Pedro "pvigar" Garagnani Leads the Final 9 in the WCOOP-04-H: $5,200 NLHE High Roller
The 2021 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) kicked off with a bang at PokerStars with the first seven events comprising of 21 total tournaments. The WCOOP-04-H: $5,200 NLHE High Roller featured the biggest buy-in of the day and lived up to its billing with 200 entries, including 63 re-entries, just meeting the $1 million guaranteed prize pool with many huge names battling it out for WCOOP glory.
The action was down to nine players to end the day after nearly 8 1/2 hours of play with Brazil's Pedro "pvigar" Garagnani advancing to the final table with a chip-leading stack of 10,329,673. Garagnani is going for his second WCOOP title after previously shipping the WCOOP-76-L NLHE 6-Max PKO Turbo in 2017 for $45,980.
Garagnani was near the top of the chip counts most of the day and solidified his spot as the table captain to start the final day after his jacks held against the tens held by Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo to eliminate his formidable opponent in 11th place for $20,554.
Meanwhile, Diego "Die Ventura" Ventura, Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph, Michel "FreeLancerZZ" Dattani, and Dinesh "NastyMinder" Alt all advanced to the final table with above average stacks with Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden, Sam "Str8$$$Homey" Greenwood, Pascal "Päffchen" Hartmann, and David "dpeters17" Peters, all advancing with shorter stacks.
2021 WCOOP-04-H: $5,200 NLHE High Roller Final Table Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pedro "pvigar" Garagnani | 10,329,673 | 86 | |
| 2 | Diego "Die Ventura" Ventura | 7,896,514 | 66 | |
| 3 | Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph | 7,357,216 | 61 | |
| 4 | Michel "FreeLancerZZ" Dattani | 6,394,828 | 53 | |
| 5 | Dinesh "NastyMinder" Alt | 5,959,377 | 50 | |
| 6 | Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden | 3,737,401 | 31 | |
| 7 | Sam "Str8$$$Homey" Greenwood | 3,707,552 | 31 | |
| 8 | Pascal "Päffchen" Hartmann | 2,397,479 | 20 | |
| 9 | David "dpeters17" Peters | 2,219,960 | 18 | |
| Total | 50,000,000 | 417 | ||
| Average | 5,555,556 | 46 |
Day 1 Recap
The High Roller paid out 23 players at least a min-cash of $12,457 after Jon "apestyles" Van Fleet bubbled the event in 24th place in a brutal fashion when his kings didn't hold against Vousden's big slick.
Three of the four PokerStars Ambassadors to get into the action also hit the rail before the money including Benjamin "bencb789" Rolle, Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, and Sam "SamSquid" Grafton. Other notables out before the money included Sergi "srxakgirona" Reixach, Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress, Patrick "pads1161" Leonard, Simon "C. Darwin2" Mattsson, Damian "pampa27" Salas, and Tomi "elmerixx" Brouk.
Parker "tonkaaaa" Talbot faired better than the rest of Team PokerStars as he managed to finish in the money in 14th place for $16,001. Other notables to cash but were eliminated before the end of the day included Adrian "Amadi_017" Mateos, Georgi "milennial" Sandev, Matas "bebaimis777" Cimbolas, Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi, Bert "girafganger7" Stevens, and Dzmitry "Colisea" Urbanovich.
The opening day ended after Dinesh Alt eliminating Fabiano "Kovalski1" Kovalski in 10th place after his ten-six suited and got there against his opponent's ace-eight.
Final Table Payouts
The nine returning players are each slated to receive at least a $20,554 payout with the winner set to add $195,690 to their PokerStars balance.
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $195,690 |
| 2 | $152,344 |
| 3 | $118,600 |
| 4 | $92,330 |
| 5 | $71,879 |
| 6 | $55,958 |
| 7 | $43,563 |
| 8 | $33,914 |
| 9 | $26,402 |
Final Table Schedule
The final table will kick off on Monday, Aug. 23 at 5:05 p.m. GMT. PokerStars will be streaming the final table with hole cards exposed on a 30-minute delay. PokerNews will report on the same delay as to not reveal any spoilers.
The blinds will resume with the remainder of Level 24 (60,000/120,000/15,000a) and increase every 20 minutes until a winner is crowned.
Stay tuned at PokerNews to see who will win the WCOOP-04-H: $5,200 NLHE High Roller at PokerStars.