In 2015, the World Series of Poker first introduced online events to the schedule. Only one online event took place that year but since then, the WSOP has worked to continue to integrate online game play into the land-based tournament series. For 2017, the WSOP has three online events planned with the first already completed, each offering up a gold bracelet plus cash and bragging rights.
The first online event to take place this year was the $333 No Limit Hold’em ‘Little Grind’ bracelet event. Players would be competing for $333,333 in guaranteed prize money and with 2,509 players competing, the prize pool would skyrocket to a total of $752,700.
The event had a 333 theme and began at 3:33 pm Las Vegas time with late registration and re-enter offered for three hours and 45 minutes after the tournament started. Payouts would go to the top 333 players in the event with the final table not being set until late in the evening, around 12:45 am.
The winner of the first online event would be Joseph Mitchell, known as ‘ul_gg’ online. This would be Mitchell’s first gold bracelet and the third time he cashed out in a WSOP event. Once six-handed play began, Mitchell would begin to gain ground and ended up eliminating Michael Jacoby in 6th as well as Bobby McLawhorn in 5th.
Mitchell would begin heads-up play against Mark Scacewater, known as ‘PLODonkey17’ online with the chip lead. The final hand would see Scacewater go all in with A-7 off-suit while Mitchell would call with Q-J off-suit. The board fell 4-3-2-Q-6 giving Mitchell a pair of Queens and the win.
Final Payouts:
First | Joseph Mitchell | $122,314 |
Second | Mark Scacewater | $73,539 |
Third | Michael Addamo | $54,043 |
Fourth | Hao Sun | $39,592 |
Fifth | Bobby McLawhorn | $29,205 |
Sixth | Michael Jacoby | $21,828 |
Seventh | Kevin Sheetz | $16,559 |
Eighth | Casey Long | $12,645 |
Ninth | William Pan | $9,710 |
The next online event for the WSOP will be the $3,333 ‘Big Grind’ No Limit Hold’em Tournament which begins at 3:33 pm on July 1st. The next online bracelet event takes place on July 7th beginning at 2 pm with the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament.