The 2020 World Series of Poker main event has come and gone. We had a surprising winner of the online-only event (hopefully next year we can get back to normal, in-person) and that’s where we’ll start our weekly recap of the poker news.
Madanzhiev Wins 2020 WSOP Online Main Event
Stoyan Madanzhiev has won the big one. Not only was it the big one in the 2020 World Series of Poker but it was the biggest one (win) of his career. Madanzhiev was able to overcome a field of 5,802 total entries in order to claim the top prize of $3,904,686 and his first WSOP gold bracelet. The 2020 WSOP Online $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event had the largest tournament prize pool ever in online poker history, as the event had ballooned to $27,559,500. That was way over the events $25,000,000 guarantee.
For Madanzhiev, this was by far his largest recorded score in his entire career. His largest victory prior to this event had been a 14th place finish in the 2019 Merit Poker Western Tournament $2,200 buy-in event and had won $10,800. After his most recent victory, he now has millions in total earnings.
Other notable finishers for the main event were bracelet winners Arkadiy Tsinis and Michael Lech, who finished in 37th and 31st respectively. Tsinis was able to bring home $39,214 and Lech won $55,880. But that was nowhere near what some of the top finishers were able to make. In second place was Wenling Gao, who was able to finish with the second-best prize in the event, bringing home a whopping $2,748,605.
Molinelli Wins 2020 WSOP Online $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty Six-Max Event
Italian native Nicolo Molinelli has emerged as yet another victor during the 2020 World Series of Poker Online. He was able to defeat a total field of 1,925 entries in order to win his first gold bracelet and the top prize of $144,199. While the six-figure prize was a good start, he was actually able to inflate his total poker earnings from the event to $242,415 by collecting bounties along the way.
The top 278 finishers in the event were able to make money, each of them earning at least $1,184. The prize pool had also grown to $1,925,000 for the event.
This event was by far the largest recorded win for Molinelli, as his previous largest score was for $10,791 in the €330 no-limit hold’em Turbo €50k during the 2017 PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo. He had won first place in that event as well.
Dobrin Wins WSOP Online $600 Six-Max No-Limit Hold’em Event
We had another first-time winner at the 2020 WSOP. Jeffrey Dobrin was able to obtain his first gold bracelet after winning the $600 buy-in six-max no-limit hold’em event. He was able to overcome a total of 2,408 entries in order to claim his top spot in the event. Along with his new hardware, he won the top prize in the event which ended up being $189,666.
This win was Dobrin’s largest record score of his poker career, passing his previous record of $160,496. He earned that score by finishing in fourth place in the $777 buy-in no-limit hold’em event during the 2015 WSOP. He has also been able to win a WSOP Circuit ring, winning the $365 buy-in event back in 2016.
Some other key finishers in this event were Idris Ambraisse, who came in second place In the event and won $144,998. Then rounding out the top three was Vahe Martirosyan who finished in third place and won $104,255.