GGPoker WSOP Online Main Event Breaks the Biggest Online Tournament Prize Pool Record

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It’s been quite a month for GGPoker players who had the opportunity to play for 33 WSOP gold bracelets and tens of millions of dollars in cash over the course of the WSOP Online festival.

The overall festival was a glaring success, but it was the WSOP Online Main Event that drew the most attention, especially when it became clear that the overall number of entries was sufficient to break the record for the biggest online poker tournament prize pool ever created.

With 6,023 runners in total, the tournament entered poker history as the biggest ever played, as the total prize pool of $28,609,252 was sufficient to beat the previous GGPoker record by over a million dollars.

This was only not the only thing that made the event so epic though, as the fact a lite Twitch streamer Bert “girafganger7” Stevens won it all on a live stream made the final moments of the tournament even more memorable.

Biggest Prize Pool in the History of Online Poker

Back in 2020, GGPoker set a record for the biggest online poker tournament ever with the WSOP Online Main Event, which guaranteed a prize pool of $25 million and ended up drawing 5,802 entries for a total prize pool of $27,559,500.

This record was set during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the lockdowns forced many poker players to stay at home for months on end, resulting in generally increased online poker prize pools.

As the pandemic subsided, the 2021 edition of the event failed to break the $20 million guarantee set that year, with only 4,092 players signing up to play.

It took another couple of years before GGPoker would make it happen, but the 2023 WSOP Online Main Event is now officially the biggest online poker tournament ever played.

With 6,023 entries made over the many Day 1 flights, the event broke the previous record and created the biggest prize pool in the history of the game.

The $5,000 buy-in was certainly not one that everyone could afford, but GGPoker worked diligently to provide plenty of opportunities for players to qualify for the Main Event.

When all was said and done, the tournament managed to break the $25 million guarantee by quite a bit, and will likely stand as the biggest online poker event for a while.

In fact, it is very possible that no event will come close to breaking this record until next year’s WSOP Online festival, when GGPoker will be looking to break its own record once more.

Twitch Streamer Wins It All

With over 6,000 entries in total, it was likely that the Main Event title would go to an anonymous player we have not heard of before, but Twitch streamer Bert “girafganger7” Stevens beat those odds and won it all for the poker streaming community.

Stevens was a successful poker pro and Twitch streamer before the event and was one of the most popular poker players on the platform when his stars finally aligned for the biggest victory of his life.

His biggest recorded streamed win before this one was set at $58,000, which came just days before he took down the big one.

Bert was able to navigate the massive field to a final table which included some very tough opponents, but was able to keep his chip lead for the majority of it and close the deal without major problems.

When it was all said and done, Stevens’ GGPoker balance was increased by $2,783,432, which interestingly enough was not the biggest prize won in online poker history.

What's more fun than winning the biggest online tournament ever? Doing it in front of thousands of adoring fans! Live on twitch at 7:50pm CET! pic.twitter.com/GK1wak14MZ

— giraf ganger (@Girafganger7) October 3, 2023

In fact, the 2020 WSOP Online Main event awarded $3.9 million to the champion despite the smaller overall prize pool.

Nevertheless, this was by far the biggest victory recorded in a live Twitch stream, and it was one that thousands of poker fans who tuned in that night would not forget anytime soon.

Girafganger7 let all the emotions out during the live stream and showed plenty of appreciation for the Twitch community which supported him during the good times and the bad.

With this result to his name, we can be pretty sure that Stevens’ live streams are about to get even more popular, and we can hope to see the phenomenal pro grinding the live circuit in the years to come as well.

The winning moment…#WSOPOnline @WSOP pic.twitter.com/JNE24PeQGx

— GGPoker (@GGPoker) October 3, 2023

33 WSOP Bracelet Winners Names

While the Main Event was easily the highlight of the 2023 WSOP Online, another 32 WSOP bracelets were handed out and plenty of new poker stars were made.

Of course, the festival also saw quite a few well-known and respected names in the poker world extend their fantastic records, with the likes of Yuri Dzivilievski, Artur Martirosian, Joao Vieira, and David Yan all adding WSOP bracelets to their resumes.

And while these players beat only a few dozen tables to reach their bracelets, it was Yuri “pumbiko_O” Olinyk who overcame the biggest field of 51,211 entries to win a bracelet in the $210 Mystery Millions event earlier in the series.

The $500 Ladies Championship title went into the hands of Jessica “butfirstwine” Marks who defeated a field of 167 ladies and took home a modest $16,613 in addition to the gold bracelet.

With the GGPoker WSOP Online now in the books, all eyes turn to the upcoming WSOP Paradise, which is scheduled to play out during the month of December at the luxurious Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas.

GGPoker is running hundreds of satellites to the event, with at least 1,000 full packages for WSOP Paradise set to be given away, and Day 1 flights of several major WSOP Paradise events set to play out on the online platform.

Join GGPoker today for your chance at becoming the next WSOP Paradise qualifier or play in the hundreds of daily tournaments and cash game tables available on the world’s biggest online poker platform.