Poker News: Renan Bruschi Wins WSOPO $500 NLHE Event, Shankar Pillai Claims 3rd WSOP Online Bracelet

WSOP Bracelet

This week’s headlines are all centered around the World Series of Poker. Three big winners managed to collect bracelets for their wrist and here are their stories.

Bruschi Wins 2021 World Series of Poker Online Event

Brazilian native Renan Bruschi found just how much success one can have in front of a computer. Bruschi entered the 2021 World Series of Poker Online $500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event and emerged victorious. He had to overcome a large field of 2,639 entries in order to claim the top prize of $150,327.

The battle took multiple days as the field was trimmed down to 35 competitors at the start of the second day. The final table was eventually set with just nine players remaining in the competition. Leonid Bilokur came close to knocking Bruschi off right at the end but came up just short, though he still won $112,728 for his second-place finish.

Bruschi had actually competed in a similar event just two weeks prior to this big win. He finished as the runner up in the $2,500 buy-in limit hold’em championship in the WSOP but he clearly didn’t let that loss affect his confidence.

Pillai Claims Third Bracelet In WSOP Online Event

Shankar Pillai is one of the hottest players on the poker circuit right now. He claimed the first-ever World Series of Poker Online series to be held in Pennsylvania. Pillai entered into the $3,200 buy-in no-limit hold’em high roller event, which was scheduled to be the third event played. Due to some technical difficulties along the way, it was moved to the very end of the series.

There were 86 total entries but none were able to slow down Pillai as he finished in first place and picked up his third gold bracelet and the top prize of $66,641. He picked up his first bracelet back in 2007 during the $3,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event in 2007 and his second came during the 2019 ‘bracelet winners only’ event.

Looking at his career tournament earnings, Pillai has over $3.5 million in total. The largest payout of his career came from a third-place finish in the 2020 WSOP Online $25,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship. He had beaten 407 other entries to win $979,138.

Tamasauskas Takes Home WSOP Online Championship Victory

Vincas Tamasauskas couldn’t be stopped at the 2021 World Series of Poker Online $5,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha Championship event. He was able to compete against a field of 267 other entries and emerge with the top prize of $268,926. The victory is now marked down as his second largest score in his career. Trailing only the $464,375 that he won in the 2019 WSOP $1,500 buy-in Millionaire Maker event when he finished in fourth place.

Tamasauskas now holds over $1 million in career tournament earnings after this intense two-day battle. He was one of the seven remaining players at the final table and didn’t even hold the chip lead at the time. However, he found a way to sneak past the competition and be the last one standing.

Hernando Guzman was the chip leader at the start of the final table but ended up dropping down to seventh place in the event, though he still earned $38,418 from the finish.