WSOP Online 2020: Japan’s Shoma Ishikawa Wins Event #34 on GGPoker, Critical Bug Forces Site to Suspend 2 Events 

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online series has been underway on WSOP.com since the start of the month. Already 18 bracelets have been given away to Nevada and New Jersey players with Event #19 currently down to the final table.

Players outside the two US states finally got the chance at WSOP glory starting Sunday when the second leg of the series kickoff on GGPoker. The site is slated to run a packed schedule of 54 bracelet events through September 7. However, what promised to be a record-smashing debut for the WSOP on GGPoker, a critical system bug dampened the celebrations. The site operators discovered a critical technical glitch that forced them to suspend two ongoing events, namely, Event #32: $100 The Opener and Event #33: $1,111 Every 1 For COVID Relief, for a week. These two tournaments will resume play next Sunday.

The technical issues didn`t affect the fast-paced Event #34: $525 Super Turbo Bounty NLH 6-Handed that found a winner in record time. Being the fastest-ever paced bracelet event with four-minute levels, it took just three hours and 15 minutes for a starting field of 2,214 players to whittle down to a champion. At the end of the play, winning the gold bracelet was Japan’s Shoma ‘pp_syon’ Ishikawa (cover image)! He will go down the history books as the first-ever online bracelet winner on GGPoker and the third player from Japan, after Naoya Kihara and Takahiro Nakai to win the prized WSOP bracelet.

The event generated a $1,107,000 prize pool that was distributed among the top 314 finishers. In addition to the $82,425 in prize money, Ishikawa earned a further $35,225 in bounties, padding his bankroll by $117,650.

WSOP Online – A Hung-Up Start on GGPoker Network

Evidently, GGPoker was not equipped to handle the massive traffic that the WSOP events brought in. In one of its tweets, the operator stated, “The bug was caused by an overwhelming number of players joining The Opener and other side events. The tournament servers were unable to resume due to high loads. We will increase more capacity (we just doubled it) to make sure future events run smoothly.”

On the first signs of trouble, GGPoker announced that some of its players have complained of network issues, due to which it was pausing all the tournaments.

Some of our players are experiencing network issues thus we have paused all tournaments. We are aware of the situation and closely monitoring them. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 17, 2020

The tournaments were later resumed, and the site assured all that it would be announcing a comprehensive compensation for the affected players. However, soon GGPoker detected another global network outage and paused all tournaments once again.

Network seems to have returned back to normal and we have just resumed all tournaments.

We are gathering info on the players who have been affected by this global network outage and will announce a compensation plan for their inconvenience.

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 17, 2020

We have detected another global network outage. We have paused all tournaments and will be monitoring the situation closely

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 17, 2020

Event #33 made a WSOP record by registering 29,306 entries, collecting a whopping $2.696 Million prize pool. Due to network issues, Day 2 had to be rescheduled to 3.30 PM (EST). Even though play resumed, forty minutes later, the network glitches forced the tournament to be paused.

While confirming the new schedule for the paused tournaments as next week, GGPoker also confirmed the compensation.

Event #32 will resume with the current stack on July 26th 18:30 UTC (same start time) and Event #33 will resume with the current stack on July 26th 18:00 UTC (same start time)

Once again, we truly apologize for what happened and we will make sure this does not happen again.

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 19, 2020

UPDATE on compensation-

Event #32- for the 3684 remaining players, we will be rewarding each player with the buy-in T$100

Event #33- since this was for Charity, GGPoker will be doubling the current $177,378 collected for charity.

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 19, 2020

PLAYERS:

We apologize for everything that has happened today. A critical bug has been found, and we need to postpone WSOP Event #32 and #33 to next week at the same start time.

Everyone will start with the current stack.

Read further…

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 19, 2020

Meanwhile, on WSOP.com, Event #19 $400 NLHE is currently down to the final table. The tournament registered 2,545 entries, creating a $916,200 prize pool. While the top 371 finishers are assured a min-cash of $641.34, the winner stands to walk away with $133,856.82 and the gold bracelet.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Gary ‘STARDOG13’ Johnson – 14,276,346
2. Diego ‘El Motron’ Ostrovich – 7,574,794
3. Daniel ‘Gyrocopter’ Strelitz – 7,527,650
4. Shoma ‘pp_syon’ Ishikawa – 7,381,184
5. Yulian ‘Ector’ Bogdanov – 5,680,213
6. Mulgyeol ‘waterwave’ Kim – 3,813,328
7. Tom ‘Pik00rs’ Delaine -2,771,542
8. Dimitar ‘Mort’ Yosifov – 2,753,206
9. Ilya Anatsky – 2,551,737

Final Table Recap

Minutes into the final table play, Dimitar ‘Mort’ Yosifov was booted out in ninth place by Mulgyeol ‘waterwave’ Kim. The knockout didn’t help Kim much, and he hit the rail next, in eighth place.

Diego’ El Motron’ Ostovich, who had busted Kim, went on an elimination spree by dispatching Ilya Anatsky and Tom ‘Pik00rs’ Delaine out in seventh and sixth places, respectively.

Just one hand later, Yulian ‘Ector’ Bogdanov was eliminated in fifth place with Daniel ‘Gyrocopter’ Strelitz next on the chopping block in fourth place.

The tourney became three-handed just five minutes later. In what was the biggest pot of the tournament so far, Gary ‘STARDOG13’ Johnson ran his into Ostrovich’s . Johnson flopped middle-pair on the runout , but the celebrations were short-lived as the turn and the river completed a runner-runner one card flush for Ostrovich.

While it looked like Diego ‘El Motron’ Ostrovich was the clear frontrunner to win the bracelet, Ishikawa tipped the advantage in his direction after scoring a massive double-up. Left with only three big blinds, Ostrovich called Ishikawa’s raise from the button.

Shoma ‘pp_syon’ Ishikawa

Diego ‘El Motron’ Ostrovich

The flop connected for Ostrovich, but Ishikawa still had outs to a flush draw. The on the turn brought him within striking distance of winning the bracelet, and the on the river made it official.

Final Table Results (USD) (Includes Bounties)

1. Shoma ‘pp_syon’ Ishikawa – $117,650
2. Diego ‘El Motron’ Ostrovich – $86,972
3. Gary ‘STARDOG13’ Johnson – $51,801
4. Daniel ‘Gyrocopter’ Strelitz – $50,431
5. Yulian ‘Ector’ Bogdanov – $34,677
6. Tom ‘Pik00rs’ Delaine – $20,225
7. Ilya Anatsky – $20,343
8. Mulgyeol ‘waterwave’ Kim – $15,030
9. Dimitar ‘Mort’ Yosifov – $12,102

Content & Images Courtesy: WSOP.com and PokerNews.com

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