The late registration for the flagship event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2020 remained open until five minutes prior to the restart and an additional 280 entries boosted the field of WCOOP-72-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, Main Event] significantly.
This may have narrowly missed covering the $10,000,000 guarantee but the 1,436 unique players and 541 re-entries created a field of 1,977 entries.
Day 2 of the pinnacle tournament of the festival was slated to play down to the final nine tables and 71 contenders survived the minefields of the post-bubble carnage to have a shot at the top prize of $1,499,942.
Best-positioned to reach the nine-handed final table the following day is Russia's "rzr1st" who reigns atop the leaderboard with a massive stack of 29,925,402. There is already a gap to the next trio which is within two blinds including "jokkee_apart" (19,635,359), Denys "SantaZzz" Chufarin (19,539,620), and Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder (19,478,439).
Further notables in the overnight top ten include Renan "Internett93o" Bruschi (15,060,503), and "Spotzilla666" (15,006,741) whereas well-known poker pros such as Robin "robinho" Ylitalo (10,230,679), Viktor "papan9_p$" Ustimov (9,355,572), Sergio "zcedrick" Aido (9,128,302), and Simon "C. Darwin2" Mattsson (8,863,571) follow in close proximity.
The Top 10 in Chips After Day 2 in WCOOP-72-H: $5,200 NLHE [8-Max, Main Event]
Position
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
rzr1st
Russia
29,925,402
214
2
jokkee_apart
Norway
19,635,359
140
3
Denys "SantaZzz" Chufarin
Ukraine
19,539,620
140
4
Teun "tinnoemulder" Mulder
Netherlands
19,478,439
139
5
Renan "Internett93o" Bruschi
Brazil
15,060,503
108
6
Spotzilla666
Poland
15,006,741
107
7
The_Poker_G33k
Romania
13,950,225
100
8
juswhackit
Ecuador
11,049,626
79
9
Andre_Hansen
Ukraine
11,046,692
79
10
robinsex
Bolovia
10,428,375
74
The Action of the Day
With such a big influx of new entries all starting their journey on 22 big blinds in the first level of the day, the eliminations in the first few hours came at a frantic pace and the field was whittled down by the dozens every other minute.
Among those to depart without anything to show for in the early stages of the day were such big names as Chris "Moorman1" Moorman, Jans "Graftekkel" Arends, Joep "Pappe_Ruk" van den Bijgaart, Damian "pampa27" Salas and Artur "mararthur1" Martirosian.
Fedor "CrowmUpGuy" Holz was the first former WCOOP-H champion to bow out, quickly followed by PokerStars ambassador Ramon "RamonColillas" Colillas. The defending champion Fraser "BigBlindBets" Russell never got much going and departed in the third level of the day and there was no repeat victory for Ezequiel "eze88888" Waigel and Steven "SvZff" van Zadelhoff either.
For the PokerStars ambassadors Ben "Spraggy" Spragg and Fintan "easywithaces" Hand, the re-entry before the start of the day would also seem them hit the rail well before the money bubble. Spragg saw his suited aces dominated by "kimokh" and Hand came up second-best with tens versus jacks.
As the field raced towards the money bubble, it was not one of several short stacks who came up short of the min-cash. Instead, "JiGGz22" saw their aces cracked and that opened the floodgates for a rush of eliminations.
Min Cash for Team Online's Felix \"xflixx\" Schneiders
PokerStars Team Online's Felix "xflixx" Schneiders was the second player to collect the min-cash of $11,828 and in the blink of an eye, the first pay jump was already reached. Benny "RunGodlike" Glaser fell outside of the top 200 while Conor "1_conor_b_1" Beresford, Alex "dynoalot" Difelice, Manig "swordfish007" Loeser, Dimitar "KuuL" Danchev, Timothy "Tim0thee" Adams, and Jorryt "TheCleaner11" van Hoof all made the first pay jump.
Michael "Skämmes" Tureniec lost a flip to join the rail and Simon "ministerborg" Ravnsbaek ran with kings into aces. Just shy of the top 100 spots were Noah "Exclusive" Boeken, Manuel "fellatiado" Ruivo, Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias and Dietrich "2pacnrw16" Fast while Claas "ssicK_OnE" Segebrecht hit that bareer on the nose when he busted to flopped quads.
Russia's "rzr1st" emerged as the chip leader when they flopped a full house and Japan's "U_Key_U" bluffed with an ace. Further big names such as Mark "AceSpades11" Radoja, Ludovic "ludovi333" Geilich, Michiel "utreg" Brummelhuis, and Parker "tonkaaaa" Talbot all hit the rail in the final stages and the day concluded shortly after Fabiano "Kovalski1" Kovalski, "xnrobix" and Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza became the last casualties of an action-packed day.
Gianluca Speranza was the last casualty on Day 2
All remaining 71 survivors have $27,139 locked up for their efforts but they hope for a lot more. Day 3 will continue at 1.05 p.m. EST the following day with most of level 31 at blinds 70,000/140,000 and a running ante of 17,500 to be played. Stay tuned to find out then who makes the final table as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back to provide all the action.
