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September 26th 2006
WCOOP: second-biggest tournament in online poker history
On the surface Event # 10 of the PokerStars.com World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) was just another Sunday Million tournament with a different name. After all, it took place on the same day and at the same time and featured the same $1 million guarantee.
There was a slight difference however. This time instead of around 1000 players competing for a prize pool of around $1 million there were 2,458 players competing for a prize pool of $2,458,000, the biggest in the history of online poker. First place paid $442,440.
When the final table was set there were a couple of players that stood out above the rest. One was ‘strassa2’ (Jason Strasser) whose fearsome reputation as a top online player was augmented by the fact that with $2 million, he held a $1 million chip lead over second placed ‘razeit’. The other player attracting attention was a certain ‘BarnyBoatman’ who began in fourth place. Apparently he was not the famous Hendon Mobster, though that did not stop the railbirds from wondering.
First out was ‘Pipestew’ who fell at the hands of razeit after he called the short-stacks all-in with 88. An 8 on the flop gave razeit trips and left Pipestew with little hope of catching up with KQ.
A few minutes later and the table was down to seven after ‘sappy123’ moved all-in over the top of strassa2 with AQ. strassa2 pondered and then called with pocket eights, and amazingly an eight arrived on the flop again, giving strassa2 a $3 million plus pot. Just six hands later and strassa2 had put another player to the sword. This time it was his opponent who held the pocket eights, but there was to be no magical third set, and instead strassa2, who had been caught on a steal with T-2, caught two-pair to vanquish his severely shortstacked opponent.
In that run of 12 hands the table had said goodbye to three players and watched helplessly as strassa2 built his stack up to $5.5 million (3 times that of second place). A much needed rest arrived in the form of 30 hands without a knockout, but then, apparently revitalised, the table shot back into life, with 3 eliminations in six hands.
First out was ‘NNICOLAS’ who pushed with KJ after his stack had been crippled to just over $300k. ‘MaltLiquor40’ called with A4 and hit trip fours to claim the knockout blow. Following quickly behind was razeit who re-raised BarnyBoatman all-in with AQ only for BarnyBoatman to call with pocket kings. BarnyBoatman was at it again a few seconds later; this time he had AQ and his opponent, MaltLiquor40 had a high pocket pair with jacks. The luck was in BarnyBoatman’s favour however, and an ace on the turn put BarnyBoatman in second chip position with three remaining.
At this point, as was expected, the deal negations began, but a stubborn strassa2 derailed the talks when he demanded more than an additional $20,000 over the chip-count formula. It proved a sensible decision.
With the cards back in play again ‘thugmoneymkr’ made the first inroads, nearly doubling through BarnyBoatman after the latter player called a huge bet on the river with just ace high, thinking thugmoneymkr was on a steal. In fact he had trip threes. A dozen hands later and Boatman was out, running his A6 into strassa2’s AQ. He nearly got very lucky after a six fell on the flop, but a queen on the river put paid to that.
When heads-up began strassa2 had 70 percent of the chips on the table and despite losing a $1.6 million pot after ten hands strassa2 was clearly determined to hang on to the chip lead he had held since before the final table began. The end came only a few hands later, when strassa2 check-called thugmoneymkr’s raises before moving all-in on the turn. With the board showing 8-9-8-J thugmoneymkr typed in “gotta call ya” and did just that, showing AJ for two pair. Strassa2 however held J9 for top two pair, and held on for the victory.
Final table result and payouts:
1st - strassa2 - $442,440
2nd - thugmoneymkr - $266,693
3rd - BarnyBoatman - $155,345.60
4th - MaltLiquor40 - $129,045
5th - razeit - $105,694
6th - NNICOLAS - $82,343
7th - elementry - $61,450
8th - sappy123 - $46,702
9th - Pipestew - $28,267
Submitted: 26/09/2006 11:38:30
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