The culmination of the GGPoker WSOP Online International Series was an entertaining affair and which ultimately saw Swedish online tournament ace Simon Mattsson emerge victorious, earning himself his first WSOP Online bracelet, as well as a top prize of $2,793,574.
It was a fitting way to end the series as 4,984 entries were tallied, each paying a $5,000 buy in, which helped swell the prize pool to a very appealing $23,674,000.
Unsurprisingly, it was the biggest prize pool of the series and at the end of it, the player whose poker name is C. Darwin2 emerged as the victor, swelling his total online career earnings under his real name and the C. Darwin2 nickname to over $34.4 million.
According to the PocketFives poker site, that makes him the highest earning online player in the world at present.
The top 500 finishers in the tournament earned a place in the money and amongst those earning cash were a number of familiar names from the online poker scene.
Amongst those famous faces to finish with some cash to bank included:
Nine players made it through to the Final Table, which you can watch in full in the YouTube video below.
The nine players competing were:
Mattsson started the final table with the chip lead just ahead of Finnish star Samuel Vousden, both of whom had over 50 million in chips, comfortably ahead of many other players sat at the table.
It was perhaps not surprising that the two with the biggest stacks at the start of the action at the Final Table would be amongst the final four at the table aiming for the top prize, but there was plenty of intriguing action before that transpired.
Around 45 minutes of play had progressed with no eliminations before Rutherford, who was short-stacked from the off, hit A-Q suited but ran into Feng Zhao’s pocket kings.
The flop saw Rutherford pick up a chance of a flush draw to win the hand, but he couldn’t improve on that to finish the tournament in ninth.
Oliver Sprason of the UK then went out next as his A-K lost to Kannapong Thanarattrakul’s pocket tens.
On the very next hand, the field was reduced to six as Thanarattrakul struck again, this time the Thai player shoved with A-9 from the small blind position, and Jordan Spurlin called him with A-7.
Thanarattrakul’s luck held as he flopped a nine and that proved to be enough to eliminate Spurlin in seventh place.
Six remained at the table but the luck didn’t hold for Yanfei Chei when his pocket queens went head to head against Zhao’s pocket jacks. Leading pre-flop he would have been disappointed to see Zhao flop a jack and despite picking up a gutshout out on the turn, the river blanked him and he exited the competition in sixth.
A short time later Istvan Briski was severely short stacked and went all in with K-8 suited, but he ran into Zhao’s pocket aces and after the flop, Briski was drawing dead and he finished in fifth, the final player not to receive a $1m+ payout.
That left us with Zhao, Vousden, Thanarattrakul and Mattsson.
Next out was Sam Vousden, who threebet shoved from the big blind position holding pocket sixes., Mattsson folded, but Thanarattrakul, holding A-J suited with spades, called.
The Thai player then hit the nuts flush on the flop and with noting on the turn, Vousden was drawing dead on the river to finish fourth.
Nextr out was Zhao, who saw his K8 unsuited run into Mattsson’s Q9 and with the flop, turn and river revealing Q,J,9,K,Q, it was Mattsson’s full house that held good for the win eliminating Zhao in third.
With both players now assured of a $2m plus finish, Mattsson began heads up roughly 3/2 ahead of Thanarattrakul in chip count and in the early exchanges, he managed to use his chip strength well to extend that lead to around 3/1 before the final hand of the tournament.
Mattsson held 56 suited and limped in, with his opponent raising with J10 also suited.
With capital behind him, Mattsson called and the flop showed 10,7,4. Thanarattrakul then bet holding top pair, but Mattsson had picked up an open-ended straight draw, which meant that when Thanarattrakul’s modest open bet came in, Mattsson called.
The turn saw the 3 landed to hand Mattsson his 7-high straight and after Thanarattrakul bet 12,600,000, there was an inevitable sense that his race was run.
Mattsson called and when the river showed a 7 and Thanattrakul moved all in with two-pair, Mattsson quickly called to claim the victory.
The Swede earned just shy of $2.8m for his win, with the Thai runner up pocketing just under $2.1m.
While the trio of WSOP Online Series events for players in certain states in the United States still continue, Matsson’s main event win brought down the curtain on a hugely successful 2022 WSOP Online event for international players.
A total of 33 bracelets were won, with 131,200 entries and over $86.1 million paid out through the tournaments.
And with GGPoker’s Mini MILLION$ tournament series on the horizon in October, there should be plenty of other opportunities to enjoy some big money online poker once again from the 2nd October.
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