Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira Wins WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] ($210,237)
It was a speedy affair to crown a champion on the final day of WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] as barely four and a half hours passed to whittle down the 16 survivors out of a field of 3,856 entries to a winner. Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira defeated German poker pro Philipp "philbort" Gruissem in heads-up to claim the lion's share of the $1,928,000 prize pool and earned his maiden WCOOP title, which came with a payday of $210,237.
It was already the 12th Brazilian victory in a medium tier of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2020 and the 25th title in total for the current festival as the final week of the series has all but kicked off.
Moreira, who represents the 4bet poker team on home soil in Brazil, has more than $106,000 in live cashes to his name and his first WCOOP title came with the biggest payday on the poker circuit thus far. Retaining his own bounty of $72,433 made all the difference as that was three times as much as Gruissem had collected.
The domination was furthermore highlighted by the fact that seven of the 16 finalists in this event were from Brazil and four of them reached the final table, on which Moreira dominated after taking the lead early on. Other notable finalists included Maksym "MAMOHT_T" Mamonov, Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev, and 2019 WCOOP PLO event winner "xnrobix" from Hungary.
Final Table Results WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam]
Place | Winner | Country | Bounty Prize | Cash Prize | Total Prize |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira | Brazil | $72,433 | $137,803 | $210,237 |
2 | Philipp "philbort" Gruissem | Germany | $24,557 | $98,229 | $122,786 |
3 | MrNorberto | Hungary | $6,831 | $70,021 | $76,852 |
4 | Tauan "kylix42" Naves | Brazil | $1,563 | $49,913 | $51,476 |
5 | Maksym "MAMOHT_T" Mamonov | Russia | $13,399 | $35,580 | $48,979 |
6 | Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev | Russia | $15,786 | $25,363 | $41,149 |
7 | Marlon "sphinmx" Wilhelms | Brazil | $4,520 | $18,079 | $22,599 |
8 | xnrobix | Hungary | $7,502 | $12,887 | $20,389 |
9 | bruna_bsb | Brazil | $4,961 | $9,187 | $14,148 |
One Hour to Reach the Final Table
Only a few minutes had passed when the first player hit the rail as Canada's "X-Factor777" lost a race with ace-king against pocket tens. Pedro "gusmaa" Gusma was next to fall when he failed to hold up with ace-king suited against ace-ten suited and soon after, "Stiffler8818" jammed kings for an overpair into the flopped set of tens of Maksim "MAMOHT_T" Viktorovich.
The action barely slowed down as the Lithuanian pros Tomas "dartazzzz" Jozonis and Matas "NoTilit" Cikinas next to bow out, the former with flush under flush and the latter by coming up short with king-jack versus ace-queen suited. Only ten players headed into the first break as Vinicius "viniperri" Perri became the next casualty, and once they returned to the seats it was Luis "Lui$starPRO$" Rocha that lost a flip with ace-king against the jacks of Vitor "Vitorbrasil" Moreira to set up the final table.
Early Big Pot for Moreira Sets the Pace
Despite a very deep-stacked final table with 15 blinds for the shortest stack and 116 for the chip leader, it didn't take long to lose another player as "bruna_bsb" had their queens cracked by ace-jack. Soon after, the second-biggest pot of the tournament to date vaulted Moreira into the top spot. The Brazilian would remain there until three-handed play and only suffered one major setback on road to victory.
As on shorter stack after the other succumbed, it was Moreira that kept winning big pots to become the runaway chip leader and he also claimed the bounties of "xnrobix" and Andrey "Lucky_Jew_17" Parugaev. Responsible for most of the other eliminations was Philipp "philbort" Gruissem, who then doubled into the lead in three-handed action when top pair held against an open-ended straight flush draw.
Moreira evened out the stacks for the heads-up play by knocking out "MrNorberto" and Gruissem declined a suggested deal by the Brazilian. The first few minutes of one-versus-one were dominated by the aggression of Gruissem but Moreira didn't need long to turn things around and finished it off when Gruissem bluffed with a busted gutshot into trips.
The final day of WCOOP-48-M: $530 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] was streamed on the PokerStars Twitch channel with cards up coverage and commentary by Joe Stapleton and Maria Ho. That wraps up the PokerNews coverage for this event but can also check out all the other exclusive PokerStars WCOOP 2020 highlights, results and live updates right here!