The internet is alive with the sound of tournament poker. The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker has been taking place this month, offering poker pros and rookies alike a shot at their share of the staggering $50,000,000 in guaranteed prize pools. Thus far in the series a great deal of fun has been had by all involved and an even larger amount of cash handed out. As we hurtle towards the end of the series, one of the fastest events around, the Event 52 Turbo, was taking place this week.
A turbo tournament is simply a tournament designed to take place over a much shorter period of time. This is achieved by a variety of simple changes to the tournament. Normally players start with shorter stacks than they otherwise would, the jump in blinds is larger and occurs more frequently, and players have less time bank available with which to make their decisions. This exciting format makes for a fast-paced tournament where aggression is king, as waiting around for premium hands is simply too costly with the blinds growing ever bigger.
2,379 people registered for the Turbo Event, whether by winning their ticket in one of the many satellite tournaments being run, or by buying in outright for the reasonable sum of $320. The $400,000 guarantee was almost doubled, with the final cash sum coming to an exciting $713,700, which in turn guaranteed the winner $114,192.72 – not a bad score for a tournament that only lasted four hours!
bbbbb33 knocked out third-place getter Suleiman08 as the chips went in on a coin-flip, and heads-up play commenced against would-be runner-up Kinch18. The two were practically dead even in chips, and it looked to be a nail-biter as there is never much room to move in heads up play at the end of a tournament, especially given the rapidly escalating blinds. Shortly into play, Kinch18 picked the wrong time to check-raise bluff on a flop where bbbbb33 had hit top pair. The hand gave bbbbb33 a 4:1 chip advantage, and as the chips went all in two hands later bbbbb33 had the best of it with his A3o against Kinch18’s KJo. The board ran out T5236, changing nothing, and thereby giving bbbbb33 the tournament title and $114,192.72 in prize money.
This year’s WCOOP is admittedly slowly coming to an end, but it’s by no means over yet. There’s still plenty more action to follow, and if you’re an avid player yourself then there’s still a lot of time to get registered for some exciting events. For as little as $1.10 you can satellite into the PokerStars WCOOP Main Event, in which the winner is guaranteed $2,000,000 and the total prize pool is five times that!
The official final table results are as follows:
1. bbbbb33 – 114,192.72
2. Kinch18 – $85,644
3. Suleiman08 – $62,163.27
4. sundalyonly – $42,822
5. Zackattak13 – $32,116.50
6. MSilence – $24,979.50
7. dedonno85 – $17,842.50
8. SLPhenomenal – $12,132.90
9. rdog7811 – $6,423.30