It took fewer than six and a half hours in WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] to whittle down the 351 Day 1 survivors to the final 16 contenders. Players from six different countries remain in contention to claim the title in the latest medium stake event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2020.
The lion's share of the $1,928,000 prize pool is still up for grabs, be it via the cash prize pool or the progressive knockout bounty prizes, and a familiar face of the international poker circuit sits atop the leaderboard. German poker pro and Malta resident Philipp "philbort" Gruissem dominated the late stages to claim a stack of 71,339,002 to his name, which is well ahead of "MrNorberto" (42,270,866) and "Stiffler8818" (39,387,672).
Two players from Russia follow in Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev (31,603,119) and Maksym "MAMOHT_T" Mamonov (29,613,436). The 2019 WCOOP PLO event winner "xnrobix" is also in the mix with 21,898,439 and two pros from Lithuania made it through in Tomas "dartazzzz" Jozonis (13,002,673) and Matas "NoTilit" Cikinas (9,407,358).
Seven of the eight remaining contenders are hailing from Brazil and the squad is headlined by Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira
(21,882,216), Vinicius "viniperri" Perri (13,809,366) and Pedro "gusmaa" Gusma (7,601,954).
The Final 16 Players in WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam]
Position
Player
Country
Bounty Prize
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Philipp "philbort" Gruissem
Germany
$14,441
71,339,002
178
2
MrNorberto
Hungary
$4,226
42,270,866
106
3
Stiffler8818
Germany
$9,853
39,387,672
98
4
Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev
Russia
$9,541
31,603,119
79
5
Maksym "MAMOHT_T" Mamonov
Russia
$5,563
29,613,436
74
6
xnrobix
Hungary
$4,234
21,898,439
55
7
Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira
Brazil
$7,457
21,882,216
55
8
Marlon "sphinmx" Wilhelms
Brazil
$4,520
21,163,507
53
9
Luis "Lui$starPRO$" Rocha
Brazil
$1,344
19,653,972
49
10
bruna_bsb
Brazil
$4,961
14,533,634
36
11
Tauan "kylix42" Naves
Brazil
$1,563
14,227,016
36
12
X-Factor777
Canada
$5,316
14,205,770
36
13
Vinicius "viniperri" Perri
Brazil
$6,684
13,809,366
35
14
Tomas "dartazzzz" Jozonis
Lithuania
$5,306
13,002,673
33
15
Matas "NoTilit" Cikinas
Lithuania
$3,711
9,407,358
24
16
Pedro "gusmaa" Gusma
Brazil
$4,898
7,601,954
19
The last player to leave without any bounty prize was Uruguay's Martin "Sochobi" Piven in 84th place as all further contestants had knocked out at least one opponent. Gruissem's bounty prize thus far with $14,441,23 is the biggest as "jokkee_apart" fell to the German on the final three tables after he had accumulated $13,165.77 in bounties by then.
The Action of the Day
Right from the start, the eliminations came at an incredibly fast pace as the hopes of an even deeper run for all those that made it through the previous day fell apart in a matter of minutes. It wouldn't take long for the field to be halved and among those to bust early on were several big stacks at kickoff.
That included Fabian "fabstinho" Quoss who failed to crack aces when he flopped a flushdraw and turned kings up with king-seven suited. Plenty of times it was also the standard cooler with kings versus aces, among others Ivan "ILS007" Stokes and "Kakalala" suffered that fate mid-way through the day. Denis "NEWFlat" Timofeev saw his stack evaporate when he ran with a set of sevens into a set of jacks, and he hit the rail a few hands later.
Tomas "dartazzzz" Jozonis prevailed in a three-way all-in to become one of the big stacks and Maksym "MAMOHT_T" Mamonov joined him there when Rens "Rens02" Feenstra ran with ace-queen into the Queens of the Russian. By then, Gruissem had consistently built his stack after a slow start and took over the lead when his kings sent Luan "Pseudo Fruto" Felipe with queens to the rail.
Gruissem never really surrendered the top spot anymore after that while several other contenders experienced a roller coaster of emotions and stack sizes. Diego "El Pulgoso" Ostrovich put his hopes on a flushdraw with queen-ten suited but failed to crack pocket queens for an overpair. Job "DeadNylan" Greben was also among the notable late casualties after his aces were cracked by jacks.
On the final three tables, Gruissem then won several big pots and the biggest bounty of the tournament so far to cement his status as the chip leader. Whether or not the German will be able to close it out remains to be seen and the PokerNews team will be there to provide all the action until a winner has been crowned.
The final day of WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] will continue with the remainder of level 38 at blinds of 200,000/400,000 and a running ante of 50,000. All levels for the final day will last 22 minutes each and the tournament will play down to a champion as of 1.05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Tuesday, September 15th, 2020. You can also check out all the other PokerStars WCOOP 2020highlights, results and live updates right here!