The 2010 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker is currently underway, and host to a great variety of different events. Among the more popular are the two-day events being run, and one such tournament took place this week. APowers1968 proved he had what it takes to outwit and outlast his opponents over a grueling two days of poker, and he walked away with the prize money, the title and the prestigious PokerStars gold bracelet.
Two day events receive mixed reception from the poker community. On the one hand there are those who feel that breaking a tournament up over two days gives the players involved a decent rest and leads to higher quality play and thought as the tournament progresses into the deeper stages of day two. The other camp argues that two day events are much more grueling than their single day counterparts, and that the break loses the rhythm of the tournament. Fortunately in this year’s WCOOP there are enough events to go around, and so players can pick and choose to their liking!
1,224 players showed their enthusiasm for the format, and with a $1,000 +$50 buy-in that’s no whimsical show of support. Of course there were those who gained entry into the event via the many satellite tournaments PokerStars had on offer, but even that takes a substantial display of will to avoid having to have a substantial wallet. The Million dollar guarantee did of course act as an incentive to these players, and in the end the prize pool exceeded this coming in at $1,224,000, with first place alone worth $213,955.20.
No deal was come to in Event 48, with the players instead choosing to battle it out. The final table started to look very empty as third-place getter Timinator6 was bullied out of the tournament by the massive stack of soon-to-be runner-up vluff, and only two players remained.
APowers1968 had an almost 8:1 chip deficit against the monster stacked vluff as heads up play commenced, but he didn’t let that deter him. Doubling up very early on and then scoring another big pot soon after, APowers1968 let it be known that he wasn’t just going to lie down and hand over the bracelet. With a few more chips now in his stack, he ramped up the aggression and soon gained the chip lead, and kept pushing until he found himself with more than a 5:1 chip lead.
A comeback turned out to not only be on the cards for APoker1968, however, and vluff showed his metal forcing his way back into the chip lead. There was brief discussion of a chop but no deal seemed to satisfy both players, and so play continued. Perhaps they would have been more ready to accept the chop if they had known play was going to take another two hours before a victor was left standing. Eventually it was APowers1968 who doubled-up and then finished the job, eliminating vluff in second place. APowers1968 walks away with $213,955.20, the title and the gold bracelet while vluff walked away with $155,448.00 for his second second place finish of this series.
There aren’t many events left in this year’s World Championship of Online Poker, but there’s no shortage of money still up for grabs. The Main Event has a $10,000,000 guarantee, with first place promised a staggering $2,000,000 prize. You can satellite into this tournament from as little as $1.10, so why not try out the ACR Poker Download today and start practicing for your tournament debut!
The official final table results are as follows:
1st place: APowers1968 ($213,955.20)
2nd place: vluff ($155,448.00)
3rd place: Timinator6 ($116,280.00)
4th place: USCphildo ($86,904.00)
5th place: antesvante ($61,200.00)
6th place: watchTheSea ($48,960.00)
7th place: TH@NKS_U ($36,720.00)
8th place: AlwaysFelted ($24,480.00)
9th place: GripDsNutz ($14,076.00)