Drew O'Connell Wins 2021 World Series of Poker Online $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship

The 2021 World Series of Poker Online $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em championship attracted a field of 821 total entries to build a prize pool of $738,900. It took 11 hours to narrow the field down to a champion, but when the dust settled it was Drew ‘dudeguydrew’ O’Connell who came away with his first WSOP gold bracelet and the $146,893 top prize.

This was O’Connell’s eighth cash of the series. He finished sixth in the $600 six-max championship event just two days prior to coming out on top in this event. This victory was his largest-ever tournament score, blowing away the $39,044 he earned for a runner-up finish in a $1,000 buy-in online WSOP Circuit event earlier this year.

Plenty of big names made the money in this event, including recent bracelet winner Martin ‘bathroomline’ Zamani (126th – $1,478), bracelet winner Yueqi ‘anoob’ Zhu (92nd – $1,552), Jeff ‘mavsusc’ Platt (82nd – $1,626), two-time bracelet winner Ryan ‘adopt_adogg0’ Leng (81st – $1,773), bracelet winner Ryan ‘joeyisamush’ Depaulo (43rd – $2,882), Landon ‘ActionDealer’ Tice (28th – $3,399), Manig ‘Ohio77’ Loeser (23rd – $4,138), and four-time bracelet winner Mike ‘Mouth123’ Matusow (17th – $5,025).

The final table began with Felix ‘madenspauwke’ Vandeput in the chip lead and O’Connell sitting on less than 8 big blinds. He found a pair of early double-ups through Vandeput to climb into the middle of the pack.

Millard ‘meekmill’ Hale wasthe first to fall (9th – $10,197), with his A-K losing out to the A-Q of Kyle ‘Kpcp22’ Phillips. Despite securing that knockout, Phillips (8th – $13,300) soon followed Hale to the rail when his pocket nines ran into the pocket jacks of Jason ‘jayriv’ Rivkin.

A double-elimination saw Rivkin continue to surge up the leaderboard. His AK beat out the Q2 of short stack Michael ‘annie_r_u_ok’ Trivett (7th – $17,660) and the 1010 of Dan ‘omg_its_dan’ Gallegos (6th – $23,793) to narrow the field to just five competitors.

World Poker Tour main event winner and high-stakes tournament regular Alex ‘OrcinusOrca’ Foxen scored his first knockout of the day when his queens full of kings bested the trip queens of Kfir ‘Nahumus’ Nahum (5th – $32,512).

Just minutes after dispatching Nahum, Foxen found himself all-in and at risk on a 974 flop. He held A9 for top pair, top kicker. He was up against the 97 of O’Connell, though, and in need of help. The 2 and 4 completed the board and Foxen was knocked out in fourth place ($45,147).

Vandeput had begun the final table as the chip leader, and managed to survive to the final three with the top stack. He fell to the bottom of the chip counts as short-handed action continued, though, and was ultimately eliminated in third place when his A2 failed to outrun the A10 of Rivkin. Vandeput earned $63,545 for his 11th cash and fourth final-table finish of the series.

Heads-up play began with O’Connell on top. Rivkin fought his way into the lead briefly, but lost a key pot with a pair of sixes against the trip jacks of O’Connell to fall below ten big blinds. All the chips went in on the following hand, with O’Connell’s AQ dominating Rivkin’s A3. The board ran out 98262 and Rivkin was sent to the virtual rail with $90,811 for his runner-up showing.

Here is a look at the payouts awarded at the final table:

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