WCOOP: Six-figure score for BBZ coach Bungakat, a title for student ‘Trotmant’

We’re not even a week into the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars and the BBZ Poker community already has plenty to celebrate.

The preeminent online poker series began on Sunday (September 4) and two prominent members of the BBZ team–one a head coach, the other a diligent student–have banked huge scores to kick their WCOOP series off with a bang.

BBZ’s own Jargo “Bungakat” Alaväli made a Day 2 on opening day and returned on Monday (Sep 5) night to play down to a winner in Event #4, a $1,050 8-Max event with $1.34 million in the prize pool.

ICM wizard Bungakat made it all the way to three-handed out of the 1,343 entrants but ended up short-stacked and card-dead and couldn’t forge a comeback. He fell in third place for $108,618–an incredible start to a series with plenty still to go. The title would go to Bulgaria’s “gettingpwned” ($208,485).

Not content with that, Bungakat was back on the grind on Tuesday night (Sep 6) and ended up taking down the ever-popular $530 Bounty Builder on PokerStars (the favorite tournament of both Lex Veldhuis and Fintan Hand).

He overcame a reg-heavy 245-entry field to win it all for $10,803 plus a monstrous $17,273 in bounties. That final table included the likes of Alex “pwndidi” Theologis and Andras “probirs” Nemeth.

Meanwhile, we already have a first-time WCOOP champion from our community.

BBZ student “Trotmant” took down the $55 PKO (#8) for $26,658 plus $18,610 in bounties, defeating a massive 9,900-entry field for a new career high.

“Incredible job and a ton of dedication and work ethic leading up to this!! Congratulations!!!” wrote Jordan “bigbluffzinc” Drummond in our Discord.

That’s because Trotmant–a 38-year-old from London–first came to BBZ Poker at the beginning of 2020 when he was, by his own admission, a “shit low-stakes reg”. But then he started studying with BBZ.

He joined BBZ’s Coaching for Profit programme and with that came rapid improvements in his play, which only continued as he climbed up through the online tournament stakes. Then, on June 4 2021, he “came of age” when he took down a $525 Bounty Hunters High Roller on GGPoker for a then career-best $24,045 score ($9,209 plus $14,835 in bounties).

He’s now smashed that.

“Getting better at poker is a process,” Trotmant told us. “You’re going to make mistakes as you try to learn new strategies and often you might get a little worse before you get better. So it’s really important to realise it’s a journey and it’s not a quick one.

“BBZ will provide you with all the support and tools you need to succeed, but at the end of the day, you still need to do the hard work yourself. This doesn’t account for variance, being patient and understanding that it can be normal to lose for a long time in tournaments. Many people give up far too soon or aren’t prepared to do the hard work that is required.”

You can read our full interview with WCOOP champion Trotmant here.