In 2020, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) hoped to follow up on the immense success of the 2019 WSOP by welcoming even more than the 8,569 players it did the previous year. However, fate would put a stop to that grandest of plans. While the early part of 2019 was spent ramping up preparations for an increase of 78 to 90 bracelet events, the start of 2020 was very different.
The number of bracelets awarded in 2020 went from 90 the year before… to just one.
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The World Stands Still
Three months into the year, the poker world was rocked along with the rest of the world as the Coronavirus, later named COVID-19, escaped into the world. To date, COVID-19 has killed over 7 million people on the planet, and in 2020, the early months of the COVID outbreak were terrifying. Within a month, hundreds of thousands of people died all around the world, including Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and the United States.
Live poker shut down along with businesses across the globe and while the world got used to wearing face masks and having mandatory vaccines, COVID-19’s rapacious rise around the world was devastating. Everyone knew someone who was sick, many knew family or friends who had been hospitalized, and tragically, many thousands of citizens of the world died due to respiratory problems that could have been prevented had the pandemic been expected.
As shock set in worldwide, poker players responded by playing online. Many home games became a mental salvation for those who would have met in casinos or at live events. Famous faces played online poker events to raise millions of dollars for charities helping those most in need. Eventually, when live poker returned with Perspex dividers to protect players and the dealers—largely at six-max tables—poker players posted content as much as they did big blinds.
In many ways, the poker world’s stoic response to COVID-19 was a template soon rolled out worldwide. The ability to keep playing, keep fighting to survive, and remain determined to succeed against the odds typify the efforts of a poker player battling for a title. Those real-world battles re-established the human race’s ability to socialise, meet and greet loved ones, and eventually return to poker action.
The WSOP Heads Online
The absence of a Las Vegas WSOP saw the poker industry react quickly. The 2020 WSOP Online began on July 1st and ran to September 6th, with events ranging in buy-ins from $50 up to $25,000. Tournaments were split between 31 events in the United States on WSOP.com and 54 global events hosted on GGPoker.
The only player to win two WSOP bracelets during the series was the Canadian player Alek Stasiak, who took down the $1,111 Every 1 for Covid Relief event for $343,203 and the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for a $273,505 top prize. Welsh player Roberto Romanello became the tenth player in poker history to win the ‘Triple Crown’ (WSOP, WPT & EPT) by winning the $1,500 NLHE event for $216,213 nine years after he won the second of the three legs needed to complete the incredible feat.
Four women won WSOP titles, with Kristen Bicknell winning her third bracelet in the $2,500 NLHE 6-Max event for $356,412 to tie Barbara Enright, Nani Dollison, and Vanessa Selbst as the most successful female player in WSOP history. Nahrain Tamero won the $1,000 NLHE Championship for $310,832, Thi Truong won the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event for $215,983, and Melika Razavi won the $1,050-entry Beat the Pros Bounty event for $239,180, becoming the first female from Iran to win a bracelet.
At the top of the all-time WSOP Cashes leaderboard, there was a change of leadership, with Canadian star and six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu leaping into the lead on 165 cashes, with Chris Ferguson (163) and Phil Hellmuth (162) his nearest rivals at the conclusion of 2020.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, there was no WSOP Player of the Year in 2020.
Who is the Main Man?
At the time of the WSOP Online Series, the $5,000-entry ‘Main Event’ was billed as the online version of the world championship. Costing $5,000 to enter but permitting one rebuy, many players argued that while this did amount to the $10,000 entry fee that had been the buy-in for the previous 50 years of WSOP Main Events, the nature of the Main Event was a complete freezeout, meaning there should be no re-entry back into the action.
While 16 players won at least a million dollars at the 2020 WSOP in some form or another, the biggest winner was Bulgarian player Stoyan Madanzhiev, the champion in the $5,000-entry ‘Main Event’. His triumph was worth a whopping $3,910,705, with his heads-up opponent, Wenling Gao, winning the second-largest amount in 2020, $2,748,606.
With a guaranteed prize pool of $25,000,000, the largest tournament in online poker history saw Madanzhiev celebrated as if he had won the world championship. The Bulgarian enjoyed the victory, only for the WSOP to announce an end-of-year ‘Hybrid’ Main Event that would be christened as the World Championship. At the time of this announcement, Madanzhiev was distraught, thinking he had already won the WSOP Online Main Event to have been rightly awarded that title.
Regardless, the WSOP pressed on with their hastily arranged $10,000-entry 2020 Main Event. Starting in November, it would be played via two online operators in various territories. A WSOP.com-hosted ‘American’ Main Event would play down to a winner, with a ‘Rest of the World’ Main Event battling to the bracelet on GGPoker. The two winners would then travel to Las Vegas to determine one winner—the 2020 world champion.
Salas Fulfils Lifelong Dream
The America-based Main Event was played in December and some of the game’s legends got close to winning. Maria Ho was the best female player in the event, outlasting all others, adding 2020 to 2014 and 2007 as years in which she had reigned supreme among female players. The 2013 champion Ryan Riess came 92nd for $22,334, while the final nine assembled at The Rio in Las Vegas.
Due to travel concerns, the player who began the final in eighth of the nine, Upeshka De Silva, tested positive for COVID-19 and was eliminated in ninth place for $98,813 as per the official ruling. By a bizarre coincidence, the player in eighth place at the Rest of the World final table, Chinese player Peiyuan Sun was unable to play due to their concerns over traveling during the pandemic.
At the American final table, Joseph Hebert triumphed for a top prize of $1.55 million after beating Ron Jenkins heads-up. In Rozvadov, where the final table of the Rest of the World Main Event was completed, Brazilian player Bruno Botteon lost heads-up to Argentina’s Damian Salas in an all-South-American clash for $1.5m.
Both Salas and Hebert traveled to Las Vegas for the showdown to earn themselves another million dollars. The finale was due to take place on December 30th but Salas had problems entering the country due to the pandemic, and the match was delayed until January 3rd, 2021.
A Southern Champion is Crowned
When it took place, Argentinian Salas became the first WSOP Main Event champion from South America after beating Hebert when his king-jack hit a king to triumph against Hebert’s ace-queen, despite Hebert at one stage having a 9:1 chip lead.
For Salas, it was not only the fulfillment of a lifetime dream but the comeback of a lifetime, not only in the sense that he was nearly defeated by Hebert but also in his second appearance at a Main Event final table. Back in 2017, Salas had finished seventh in the World Championship, cashing for $1,425,000 in the year Scott Blumstein won the title. Seven years later, he had his comeback victory.
Poker would only have to wait six months for its major comeback. After a year dominated by disease, where Vegas victories were vanquished by the COVID-19 virus, poker returned with a vengeance in May 2021.
The second poker boom’s fuse was about to be lit.
| Player | Country | Prize | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Damian Salas | Argentina | $1,550,969 |
| 2nd | Brunno Botteon De Albuquerque | Brazil | $1,062,723 |
| 3rd | Manuel Rivo | Portugal | $728,177 |
| 4th | Ramon Miquel Munoz | Spain | $498,947 |
| 5th | Marco Streda | Switzerland | $341,879 |
| 6th | Dominykas Mikolaitis | Lithuania | $234,255 |
| 7th | Stoyan Obreshkov | Bulgaria | $160,512 |
| 8th | Hannes Speiser | Austria | $109,982 |
| 9th | Peiyuan Sun | China | $75,360 |
2019 WSOP Main Event 2021 WSOP Main Event
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.