Top Stories of 2024, #7: GGPoker Breaks World Record With WSOP Online Main
Event
December 25, 2024 Yori Epskamp Senior Content 😊 Manager
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The year 2024 has been a wild 😊 ride with many unexpected things happening along
the way. However, few could’ve predicted the meteoric rise of GGPoker, which rose 😊 from
credible challenger to frontrunner status in the span of mere months.
With the regular
World Series of Poker initially postponed, 😊 and later canned save for the Main Event,
the rising site quickly swooped in to create an unprecedented online series 😊 in
conjunction with the WSOP. The result: a jam-packed 85-bracelet event schedule, with 54
of them played out on GGPoker 😊 throughout the summer.
While this two-month online
extravaganza was bonkers in the aggregate, none captured the big-event feel as much as
😊 the WSOP Online Main Event which came with an astonishing guarantee ofR$25,000,000 for
a buy-in of justR$5,000. It was a 😊 proposition unheard of in the online realm — up until
then, the record holders were partypoker with theirR$21,780,000 prize pool 😊 in the
MILLIONS Online Main Event at the tail end of 2024.
Even with the pandemic forcing
people into their homes 😊 and rediscovering online poker — resulting in a massive boon
not seen since the days before Black Friday — the 😊 premise was outright insane. The
event needed 2,500 runners just to break even, and to raise the difficulty bar further,
😊 only three buy-ins were allowed as opposed to unlimited reentries.
But GGPoker and the
WSOP delivered in a big way. Over 😊 the course of two weeks and 23 starting flights, they
achieved the improbable and smashed the guarantee. When all was 😊 said and done, 5,802
entries were made to create a prize pool ofR$27,559,500, by far the largest-ever in
online poker 😊 history and officially recognized by Guinness World Records.
On Sept. 6,
Stoyan Madanzhiev made history by winning the largest prize awarded 😊 in online poker
history:R$3,904,686. Runner-up Wenling Gao cashed forR$2,748,605 — needless to say, the
second-biggest prize — and the event 😊 crowned four new millionaires. Madanzhiev touched
extensively on it in the PokerNews Podcast and sent out the following tweet shortly
😊 after victory.
Congrats to Stoyan Madanzhiev for winning the WSOP Online Main Event
andR$3,904,685, the largest 1st place prize in… //t.co/aP1b2Pi8EM 😊 — WSOP
(@WSOP)
WSOP Online Event #77:R$5,000 Main Event No Limit Hold'em Final Table
Results
Position Winner Country Prize (in USD) 1 😊 Stoyan Madanzhiev BulgariaR$3,904,686
2 Wenling Gao ChinaR$2,748,605 3 Tyler Rueger United StatesR$1,928,887 4 Thomas Ward
New ZealandR$1,353,634 5 Satoshi Isomae 😊 JapanR$949,937 6 Joao Santos BrazilR$666,637 7
Stefan Schillhabel GermanyR$467,825 8 Tyler Cornell United StatesR$328,305 9 Samuel
Taylor United StatesR$230,395
Check out 😊 full live coverage of the biggest online poker
tournament ever
An Historic WSOP Online
Having online events at the World Series of
😊 Poker isn't new. In 2024, the first one was successfully deployed on WSOP, and ever
since then, the digital schedule 😊 has expanded. From three events in 2024 and four in
2024, a total of nine graced the 2024 schedule and 😊 even more were planned for 2024
until the plug was pulled.
"We felt like the WSOP Online was truly historic. It
😊 deserved to be treated that way."
However, coming up with a full online schedule was
something else. Eventually, the WSOP settled 😊 on 31 events on WSOP for those in Nevada
and New Jersey, and 54 on GG's international client.
"We felt like 😊 the WSOP Online was
truly historic," said Steve Preiss, GGPoker's head of poker operations. "It deserved to
be treated that 😊 way."
Preiss explained that theR$25M number was in their head from the
start.
"There wasn’t a lot of internal debate about setting 😊 a guarantee for the Main
Event or even what that number should be," he told PokerNews. "Yes, our team did 😊 the
analysis, but theR$25M number was a figure we all had in our gut and the analysis
backed that up."
The 😊 final hand of the 2024 WSOP Online Main Event
One might expect
that such a lofty, unprecedented goal would result in 😊 quite a few sleepless nights.
Even with the numbers in their corner, GGPoker could potentially be on the hook for
😊 millions if the WSOP Online would end up being a colossal disaster.
Preiss, though, was
comfortable right off the bat, even 😊 after the initial night came up with several
challenges of its own.
"After we set the guarantee, we felt very comfortable 😊 that the
community would support it and we’d get there. Not that there weren’t moments of doubt
along the way 😊 – that’s natural — but the poker community really got behind the WSOP
Online from Day 1. Ultimately, credit goes 😊 to them. We could not be more grateful for
the support."
The Player's Perspective
One of the players who was on fire 😊 throughout
the WSOP Online — both on WSOP and on GGPoker — was eight-time Circuit ring winner
Michael Lech. For 😊 Lech, it became a summer to remember as he finally captured his first
gold WSOP bracelet during the American portion 😊 back in July to add the coveted prize to
his accolades. "miguelfiesta" then jumped on a plane to travel to 😊 his beloved Mexico to
continue the grind on GGPoker.
After the earlier windfall on WSOP, Lech made a deep run
in 😊 the WSOP Online Main Event to ultimately bow out in 31st place, receivingR$55,880.
Lech looks fondly back at the experience 😊 of being part of history.
Michael Lech won a
bracelet this summer and ran deep in the WSOP Online Main Event
"It 😊 was a very fun
tournament," he said about the big one on GGPoker. "I played it twice and had won 😊 a
satellite entry both times. I was a little too passive on my first go around and just
decided to 😊 go crazy on the second one, and it worked! Day 2 started off hot near the
bubble so was a 😊 very fun position to be in with lots of chips getting to open any two
cards. It definitely had a 😊 different feel than other online tournaments."
That feel
manifested itself in snugger play overall, especially on the Day 1s.
"There were a 😊 lot
of satellite players, I think, and just the magnitude of a WSOP Main Event plus theR$5K
buy-in is a 😊 lot for any player," said Lech, who observed that his earlier bracelet win
had him locked in for this run. 😊 "Moving deeper in the tournament, people opened up
their game for sure but still, was a lot of fun.
"Confidence in 😊 yourself is one of the
biggest components of this game."
Getting Guinness Records Involved
GGPoker Makes
Guinness Records
While theR$25M guarantee might've been 😊 an ambitious idea, the poker
community — including the likes of Lech, who traveled to Mexico for it — showed 😊 up in a
big way and blew past it to eventually create the aforementioned prize pool. GGPoker
decided the achievement 😊 should be commemorated and started the process to get Guinness
involved, providing them the supporting historical numbers and evidence.
"While the
😊 record itself goes to GGPoker, from our perspective it belongs to every player who
supported the Main Event and the 😊 WSOP Online this summer."
"They validated and verified
it and awarded us the record," Preiss said about being inked into the 😊 record books.
"While the record itself goes to GGPoker, from our perspective it belongs to every
player who supported the 😊 Main Event and the WSOP Online this summer."
"Breaking a
Guinness World Records title shows what happens when you combine GGPoker’s 😊 amazing
platform with the World Series of Poker brand,” said WSOP Director Ty Stewart back in
October. "This will be 😊 a tough record to beat."
The achievement was announced by
GGPoker ambassador Daniel Negreanu in below's video.
Which Record Will GGPoker Chase
😊 Next?
Needless to say, it's been a monstrous year for GGPoker which will be heavily
outlined in one of the subsequent 😊 Top Stories of 2024. The WSOP Online wasn't the only
record to be shattered as high-stakes cash action returned to 😊 levels that haven't been
seen since the glory days on Full Tilt Poker with the likes of Tom "durrrr" Dwan,
😊 Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Patrik Antonius.
Wiktor Malinowksi first won the biggest
ever no-limit hold'em cash game pot , which was 😊 subsequently broken by Ali Imsirovic
who banked a nearly million-dollar pot in late August.
Malinowski and Addamo were the
first to 😊 break the NLHE cash game record on GGPoker this year
With records in
tournaments and cash games broken, what's next for 😊 the site?
With vaccines against the
coronavirus slowly but surely being administered to start the return to poker normalcy,
perhaps new 😊 heights will be reached in the live department as well. It's still a
guessing game at this stage, as Preiss 😊 remains tight-lipped about which record-breaking
feats are being cooked up.
"Everyone at GGPoker is all in. People here love
poker."
"While we 😊 certainly can’t tip our hand just yet, it’s safe to assume our
development team is constantly progressing new product features," 😊 he said. "But at the
end of the day, we’re a tech company at heart and we remain focused on 😊 delivering the
best product to the market, and features like our integrated staking showcase this.
It’s a big reason why 😊 GGPoker got to where it did so quickly," Preiss said.
"Everyone
at GGPoker is all in. People here love poker. We 😊 want it to be inclusive to all and
reach new audiences."
Lech is hoping that whatever big event GGPoker is planning 😊 next,
it doesn't evolve into an uncapped reentry-fest but retains limited entries. "If they
run another large event, I am 😊 all for the limited entry or freezeout day 1's to keep
the players with unlimited bankrolls from having the edge 😊 to get stacks earlier on,"
the bracelet winner said.
"I would be happy to travel back to Mexico in the future 😊 to
play more on there."
More Innovations Coming
With GGPoker's innovative software in
constant development, Preiss was willing to share fresh information 😊 about one of the
new innovative features coming up, called GGCare. The upcoming feature rolls out on
Jan. 1 and 😊 will give back to those that have suffered nasty beats at the tables.
GGPoker has high expectations for this new 😊 feature.
"From a more customer-focused
perspective, we will always look to expand the reach of poker and bring more new
players 😊 into the game. With GGCare, our system analyzes the outcomes of hands played at
cash game tables, and if it’s 😊 determined that a player has had some bad luck — such as
suffering a nasty bad beat, suckout or cooler 😊 — they’ll be rewarded awarded with
automatic registration into aR$30,000 tournament running the following day," Preiss
said about the new 😊 feature.
"The unluckier the player is, the more chips they’ll have
in the tournament."
Lech is a fan of the ever-developing software 😊 and is looking
forward to any future innovations. "I really enjoyed the emojis and chatting that went
on GG, it 😊 was unique and created a fun time. The SnapCam also! I started using that
even deep in the Main Event, 😊 it made for a lot of fun."
GGPoker's SnapCam, one of the
innovative features of the site
And while GGPoker has been 😊 setting the bar with
software innovations and the record-breaking tournament as the big eye-catcher, other
sites haven't been sitting on 😊 their hands and are developing their offerings as
well.
If there's one big winner in all of this, it has to 😊 be the poker community. With
records shattered after such a monstrous year for online poker, as well as more and
😊 more options to take their business towards, the future is shining brightly for those
who love the game.
Facts and Figures 😊 of the GGPoker WSOP Online Main Event
Entrants:
5,802
Prize pool:R$27,559,500
Winner: Stoyan Madanzhiev
Top Prize:R$3,904,685
Players
paid: 728
Min Cash:R$11,184
Day 1 Survivors: 1,171
Day 2 Survivors: 😊 38
Tournament
Length: 150 hours, 9 minutes, and 13 seconds
2024 WSOP Online Bracelet Winners on
GGPoker
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Sharelines With a total prize pool ofR$27,559,550, GGPoker smashed the
Guinness World Record for the largest 😊 online poker tournament ever held.
