Moritz Dietrich Wins WSOP Online Main Event for $4 million as Akimov Falls Apart

The Austrian player Moritz Dietrich won the biggest top prize ever captured online as he took down the 2024 WSOP Online Main Event. Outlasting a final table featuring players such as Isaac Baron, Benjamin Rolle and his heads-up opponent Evgenii Akimov, Dietrich made a stunning comeback to turn around a massive heads-up deficit to triumph in style on GGPoker.

Rolle Tumbles Early

With a total of 6,146 entries, a prizepool of $29.1 million was claimed by the Austrian Upswing Poker coach Moritz Dietrich as he claimed glory in the €5,000-entry WSOP Online Main Event. With the GG MILLION$ host Jeff Gross and poker legend Phil Laak calling the action, it was one of the most exciting final tables of 2024 as a WSOP bracelet and $4,000,000 were on the line.

The final table of nine kicked off with the Russian professional Evgenii Akimov in the lead on 86 big blinds, with Portuguese player Rui Ferreira (67BB), Austria’s Moritz Dietrich (56BB), Belarussian Ilya Anatski (43BB) and the U.S.A.’s Isaac Baron (33BB) in hot pursuit. Chinese player Hai Pan (30BB), Lithuanian Audrius Stakelis (19BB), Portuguese player Diogo Coelho (16BB) and German poker coach and online superstar Benjamin Rolle (14BB) started a little further back.

First to bust was the Lithuanian Audrius Stakelis, who won $502,771 when he shoved pre-flop with ace-king but lost to Isaac Baron’s pocket queens. A jack-high board propelled Baron up the leaderboard and sent Stakelis home and that fast start was to be followed up on by another big name hitting the dust.

Ben Rolle was short-stacked when he busted in eighth place for $651,921. Shoving pre-flop with ace-queen, he couldn’t hit against Baron’s pocket pair as yet again the American held. His pocket nines started ahead and after the flop of 9-8-6, the writing was on the wall for the German player who was eliminated to leave Baron in the lead with seven left.

Akimov Accrues the Chips

A flurry of eliminations led to the chip lead changing hands with regularity as players battled to make the business end of the biggest online poker tournament ever in terms of prize money. Chinese player Hai Pan was eliminated in seventh place for $845,342 and after his exit, that left the only U.S. player at the final table felt as the chip leader with 91 bigs.

Belarussian professional and serial GG MILLION$ crusher Ilya Anatski chose this time to move all-in with ace-jack of diamonds before Baron called with pocket deuces. They stayed ahead on the flop and struck another deuce on the turn before the drawing dead player Anatski left after the meaningless river to claim $1,096,180.

Down to five, the next to go was the Portuguese player Diogo Coelho. All-in from the big blind with , he lost to his countryman Rui Ferreira’s as a queen-high board with no help for Coelho meant the at-risk player hit the rail for a score of $1,421,478. With four left, Ferreira looked to have timed his run to perfection, sitting on over 165 million chips and the outright lead, but there was plenty to come in turns of twists in the tale.

Dietrich Dusts Off Akimov

With Moritz Dietrich (85m) Ferreira’s nearest challenger, Evgenii Akimov (65m) and Isaac Baron (45m) were shorter still and needed to improve. Akimov won a series of no showdown pots and as he climbed the ranks, others dropped back. So it was that when Baron pushed all-in with , Akimov made the move to call with . A flop of saw the Russian hit top set and seemingly seal a vital double-up but a on the turn gave the possibility of a flush or straight and an on the river gave the Russian a fortunate pot and sent Baron’s hopes into the bin for a score of $1,843,337 in fourth place.

Rui Ferreira was suddenly at risk of losing his tournament life and when he moved all-in with ace-king, Akimov called again with six-four. Incredibly, it won again, as the Russian – who had the – found four more spades for a devastating flush to sent the Portuguese player home with $2,390,418.

With 301 million chips, Akimov was a massive chip leader, with six times Dietrich’s stack. Undeterred, the Austrian player built his chips back to almost level ahead of the pivotal hand, Akimov rivering two-pair with king-jack but losing to Dietrich who had made a Broadway straight when his opponent’s cards landed on turn and river.

Now ahead by the same amount he’d started the heads-up battle behind, Moritz Dietrich had the WSOP bracelet when eight-deuce called it off on a board where the eight had paired and Akimov bluffed with just a gutshot straight draw. That draw didn’t come in on the river as a seven or nine that was needed failed to materialize, leaving Dietrich to collect the biggest prize of his career and the gold WSOP bracelet.

You can watch all the action as it happened right here in the company of Jeff Gross and Phil Laak: