Vijayaratnam Leads 75 Day 1c Players in the 2020 GGPoker $10,000 WSOP Main Event
The third and final starting day of the international 2020 GGPoker $10,000 World Series Of Poker Main Event ended up being the biggest of the three with 257 players taking a shot at making Day 2 to grab their share of the $6,470,400 prize pool which had been created. Day 1a had 246 entries while Day 1b saw 171 players rock up to play for a seat into Day 2. On Monday, December 7, the 64 survivors of Day 1a and 42 remaining players of Day 1b will return together with the 75 who were still seated at the tables at the end of the day.
Claiming the Day 1c chip lead is Senthuran "Prodigal Sen" Vijayaratnam from Canada with 966,714 in chips with a big chunk of those earned when he eliminated Samuel Vousden with queens versus sevens in the four-bet shoved pot. The UK's Jesse "sabor_de_mar" Wigan claims second place in the counts with 642,276 which also earns him a spot in second place when Day 2 starts as he has slightly more chips than Blaz Zerjav who took the Day 1b chip lead. Closing out the podium is Viacheslav Buldygin with 480,671 which still earns him a top ten spot for Day 2.
Other familiar names to return for the Main Event include players like Gediminas "NeverGambol" Uselis (433,859), Daniel Smiljkovic (405,085), Christopher Puetz (394,051), Carter Swidler (324,651), Jonas Lauck (299,372), and Damian Salas (266,036).
The Top 10 Counts of Day 1c at a Glance
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds Day 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senthuran "Prodigal Sen" Vijayaratnam | Canada | 966,714 | 193 |
| 2 | Jesse "sabor_de_mar" Wigan | United Kingdom | 642,276 | 128 |
| 3 | Viacheslav Buldygin | Russia | 480,671 | 96 |
| 4 | Ruben "Sjokomelk" Gravlien | Norway | 459,031 | 92 |
| 5 | Gediminas "NeverGambol" Uselis | Lithuania | 433,859 | 87 |
| 6 | Daniel Smiljkovic | Austria | 405,085 | 81 |
| 7 | Fazel "waterproo" Dawood | South Africa | 404,092 | 81 |
| 8 | Robin "HWXR_1" Hegele | Germany | 398,192 | 80 |
| 9 | Christopher Puetz | Austria | 394,051 | 79 |
| 10 | Oleg "WhiteBaron" Ustinovich | Russia | 377,123 | 75 |
But with 75 players making it through, don't count out names like Hannes "BlackFortuna" Speiser, Daniel "BaccaratKing" Neilson, Vladas "Vladiator13" Tamasauskas, Christopher "Mangudai" Frank, Sung Joo "ArtePokerTV" Hyun, Alexandru Papazian, Alexandros Kolonias, Stoyan "UncleToni" Obreshkov, Ludovic "Gr4vyB04t" Geilich, or Josip "MagicKing" Simunic for example.
The Action of the Day
Many big names registered before the start of the day and the entries kept coming in throughout the first six hours of the day, by the time the first break rolled around, 155 players were registered with no one busting just yet. "ALOHADANCETV" was the first player to bust with many more following them.
Some of the more notable ones included Stoyan Madanzhiev who won the previous 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online Main Event for $3,904,686. He first lost a chunk to Markus "ober_tilter" Lechleitner and then gave the rest to Vitaliy "Durdy" Pankov. Wenling "HappyDX" Gao finished in second place a few months ago for $2,748,605 and was back in the running today too but fell during the tenth level of the night.
Stefan Schillhabel, Michael "H3R0" Acevedo, Dietrich Fast, Gianluca Speranza, Patrick "Egption" Tardif, Enrico "GTOExploiter" Camosci, Hun Wei Lee, Michael "YesPlease" Clacher, Mike Leah, Timothy Adams, Thomas Cazayous, David Peters, Martin Jacobson, Davidi Kitai, and Melika "Melirazavii" Razavi are some of the competitors who fell at one of the many hurdles Day 1c brought them.
Jack "Claashole" Sinclair won the WSOPE Main Event back in 2018 in King's Resort but wouldn't be able to add another WSOP Main Event win as he ran his ace-king into the aces of Ruben "Sjokomelk" Gravlien. Dario Sammartino fell to the hands of Johan "YoHViraL" Guilbert. Kitty Kuo was kicked out by Sang Yeon "alltimehigh" Hwang while Pete Chen was taken out by Hrair "sharkbait777" Yapoudjian.
Mikita Badziakouski busted to Dan "oiltrader" Shak who failed to keep hold of those chips shortly after. Michiel "Easterdamnz" Van Elsacker also fell victim to Smiljkovic when his open-ended straight draw didn't get there against the aces of the latter. Canada's Collin "generic" Capone won his seat for the Main Event in the PokerNews Bluff Competition but ran his kings into the ace-king of Gravlien who flopped the higher pair. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was the last player to bust when he first doubled up "sssssAK" and then lost the remainder to Hannes "BlackFortuna" Speiser.
Plan for Day 2
Play will resume with 179 players at the virtual tables at 6 p.m. GMT with 80 players making the money. A min-cash is worth $15,277 while making the final table will earn those nine players at least $75,360. The eventual winner on the 15th of December will walk away with $1,550,969. The first level of the day will be featuring a small blind of 2,500, a big blinds of 5,000, and a running ante of 500. Level duration will remain at 30 minutes throughout the day and play will continue until the final table has been reached.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be there from the first open seat until the final table bubble has burst so stick around for all the live updates right here.