WPT Online Championships sees 1,011 play $10,000 main event after day 1b

The 8th event of the World Poker Tour World Online Championships saw 490 entries last week on Day 1a, which ended with Dominik Panka, Shaun Deeb and Upeshka De Silva all taking through top 10 stacks as Slovenian player Blaž Žerjav held the chip lead.

Last night, 521 more entries – including re-entries – saw the total field swell to 1,011 entries and surpass the generous $10 million guarantee for the $10,000-entry Main Event Championship.

Top of the shop after around 11 hours of play was the German player Benjamin Rolle, who ended play with 3.6 million chips. With the top prize of $1.7 million now announced by the WPT and another $1.2 million for the runner-up, there’s a lot on the line, and play was of a high standard throughout Day 1b.

Day 1b saw many great names making Day 2, but one former Mike Sexton Champions Cup winner, Matas Cimbolas – although the Lithuanian won the trophy before it was gloriously renamed in the late, great Sexton’s honour – was not one of them. He was all-in late on in a three-way shove-fest with pocket aces, but was outdrawn by the ace-king of diamonds of Benjamin Rolle, who went runner-runner for a flush on the river that sent both Cimbolas and Pascal Hartmann packing.

Despite play moving to Day 2, not everyone who kicks off play tonight at 7pm GMT will be paid, with 20 of the 156 players going to be gutted with just missing out on profit, with a min-cash worth a very healthy $23,253. With 12 levels, each lasting 30 minutes, it will take six hours of play to find our Day 3 and final day chip leader, with Felix Bleiker (2,853,043), Dominik Panka (,834,144), Shaun Deeb (2,744,492), Dan Smith (2,735,368) and recently-crowned double-WCOOP winner Niklas Åstedt (2,522,280) all hoping their current position in the top 20 chipcounts means a deep run rather than a fall from grace before the bubble bursts.

Here are how the Day 1b players fared at the top of the overnight leaderboard, with Daniel Szymanski from Poland and Victor Simionato from Brazil each catching a podium finish.

WPT World Online Championships Day 1b Top 10 Chipcounts: