"biezpienelis" Leads Final 16 in 2021 WCOOP-63-M: $1,050 NLHE PKO; Reixach and van Hoof in Contention
After five and a half action-packed hours in the latest PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker 2021 medium-stakes contest, only 16 players remain in contention to win the title in WCOOP-63-M: $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO]. They have all locked up a portion of the bounty and cash prizes but the lion's share of the $1,930,000 prize pool is still up for grabs.
Latvian player "biezpienelis" leads the sixteen survivors by some margin after they claimed $14,289 in bounties and 170 big blinds to their name on the penultimate tournament day. Another five players have more than 100 big blinds at their disposal including Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev, Guilherme "Guiz?oo_" Carmo, "baaaaddyyyy", Day 1 chip leader Sergi "srxakgirona" Reixach, and Eduardo "Eduardo850" Silva.
Russia and Brazil dominate the overnight leaderboard with five and trey contenders still in the mix. The perhaps two biggest names are Reixach and former WSOP Main Event finalist Jorryt "TheCleaner11" van Hoof, the latter of which sits in the middle of the pack with 47 big blinds. Van Hoof certainly confirmed his alias choice on the global PokerStars platform after he cleaned up the tables on Day 2 and scored numerous knockouts before dropping to a shorter stack in the late stages.
The 16 Finalists in 2021 WCOOP-63-M: $1,050 NLHE PKO
| Position | Player | Country | Bounty | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | biezpienelis | Latvia | $14,289 | 27,220,718 | 170 |
| 2 | Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev | Russia | $8,586 | 20,618,075 | 129 |
| 3 | Guilherme "Guiz?oo_" Carmo | Brazil | $14,289 | 20,026,723 | 125 |
| 4 | baaaaddyyyy | Russia | $6,977 | 19,730,316 | 123 |
| 5 | Sergi "srxakgirona" Reixach | Spain | $15,283 | 19,685,683 | 123 |
| 6 | Eduardo "Eduardo850" Silva | Brazil | $15,154 | 16,674,282 | 104 |
| 7 | Rodrigo "SELOUAN1991" Selouan | Brazil | $3,406 | 10,187,882 | 64 |
| 8 | Play4livin | Peru | $8,008 | 8,153,494 | 51 |
| 9 | Timothy "TruthBeTold7" Rutherford | Canada | $4,750 | 7,615,171 | 48 |
| 10 | ArtHouse2011 | Ireland | $3,891 | 7,605,654 | 48 |
| 11 | Jorryt "TheCleaner11" van Hoof | Netherlands | $11,758 | 7,508,976 | 47 |
| 12 | Luckbox1326 | Romania | $8,469 | 7,224,109 | 45 |
| 13 | Pendall | Russia | $7,438 | 6,220,428 | 39 |
| 14 | soulmekki | Morocco | $10,336 | 5,490,499 | 34 |
| 15 | Glebers25 | Russia | $2,000 | 4,894,430 | 31 |
| 16 | YacuTTi | Russia | $1,563 | 4,143,560 | 26 |
Only 118 players out of the 1,930 total entries returned to their seats and they were already in the money. With juicy bounty prizes potentially up for grabs in every hand, it didn't take long for the field to shrink. Especially during the early stages on Day 2, the all-in showdowns came in rapid fashion and some of those that returned and departed were Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver, Mike "gorodski" Gorodinsky, Andrey "Kot_Spartac" Kotelnikov, and Dmitry "yurasov1990" Yurasov.
The hopes of Faraz "The-Toilet 0" Jaka for an even deeper run ended when his queens were cracked by the ace-jack of "badplayjosh". Soon after it was all over for other legends of the online poker scene such as Jon "apestyles" Van Fleet, Bert "girafganger7" Stevens, and Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias.
Sergi "srxakgirona" Reixach remained near the top of the leaderboard for most of the day and claimed the bounty of Andriy "Andre_Hansen" Lyubovetskiy, among others, when he turned a straight with ten-nine to crack pocket aces. The Spanish High Roller regular also dashed out some double-ups in the late stages but made it through to the final day with the most bounties collected thus far.
Towards the end of the day, notables such as Gleb "Ti0373" Tremzin, Marton "noirduck" Czuczor, Rodrigo "Seijistar" Seiji, and
Matas "bebaimis777" Cimbolas came up short of the final two tables. Cimbolas was the second-last player to depart when he ran with kings into the aces of Eduardo "Eduardo850" Silva. Soon after, the action concluded for the night with the UK's "michael10120" as the last casualty.
The final day will recommence on Tuesday, September 7, at 1.05 pm EST and the blinds will continue at 80,000-160,000 with a running ante of 20,000. All levels will last 30 minutes each and the PokerNews team will be back then to provide all the key hands from start to finish.