A short round-up of the latest action at the PokerStars World Championships of Online Poker including another seven-figure score for Fedor Holz; a victory for charity, and a young Pole sweeping all before him.
When I saw Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz was 20-1 to win the PokerStars World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) $102,000 Super High Roller (SHR) it struck me that the bookmakers have a lot to learn about the betting odds in poker.
Fortunately, my retirement from sports betting means I never took the bet, because although he made it to heads-up, and chopped the remaining $2.24m with the Swedish Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) winner, Bencb789, he didn’t win the final hand.
Still, it was another headline-grabbing moment for a man who seemingly can do no wrong. He has zoomed towards the top end of the All Time Live Tournament Charts on Hendon Mob with over $20m earned in the past couple of years, but he doesn’t do bad online either, winning the 2014 WCOOP Main Event along with his most recent $1,067,639.40 consolation prize.
28 players competed in the largest buy-in event in online poker history, and four of them were nutso enough to fire a second bullet. One of those players was Jason Mercier, who also streamed his action live on Twitch, allowing people like Holz to see his hole cards on a 15-minute delay. The other three were Talal ‘raidalot’ Shakerchi, Timofey ‘Trueteller’ Kuznetsov, and OtB_RedBaron.
Last year’s $51,000 WCOOP SHR winner, Ben “Ben86” Tollerene finished 13th, and Igor ‘lechuckpoker’ Kurganov and Isaac ‘philivey2694’ Haxton made it as far as the final table before falling short of the money.
The winner, Bencb789 picked up $1,172,360.60 for the win, and the only other player to cash, apart from Holz, was Safshb from the UK who took third for $560,000.
Charity is the Biggest Winner in The Sunday Million
Igor Kurganov’s final table appearance in the $102,000 SHR must have gotten the number crunchers at Raising For Effective Giving (REG) excited, but the board member ultimately came home empty handed.
Fortunately, for the effective altruists, one of their members did rather better in the shape of Roman ‘RomeOpro’ Romanovskiy. The Ukrainian recently pledged to donate 50% of any winnings earned between August 23 – December 29 to charity, with 50% of those winnings heading to REG, and the other half going towards the elderly and people affected by the war in Ukraine.
And what a start it has been for those respective charities after Romanovskiy finished second in the WCOOP Sunday Million Special Edition. The Ukrainian lost out to the Argentinean, leitalopez, after a fierce three-hour heads-up battle. Leitalopez picked up $298,927.63 for the win, and Romanovskiy earned $214,929.95. 3,109 players entered the $700 buy-in.
The Best of the Rest
Joel ‘jbrown8777′ Brown won his second WCOOP title in successive years after topping the 1,718 entrant field in Event #24: $530 buy-in No-Limit Progressive KO (last year’s WCOOP win was also in a KO game). Brown walked away with the $97,819.34 first prize and $14,218.80 in bounties.
The young Polish star Dzmitry ‘Colisea’ Urbanovich won his fourth COOP title and $54,217.80 first prize in Event #25 $1,050 No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Championships, 6-Max. The event featured 283 entrants, and Australian Poker Hall of Famer Billy “crocky” Argyros was third and Benny ‘toweliestar’ Spindler was fourth.
Finally, Christian “CMoosepower” Elgstrom from Denmark won Event #19: $1,050 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship for $34,028. The event attracted 168 entrants, and Elgstrom defeated Mike ‘goleafsgoeh’ Leah in heads-up action. Stephen ‘stevie444′ Chidwick finished fourth, and Jason ‘jcarverpoker’ Somerville gave his Twitch fans something to cheer about with an eighth place finish.
