update from the PokerStars tables…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Day of multiple multiples as WCOOP goes bananas
• Ninth for Vieira; eighth for Leknes
• Hat-trick for Dimov; four double champs
• Van Brabander is Women’s World Champion!

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Yet another success for Vieira

Vieira notches third, ninth overall, on day of multiple multiples: WCOOP officially went bananas on Tuesday night as we saw two three-time champions and four other double champions emerging, as well as two World Championship events playing to their winners.

All the details are below, but we’ll start at the top: Joao “Naza114” Vieira won a brilliant third WCOOP title of 2022 last night when he took down the $2K 2-7 Triple Draw event, beating a small field of 34 entries to pick up another $32,231. Obviously this was not an enormous event, and the payout will barely register on his career ledger.

But this is the second time Vieira has won three titles during a single WCOOP (he also did it in 2019) and Vieira now has nine career WCOOP wins, which puts him tied at the top of the all time counts, with Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov. When you consider that Vieira has also finished second in four events this year — including one last night — you can maybe get an ideal of how magnificent this series has been for the UK-based Portuguese player.

Three for Vieira? Dimov: “Hold my beer”

Hat-trick of big ones for Dimov: Winning three WCOOP tournaments during a single series is a spectacular achievement, but Ognjan “cocojamb0” Dimov, who completed his 2022 hat-trick last night, has done so in three of the series biggest tournaments.

Dimov, from Bulgaria, last night took down the $5,200 buy-in NLHE High Roller, banking $160,277, ahead of a stellar 159-entry field. On WCOOP’s first weekend, Dimov won a $10K High Roller, for $230K, and he latterly won a $215 buy-in 6-Max tournament, with more than 1,100 entries.

As an indication of the strength of the field he defeated last night, Dimov had to outlast David “dpeters17” Peters, who was knocked out in third, and Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski, who was second.

Those two defeated players have recently returned to the online tables after excursions elsewhere, and indicate that the higher stakes games are about to get a lot tougher again. No problem for Dimov, however, who now has four WCOOP titles to his name.

World Champion Van Brabander

Van Brabander is newest World Champion: Georgina “GJReggie” James’ attempts to become World Champion in WCOOP first women’s event took her all the way to seventh, from a field of 78, and a payday of $3,014. However, the person who wakes up this morning as the actual World Champion is another player with PokerStars connections: the former Friend of PokerStars Charlotte Van Brabander, from Belgium.

Van Brabander spent a couple of years representing the Red Spade, around 2013, and still plays a lot of poker, under her screen-name “Sjlot“. She was one of the short stack returning for the second day of the Women’s World Championship final table, but battled to the top and claimed a $15,886 first prize. There was a $65,000 prize pool for this one, and the final was streamed live on PokerStars channels. Expect this to become a fixture at the major PokerStars series.

Leknes wins yet again

Eight for Leknes! It was all the way back on WCOOP’s opening weekend that we were last writing about Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes as a WCOOP champion. By normal standards, that’s not long ago. For Leknes, it must have seemed like forever.

Leknes is a habitual champion in all of PokerStars major series, and he proved his skills yet again last night, taking down the $530 buy-in PLO8 6-Max, for $20,155. That’s Leknes’s second victory this year (he has come second in two other tournaments, from umpteen final tables) and his eighth overall, stretching from 2017 to present.

It’s now the third year he has won more than one title in a WCOOP series, and he is clearly in awesome form still. Don’t bet against it being his last.

Vieira denied as “roo_400” makes it two: As hinted at earlier, Joao “Naza114” Vieira’s incredible WCOOP might have been even better, because he has also finished runner up four times. That includes an event last night as Vieira was beaten into second place in the $2K World Championship of 8-Game, losing heads up to Canada’s “roo_400“. Instead, roo_400 booked a second win of this series.

As expected for a World Championship in a tournament that tests all-round skills in eight poker variants, the field comprised the great and the good of online poker. Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes made another final table, and all of the last three players — roo_400, Vieira and Renan “Internett93o” Carlos Bruschi, had at least one win already in this year’s WCOOP. Hats off then to roo_400 for taking this down, banking $41,464 and adding this title to a $530 NLHE PKO win from earlier in the series.

Jeppsson is a double champ for 2022 too

Jeppsson returns to the top: The multiple champions are now coming thick and fast in WCOOP this year, as Christian “eisenhower1” Jeppsson also won his second WCOOP title of the series on Tuesday night.

Jeppsson, one of online poker’s longest-serving powerhouses, beat a field of 249 entries in the $1K NLHE freezeout last night, picking $47,880 for his troubles. Jeppsson was a prime mover in Sweden’s early domination of online poker, and won WCOOP titles in 2015 and 2016, respectively, by which time he was already a familiar figure in all of the big MTTs. He’s still going, and that’s now four career WCOOP wins, with a week of the series still remaining.

T0X16- doubles up: Two players asked to look at the numbers at the end of WCOOP 66-M, the $530 buy-in NLHE last night, with the remainder of the 1,394-strong field already departed. The UK’s “3betwizkid” secured themselves $87,664, which became their second-place prize, as Austria’s “T0X16-” went on to claim top spot and earn $95,500.

We can’t know the thinking behind these two when they agreed to the deal (the original first and second prizes were $106,937 and $76,277), but for “T0X16-“, this was also a chance to become a double champion. The Austrian player won the $55 Sunday Warm-Up earlier this WCOOP for $30,702, and now nestles among the superstars as a two-time WCOOP champion for 2022.

It might have been different for Glaser: Amid all the incredible multiple wins last night, a quick footnote: this report could have been so different. Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser finished runner up in the $22 FL 2-7 Triple Draw last night, losing heads-up to “14Sebas°°/M” from Poland. Glaser has won two titles this year, but that was his fifth heads-up defeat. In a slightly different world, we could have been talking about seven-time Glaser…

MULTIPLE CHAMPIONS

The following players have won more than one title during this year’s WCOOP:

THREE WINS
Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira, Joao “Naza114” Vieira, Ognjan “cocojamb0” Dimov

TWO WINS
alligator14, Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson, “drew.derzh”, Eduardo “Eduardo850” Silva, “gettingpwned”, “nomalice”, Robin “robinho” Ylitalo, “roo_400”, Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser, Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes, Ronan “Sw33ney” Sweeney, “T0X16-“.

TODAY’S RESULTS

*denotes deal
†inc. bounties

STAT TRACKER

We’re entering the final week of WCOOP, with 219 tournaments now complete. Just how high can all these numbers go?

Tournaments completed: 219
Entries: 663,429 (inc. 161,297 re-entries)
Prize pools: $58,274,002
First-place prizes: $9,722,083 (inc. $2,117,382 in bounties)
Tournaments ongoing: 6
Tournaments starting today: 12

Stats refer to completed tournaments only

TWITCH WATCH

It was all going so well for Georgina “GJReggie” James in the Women’s World Championship. Until it wasn’t… GG GJ.

Lex Veldhuis | Ben “Spraggy” Spragg | Fintan “easywithaces” Hand
Mason “Pye_Face21” Pye | Georgina “GJReggie” James | Arlie “Prince Pablo” Shaban
Sebastian “peaceandloove” Huber
Lasse Jagd “Wistern” Lauritsen | Andre “acoimba” Coimbra
Felix “xflixx” Schneiders

TWEET OF THE DAY

“I can’t be upset at all.” Handled with class by your seventh-placed finisher.

Congrats to @Sjlot on winning the WCOOP Women’s World Championship!
And ggs to all the other women who played 💜

We ended up 7th for ~$3k
It wasn’t the ending we had hoped for but I can’t be upset at all 😊

— GJ (@GJReggie) September 20, 2022

COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

The insanity of Tuesday night in WCOOP did not massive affect the countries leader board, where Brazil continues its calm dominance. The UK is still the closest challenger, with “close” being an increasingly poor word to describe it.

Current standings:

49 titles — Brazil
21 — UK
19 — Austria
12 — Norway, Sweden
9 — Germany
8 — Ukraine
7 — Belarus, Canada
6 — Bulgaria, Romania
5 — Finland, Hungary
4 — Kazakhstan, Mexico, Montenegro
3 — Denmark, Lithuania, Poland
2 — Andorra, Argentina, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Malta, Morocco, Peru, Switzerland, Uruguay
1 — Armenia, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Uzbekistan.

PLAYER OF THE SERIES UPDATE

The Player of the Series race for 2022 is turning into a classic. With all of Rui Ferreira, Joao Vieira and Benny Glaser making final tables every day, and Kelvin Kerber still battling, it’s going to go the distance. Here’s how they stand at the moment, but it’s very tight at the top.

OVERALL

1 – Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira, Brazil – 1,645 points
2 – Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser, United Kingdom – 1,630
3 – Kelvin “Kelvin_FP:AR” Kerber, Brazil – 1,400
4 – João “Naza114” Vieira, UK – 1,245
5 – FONBET_RULIT, Montenegro – 1,235

Prize: $25,000 to the winner

HIGH

1 – Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira, Brazil – 925 points
2 – João “Naza114” Vieira, UK – 805
=3 – Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser, United Kingdom – 710
=3 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, UK – 710
5 – Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson, Sweden – 665

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

MEDIUM

1 – FONBET_RULIT, Montenegro – 675 points
2 – TheDrunkLife, Hungary – 490
3 – Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes, Norway – 465
4 – Scarmak3r, Slovenia – 405
5 – Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser, United Kingdom – 395

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

LOW

1 – AwadeuS, Thailand – 510 points
2 – ekvilibryst, Ukraine – 485
3 – Kelvin “Kelvin_FP:AR” Kerber, Brazil – 470
4 – Pomeron, Germany – 460
5 – Airdraken, UK – 445

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

Check out the full WCOOP Leader Board standings.

TODAY’S ACTION

Wednesday, September 21

Giddy-up, HORSE is back on the menu tonight. And how about some 4-Max hold’em, just to mix it up.

12:30pm – WCOOP 74: HORSE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $12.5K, $30K, $60K

1:30pm – WCOOP 75: NLHE PKO
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $150K, $500K, $600K

2:30pm – WCOOP 76: NL 5-Card Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Guarantees: $30K, $75K, $175K

5.30pm – WCOOP 77: NLHE 4-Max Turbo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $60K, $150K, $200K

PREVIOUS REPORTS

Day 1: Mattsson off the mark for WCOOP
Day 2: World Champion Schemion denies Spraggy as Leknes makes it seven
Day 3: Five in a row for Glaser as stars shine again
Day 4: Combes and Nemeth back to winning ways
Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Day 8: Aido masters the 6-Max as marjan1231 wins huge bounty haul
Day 9: Three up for incredible Ferreira
Day 10: Vieira grabs seventh and becomes World Heads-Up Champion
Day 11: Huber wins for Team Pro as Mattsson and Sweeney do the double
Day 12: Vieira victorious again as Lakemeier wins big
Day 13 round-up
Leonard earns first of the series