The $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold ’em championship at the 2021 World Series Online Poker drew 821 total entrants, resulting in a prize pool of $738,900. However, it took 11 hours to reduce the field to find a champion, but Drew’ dudeguydrew’ O’Connell was the one who won the first WSOP gold bracelet and the $146,893 first prize.
It was an eight-win for O’Connell in the series. Just two days before winning this tournament, he finished sixth in the $600 six-max championship event. It was his biggest tournament win, surpassing his previous best of $39,044 from a runner-up result in a $1,000 buy-in online WSOP Circuit event earlier this year. The event saw some big names attending, including recent bracelet winner (126th – $1,478) Martin’ bathroom line Zamani, Yueqi’ anoob’ Zhu- the bracelet winner (92nd – $1,552), Jeff’ mavsusc’ Platt (82nd – $1,626), Ryan’ adopt adogg0′ Leng who won bracelet two times (81st – $1,773), and Ryan’ joeyisamush’ DePaulo bracelet winner (43rd – $2,882).
With Felix’ madenspauwke’ Vandeput leading ahead at chip lead and O’Connell on fewer than eight large blinds, the final table kicked off. He climbed into the center of the pack after a couple of early double-ups through Vandeput.The very first player eliminated was Millard’ meekmill’ Hale (9th – $10,197), with A-K losing to Kyle’ Kpcp22′ Phillips’ A-Q. Phillips (8th – $13,300) followed Hale after running his pocket nines Jason’ jayriv’ Rivkin’s pocket jacks despite getting the knockout position.
Alex’ OrcinusOrca’ Foxen, a regular winner in the World Poker Tour and regular at the high-stakes tournament, knocked out when queens won against full of kings beat Kfir ‘Nahumus’ Nahum’s trip queens (5th – $32,512). Foxen, after defeating Nahum, counted in the risk of 974. For the top pair, top kicker, Foxen had A9. But was against O’Connell’s 97 and looked for professional assistance. The two and 4finished the board, and Foxen faced defeat in the fourth place ($45,147).
As O’Connell was on the top, the heads-up game started. Rivkin took the lead for a short period but lost a critical pot by six pairs against O’Connell’s trip jacks, dropping below ten large blinds.Vandeput started the final table with the giant chip stack and made it to the last three. As the action of short-hand kept going, Vandeput slid to the bottom of the chip counts and faced elimination while staying in the third place when his A2 couldn’t outrun Rivkin’s A10. Available chips went on the hands of the following players, with O’Connell’s AQ crushing Rivkin’s A3. Rivkin was sent to the virtual rail with $90,811 for his runner-up performance when the board played out 98262.
