September 4, 2020 Poker News, Online Poker News Petr Černý

WSOP Update – Stuart Wallenstein blinds out Mike Leah in the $25,000 Heads-Up – Fedor Holz reaches Semi-Finals

Another successful tournament for Fedor Holz

The WSOP on GGPoker will reach its crescendo this weekend, the final events of the hugely-successful online series featuring Fedor Holz in the semi-finals of the $25k buy-in Heads-Up championship.

The

So my client crashed 2x while playing 1st rd match of 25k HU @WSOP @GGPokerOfficial and my opponent blinded me out as quick as possible both times showing amazing sportsmanship. Hard to believe he’s actually from 🇨🇦
If anyone knows Stuart Wallensteen let him know he’s all class

— Mike Leah (@GoLeafsGoEh) September 1, 2020

Mike Leah poker Wallenstein blinds out Leah in $25,000 Heads-Up - Fedor Holz in Semi Finals

Curiously, the $10k heads-up version a few weeks ago saw Erik Seidel in the hot seat when his opponent disconnected.

Erik Seidel poker Wallenstein blinds out Leah in $25,000 Heads-Up - Fedor Holz in Semi Finals

The rights and wrongs of blinding out an opponent were well-discussed at the time, but Wallensteen appears to be rather ‘anonymous’ so may not be well-versed in poker protocol and ethics.

Leah’s disgust with his opponent aside, both he and poker weren’t the only victims of internet problems this past week, the final of the Chess Olympics, known as the Olympiad, ending in controversy.

The semi-finals had seen Armenia lose an appeal against a disconnect against India, and the final saw India appealing, and winning, after two of their players had disconnected against Russia. The solution? A shared title and Olympic gold for both countries.

Fedor’s difficult matchup

Interestingly for fans of both games, Russia’s Alexander Grischuk (pictured bottom left in the tweet above and spelled Grishchuk on the Hendon Mob database) has played twice in the WSOP Main Event and cashed for $24,678 at the 2008 EPT Barcelona Main Event.

Back at the WSOP Heads-Up Championship, and the 127 entries at $25k a pop had built a massive $3,111,500prizepool, but only the final 8 would share in that.

Likely much to Mike Leah’s dissatisfaction, Wallensteen would make that final octet, cashing for $194,469 when he fell in 7th at the hands of Turkey’s OktayKahyaoglu.

Fedor Holz had one of the toughest quarter-final matches, facing off with Justin Bonomo, who in 2018 won 15 heads-up matches in a row during his sun-run to the top of the money-winners list.

Bonomo has since returned to just ‘average legend’ status, and Holz eventually took down the win this week, and will now face the Spanish crusher Sergei ‘srxakgirona’Reixach.

Sergei ‘srxakgirona’Reixach poker

In the other semi-final, Kahyaoglu will battle Brazil’s Bruno Botteon (pictured below), and the quartet has already secured $311,150, with $1,070,250 up top and $622,300 for the runner-up.