Lee Davy brings you a round up of the first 10-events of the PokerStars World Championships of Online Poker.
The greatest online poker series in the world is in full effect: 70-events, $45m in guaranteed prize money, a $10m guaranteed Main Event and $51,000 buy-in Super-Duper High Roller.
It’s the PokerStars World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) and here is a quick run down of the highlights of the first 10-events.
John “Blessed” Duthie is a Late Night Poker champion, a Poker Million winner, and the creator of the European Poker Tour (EPT). He was also the most prominent name to make the final table of Event #1: $109 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Re-Entry, where he finished runner-up to the Costa Rican based player, and former Super Tuesday winner, RcknTheSbrbs.
It was the first event in WCOOP history to be held over three separate phases. The new format created a gargantuan 17,130 entrants, ensuring the $1,713,000 gathered at the door dwarfed the $1.5m guarantee. Other notables to run deep were Adam “Adamyid” Owen (4th) and Raphael “tiarc” Wimmer (8th). RcknTheSbrbs picked up $200,352 for the win; Duthie would have to settle for $145,605.
Event #2: $215 NLHE 6-Max attracted 5,135 players. That poured over a million coins into the kitty, and Juswhackit, from Ecuador, beat Brazil’s Robi.gool in a South American heads-up battle. The Ecuadorian earned $156,617.50 for the win; Robi.gool banked $112,970.
The third event of the series was the first of three $10,300 buy-in events, and it began with the heads-up format. The eventual winner was one of the most feared online cash game players in the world. Mikael “ChaoRen160” Thuritz beating the Russian forhayley in the final to claim the $196,000 first prize.
56-players ensured the $300k guarantee was smashed. David “MissOracle” Yan and Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy made it through to the quarterfinals. Forhayley defeated the likes of Doug “WCGRider” Polk, Ankush “pistons87” Mandavia and David “MissOracle” Yann to make the final; Thuritz took the scalp of Ivan “Negriin” Luca en route to the final.
The Sunday Million became Event #4. The $215 buy-in event attracted 8,673 players. Once again the guarantee was breached (this time $1.7m+ beating the $1.5m on offer), and the UK based players maintained their great start with victory for V7JCV21. The first prize payout was $260,193.87. Uruguayan based komarolo22 earned $190,806 for second place.
Halfway through the first 10-events and we stumble across the most stacked final table thus far. Event #5: $215+R NLHE 6-Max attracted 1,256 entrants, 1,304 rebuys and 980 add-ons. That created a $708k prize pool, once again beating the guarantee on offer from Stars.
The title found its way to Mother Russia after MiracleQ cut a three-way deal to take the $101,575.49 first prize. Christopher “Lissi stinkt” Frank (2nd) and David “EzPaTuLa” Cabrera (3rd) were the other recipients of that deal: David “davidv1213” Vamplew (4th) and Nick “FU_15”Maimone (5th) also found their way to the final table.
Matt ‘plattsburgh’ Vengrin is the first former champion to claim a 2015 WCOOP title. Vengrin, who won a $320 NLHE event last year, took the $90,157.72 first prize in Event #6: $700 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) 6-Max after beating Gavin ‘gavz101’ Cochrane from the UK in HU; Cochrane walked away with $66,480.05. 769 players entered, and their $511,385 donation easily beat the $300k guarantee.
No event attracted more media coverage than Event #7: $700 NLHE Progressive Super-Knockout. A certain Jason ‘jcarver’ Somerville managed to sneak onto the final table whilst streaming on Twitch for 10hrs+ straight. Somerville would ultimately come up short, finishing in sixth place, but he set a new Twitch record with 37,000 simultaneous viewers.
1,843 entrants created a total prize pool of $1.2m+ and Showtime43 from Canada took home $98,048.91 + $28,470.05 in bounties after beating Austria’s Keep3r in HU action. Somerville earned $22,673.50 + $15,666.29 in bounties during his deep run.
Only one of the first 10-events was a non-NLHE or PLO event. Event #8: $700 NL Single Draw 2-7 Championship attracted 134 players. The prize pool reached $89,110 – beating the $50,000 guarantee – and once again it was a UK-based player taking the honors.
Kashmir-uzi putting bullets into everyone to walk away with $20,718.11 first prize. It was another cracking final table with Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (5th), Ami “UhhMee” Barer (6th) and Mohsin “sms9231” Charania (7th) all making an appearance.
Two more events to catch up on and we will start with the Special Edition Super Tuesday. 1,722 players ponied up the $1,050 entry fee, creating a $1.7m+ prize pool, and William “hellzito” Arruda cut a deal with bullyboy1978 after a tumultuous heads-up marathon that lasted in excess of five hours. Arruda bagged $259,202.80 and bullyboy1978 bagged $240,17720. Tom “tollgate” Grigg (3rd) and Phil “Grindation” Mcallister (4th) also featured on the final table.
The final event of this round up is Event #10: $215 FL Hold’em 6-Max. The $75k GTD event attracted 549 entrants, created a $109,800 prize pool, and the Brazilian based player Reidir defeated Russia’s Dancer King to take the $20,862 first prize and hit the top spot on the WCOOP Player of the Series Leaderboard. UK’s talented Tom “Jabracada” Hall finished fifth.
