A series of preflop raises saw Daniel "bunzer07" Jordan four-bet jam for 14,758 from early position and Kevin "Xpugn0" Eyster called from the big blind.
Kevin "Xpugn0" Eyster:
Daniel "bunzer07" Jordan:
Jordan woke up with kings at the right time and the runout secured his double up.
Krista "Pollux" Gifford raised to 800 from late position and then called the 2,300 three-bet Darren "darrenelias" Elias put out from the hijack.
The flop saw Gifford check-raise to 5,990 after Elias continued for 2,850 and Elias called. The paired the board on the turn and both players checked bringing the turn.
Gifford led out for 3,990 and then snap-called the 7,480 all in raise from Elias.
Elias held for two-pair but it was no good as Gifford showed to win the pot with trip tens.
One player who has been doing quite well on playing online in recent years is bracelet winner Daniel "centrfieldr" Lupo, 37, of West Milford, New Jersey. You might recall in 2019, Lupo topped a 1,767-entry field to win the WSOP.com Online $500 NLH Turbo Deepstack for $145,274 and a gold bracelet. Last year, he added a ring to his résumé by taking down the WSOP.com Online Circuit Event #3: $320 NLH 6-Max for $32,595 and a month later won the WSOP.com $100,000 GTD Sunday for $50,715.
PokerNews caught up with Lupo, who went to NJIT for Architecture and baseball, to ask him about poker, which he squeezes in between working for an Architecture firm in Bridgewater specializing in single-family residential and smaller commercial projects and his family, which includes three kids ages 2-5 and his supportive wife Laura.
PokerNews: When and how did you learn to play poker?
Lupo: I started playing/learning in college during the Rounders and Moneymaker boom with a bunch of the baseball guys. Within a year I found myself hosting games at college, at home on breaks and basically anywhere I could find or make a game. I didn’t play much online early on, regrettably.
What sort of poker do you play these days?
Mostly online MTTs playing like three sessions per week on average with buy-ins typically from $50 to $1k with the occasional $2-$3k buy in for a big event. I average around 500-600 MTTs a month despite not playing full time, I tend to put in a lot of volume when I’m on. The games are mostly NLH and some PLO MTTs, but love when StarsNJ runs a series as they run a fun 8-Game MTT with a bunch of other mixed variants.
What’s it like to play poker while raising young children?
It’s been a constant evolution. I could probably write a book about all the highs and lows and life adjustments I’ve had or chose to make. It gives me a lot of inspiration to succeed while also adding some weight to my losses as it's like 'not only was I way from my kids for all of Sunday afternoon but I lost (insert obnoxious Sunday schedule cost here)'.
Daniel Lupo and his family. (Photo c/o Daniel Lupo)
What are some of your poker goals?
Try and win everything I play. Actually, my biggest current goal is trying to optimize my MTT game selection. Since quarantine began the schedules have been exploding site to site and while it's been great, with lots of new players and lots of live players playing online it has also drastically increased my average buy-ins and session costs as well as the field size which further increases variance.
I'm trying to optimize the balance of table quantity and expected value vs individual session costs and the variance that comes with it. Having an average buy-in of $250 adds up pretty quickly when it's spread across 60+ entries on a Sunday. My biggest ongoing and long-term goal is to win enough to help my family live comfortably.
Lupo is in action today looking to make a run at his second gold bracelet.
Every day, viewers at home will have access to watching the biggest names hunt for bracelets. In conjunction with PokerNews, Jeff Platt will host early action from each tournament at twitch.tv/jeffplatt, starting around the money bubble each day and taking players all the way to the final table.
“I am thrilled to team up with PokerNews to present coverage of the 2021 WSOP Online,” said Platt, who is a co-host of the PokerNews Podcast. “We learned last year that the prestige of bracelet events draws an incredibly passionate audience on Twitch. I can’t wait to interact with that audience again as we crown poker’s newest champions.”
After Platt’s streams, coverage will then shift to twitch.tv/pokernews where PokerNews’ own Jesse Fullen will cover final table action alongside a rotating cast of co-hosts including Alec Torelli, Ryan Laplante, Jesse Sylvia, KL Cleeton, Rampage Poker, and Jaman Burton, among others. The streams will also be featured on YouTube and Facebook.
“WSOP Online will certainly be the biggest online series of the year in the USA. We’re thrilled PokerNews has again stepped up to provide fans a way to follow the action,” said Ty Stewart, Executive Director of the WSOP. “Jeff Platt’s personal streams were a highlight of last year’s online series and we have no doubt the PokerNews final table streams will be an entertaining watch.”
runout secured his double up.
. Boivin bet 1,780, Chin called. The turn was the 
. Chin led for 5,200 and Boivin called. Chin had the 
to take the pot.
flop saw Gifford check-raise to 5,990 after Elias continued for 2,850 and Elias called. The 
paired the board on the turn and both players checked bringing the 
to win the pot with trip tens. 
. Bicknell bet 600 and was raised to 1,803 which she called.
. Action went check-check to a 
river card. Ball bet 1,423 and Bicknell called.
for the winning hand as Bicknell suck lower in chips.
