Sergiy Yashchur Takes Down the WPT Pro Hunt Event

Ukraine’s Sergiy Yashchur is not only a WPT World Online Championships champion, but he is set to play for a share of a $5 million guaranteed prize pool for free after he triumphed in the WPT Pro Hunt event this weekend.

Yashchur was one of 1,374 partypoker players who exchanged $33 for 100,000 chips, and the chance to become a WPT champion. The WPT Pro Hunt is an extra special event not only because it gives players the chance to rub shoulders with some of poker’s superstars for only $33, but more than a dozen of those stars sat down with additional bounties on their heads. A $109 WPTWOC Main Event Day 1A Satellite ticket was the extra prize on each of the preselected pro’s heads.

Team partypoker’s Louise Butler was the special bounty player who went the deepest in the WPT Pro Hunt tournament. Butler navigated her way to an impressive 23rd place finish. The Irish starlet’s elimination left one extra prize to play for: the eventual champion would walk away with a $5,300 WPTWOC Main Event seat for free!

Having the $5,300 seat added to first place left made the payouts more top-heavy, resulting in the nine finalists going all out for the victory.

That did not quite go to plan for Brazilian duo Fernando Lima and Felipe Francisco Ferraz because they were the first two finalists to bow out.

Pieter Theelen, Toni Ihalinen, and Jack Morris follow the Samba stars to the sidelines; the latter’s exit locked in a four-figure main prize pool prize for the surviving four players.

Two Russian players fell by the wayside in fourth and third place. Vitaliy Pavlov and Konstantin Kostyakov being those players. This left Yashcur heads-up against Danish grinder Laust Mejer Nielsen in a battle for the now substantial bounty, plus that all-important Main Event ticket.

Yaschur defeated his final opponent and became a WPT champion. Yaschur’s $2,596 prize was bolstered by a $2,736 bounty payment plus a free seat to the $5 million guaranteed WPTWOC Main Event! The runner-up headed into the night with a combined prize weighing in at $3,468.

It is an incredible result for Yashchur, who can usually be found frequenting our freeroll and centroll tournaments. Here is hoping the Ukrainian can run hot in the upcoming Main Event.

WPT Pro Hunt Final Table Results

Place | Player | Country | Bounties | Prize
1 | Sergiy Yashchur | Ukraine | $2,736 | $2,596
2 | Laust Mejer Nielsen | Denmark | $877 | $2,591
3 | Konstantin Kostyakov | Russia | $408 | $1,711
4 | Vitaliy Pavlov | Russia | $321 | $1,105
5 | Jack Morris | United Kingdom | $164 | $751
6 | Toni Ihalinen | Finland | $101 | $576
7 | Pieter Theelen | Netherlands | $333 | $421
8 | Felipe Francisco Ferraz | Brazil | $207 | $332
9 | Fernando Lima | Brazil | $215 | $261

partypoker Donates $8,244 to Poker Gives Charity

Yashchur was not the only big winner from the WPT Pro Hunt event because the Poker Gives charity received $8,244, which is the equivalent of 20% of the total WPT Pro Hunt prize pool.

The Poker Gives charity was originally founded by the late Mike Sexton, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Lisa Tenner as a way for poker players and the poker industry to give back to worthwhile charity organisations. The $8,244 raised by this event will go a long way to help the Poker Gives cause.

Skovsen Still The Man To Catch In The $1M Gtd Opener

Several more Opener flights are in the bag, and Denmark’s Jonathan Skovsen is still the man to catch with Day 2 approaching; Day 2 shuffles up and deals on August 23.

Some 1,256 players have bought in at the time of writing, meaning the prize pool has $251,200 of the $1 million guarantee accumulated. Only 184 of those starters are through to Day 2, and only Skovsen and Roman Matveichuk have managed to turn their 100,000 starting stacks into more than two million chips.

We have to doff our cap to Bryan Robitaille-Fequet of Canada who currently occupies eighth place. The Canadian has helped himself to $975 worth of bounty payments, meaning he is already showing a healthy profit before Day 2 shuffles up and deals.

Another two dozen Opener Day 1 flights remain on the schedule. Will anyone catch the high fliers before the final flight at 14:05 BST on August 23?

Place | Player | Country | Bounties | Chips
1 | Jonathan Skovsen | Denmark | $750 | 2,099,931
2 | Roman Matveichuk | Russia | $400 | 2,094,297
3 | Dan Kothari | United Kingdom | $400 | 1,933,361
4 | Rodrigo Valente | Brazil | $437.50 | 1,725,755
5 | Lucas Ferreira Alves | Brazil | $400 | 1,691,747
6 | Artem Petrov | Russia | $437.50 | 1,678,725
7 | Robert Slana | Slovenia | $556.25 | 1,671,280
8 | Bryan Robitaille-Fequet | Canada | $975 | 1,648,883
9 | Gabriel Cunha De Medeiros | Brazil | $387.50 | 1,585,914
10 | Shawn Buchanan | Canada | $387.50 | 1,571,767

Vieira Leads The $200K Gtd Mini Opener

The Mini Opener is proving to be extremely popular with 4,422 players buying in across the completed flights. $88,440 of the $200,000 guaranteed prize pool has been collected, and 654 players have made it through to Day 2.

There is little to separate the players in the current top 10, and only a handful of big blinds separate the current top five. Ohana Alves Garcia Vieira is the chip leader courtesy of his 2,577,068 stack. Hot on Vieira’s heels are Maksim Aboimov (2,543,521), Jiri Dusek (2,537,286), Robert Green (2,518,634), and Evgenii Bebnev (2,492,156).

Like the $1 million guaranteed Opener, there are more than two dozen flights remaining for the Mini Opener, each costing $22 to enter. You have plenty of time to get in on the action, but do not leave it too late in case you want to take another bite of the cherry should your first attempt to qualify for Day 2 not go to plan.

Place | Player | Country | Bounties | Chips
1 | Ohana Alves Garcia Vieira | Brazil | $75 | 2,577,068
2 | Maksim Aboimov | Russia | $63.75 | 2,543,521
3 | Jiri Dusek | Czech Republic | $99.37 | 2,537,286
4 | Robert Green | United Kingdom | $70.62 | 2,518,634
5 | Evgenii Bebnev | Russia | $59.99 | 2,492,156
6 | Feliks Saakyan | Russia | $52.50 | 2,381,778
7 | Johan Sahlin | Sweden | $37.50 | 2,166,012
8 | Louise Butler | Ireland | $21.87 | 2,159,599
9 | Brett Dobson | Canada | $61.25 | 2,082,726
10 | James Robert Lock | United Kingdom | $30.62 | 2,060,679

Another 22 partypoker Players Win WPTWOC Main Event Seats

Another Mega Satellite ran on August 15, one that awarded 22 seats to the WPTWOC Main Event Day 1A, each worth $5,300. Even the 23rd place finisher won a prize, $1,300 in cash to be exact.

There is no direct buy-in for the weekly Mega Sat final phase, meaning the most anyone will pay to enter is the $109 it costs to enter Phase 3. However, we will have some people competing in the weekly final who have won their way there via $0.01 centrolls, $4.40 Phase 1, or $22 Phase 2s.

Some 92 players are already registered for the WPTWOC Main Event, which could be one of the softest $5,300 buy-in tournaments you ever get to play thanks to the plethora of satellites feeding into it.