WSOP Online Update: Jonathan Dokler Heads List of Recent Winners

July 6th, 2020 | by Jason Reynolds

The 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online is underway and, already, five players have bagged gold bracelets.

Jonathan Dokler has won the first WSOP bracelet of 2020 as the action gets underway online. (Image: WSOP.com)

The first leg of the two-part series started on July 1. Taking place on WSOP.com (Nevada and New Jersey), the opening selection of MTTs are aimed specifically at those in the US.

A second round of action will take place on GGPoker from July 19. These events will be for European and international players. However, before stage two gets underway, WSOP.com players have been battling for bling.

Jonathan Dokler Does It First

First to climb atop of the winner’s rostrum was Jonathan Dokler. Known online as Art.Vandelay, Dokler came through a field of 301 entries to pick up the first bracelet of the series.

In winning the $500 No Limit Hold’em event, Dokler had to thwart Phil Hellmuth’s plans to become a 16-time WSOP champion. The Poker Brat fought his way through the masses on July 1 and looked to be in good shape for a final table run.

However, with 11 left, the fickle mistress that is lady luck turned against him. Moving all-in over the top of Shawn Daniels, Hellmuth held a slight lead with pocket queens after his opponent called.

That lead was quickly lost though as Daniels’ ace-king connected with the flop. With few outs and no help on the turn and river, Hellmuth was sent to the rail in 11^th place for $7,872 but not record-setting bracelet.

With one of the toughest players in the tournament gone, Dokler took charge. Controlling much of the final table, the American finally got it done against Justin Turner. When Turner’s final smattering of chips went in, Dokler called with pocket fours.

Turner had outs with T♠6♠ and jumped into the lead after the flop ran out 3♦5♠6♣. However, the 2♥ on the turn put Dokler back in the driving seat before the 5♦ brought the hand and the tournament to a close. With that, Dokler became the first WSOP champion of 2020 and $130,425 richer.

WSOP Online Event #1 $500 Opener Result

1 – Jonathan “Art.Vandelay” Dokler – $130,425

2 – Justin “MadTitan” Turner – $80,416

3 – Tony “Panoramic” Dunst – $57,881

4 – Shawn “SayGoodNight” Daniels – $42,060

5 – Michael “DDSpade” Balan – $30,947

6 – Kyle “ChefShap” Shappelle – $22,998

7 – Daniel “djp1006” Park – $17,287

8 – Mark “NostraDonkus” Liedtke – $13,119

9 – Taylor “ZeroTo100” Von Kriegenbergh – $10,109

Summer of Fun for WSOP Bracelet Hunters

With one event done, it was time for an eight-handed deepstack showdown on July 2. The $1,000 buy-in didn’t seem to deter players as another 301 jumped into the action.

When the chips had fallen and recognizable names like Jason Somerville had finished just short, Louis Lynch emerged as the winner.

Robert Kuhn, Matt Bode, and Allen Chang rounded out the recent list of WSOP bracelet winners, with the latter collecting the second biggest win of the series so far.

The 2020 WSOP Online series will continue throughout July on WSOP.com and into August and September on GGPoker. When the mega-festival is over, 85 bracelets will have been won and a new WSOP Main Event champion crowned.