Throughout the 2010 World Championship of Poker there have been plenty of big buy-in events with huge paydays. Actually, some of the smallest fields have produced the biggest prize pools, especially the re-buy events. A great example of this was Event #53, the $500+$30 re-buy championship which finished up early Friday morning. The tournament only attracted 837 players, but they were some of the world’s best live and online poker professionals. These players are not only quite skilled but they showed off their deep pockets by re-buying 1,041 times. Over 600 players also added on at the first break which built the prize pool to an impressive $1,257,500. With over $227,000 slated for first, it was going to be quite a fight to the finish.
The higher buy-in events typically result in two things, a field full of pros and a solid final table. Event 53 was certainly no exception as a handful of PokerStars sponsored professionals were joined by the best online players in the world. Some of the more notable PokerStars pros in the field were Johhny Lodden, Steve “stevejpa” Paul-Ambrose, Noah “Exclusive” Boeken, Chris “Money800” Moneymaker, Vanessa Selbst, and George “Jorj95” Lind. Martin “AABenjaminAA” Hruby had the best finish of the sponsored professionals as he took 25th place and a $6,036 payday for his efforts.
As the final table neared there were necessary casualties. Among those who just missed out on big money included early chipleader Chad “lilholdem954” Bautista, James “Andy McLEOD” Obst, Jon “Sketchy1” Eaton, and Stephen “allinstevie” Devlin. Even with a bunch of well known players falling by the wayside the final table was still quite strong. The chip-leader, “Nikolay5″ was a former PokerStars Sunday Million Champion who had more than 4,000,000 chips entering the final table. Only a few other players had over 1,000,000 chips including Tommy “TMoney0209” Miller and Eric “Ericb09” Blair. Blair nearly won a SCOOP major last year when he final tabled a $1,050 buy-in event and took 4th place for $183,885.
Seat 1: TMoney0209 (1,831,886 in chips)
Seat 2: KingKaizers (4,056,416 in chips)
Seat 3: Ericb09 (1,488,787 in chips)
Seat 4: AboulRon (760,391 in chips)
Seat 5: DDBeast (786,837 in chips)
Seat 6: KevBoyStar (873,612 in chips)
Seat 7: rickwaa (861,180 in chips)
Seat 8: justdec (3,1739,98 in chips)
Seat 9: Nikolay5 (334,393 in chips)
While KingKaizers used his chip advantage to reach heads-up play he was joined by a player who did not hold such an edge starting the final table. While a short-stack might be an uncomfortable situation for most it certainly was not for “DDBeast” who is one of the best SNG grinders in PokerStars history. The high-stakes SNG grinder has made more than $300,000 from the fast paced tournaments which place a premium on understanding late game strategies and short stack play. DDBeast was able to move his way up throughout the final table where he ultimately found himself heads-up with KingKaizers. The battle did not last long as the two decided upon a chip-chop based on chip counts and left just $20,000 on the table in a winner-take-all format. At the time of the chop DDBeast held a sizable chiplead and earned more than $14,000 than KingKaizers before the chop. Still, with $20,000 on the table there was still plenty to battle over including a WCOOP bracelet. With KingKaizers whittled down to just 12 Big Blinds he found an Ace and went with it. While he got all of his money in with the best hand he was just a small favorite over DDBeast’s K8 suited. The river, an eight of clubs, was an unfortunate one of the short-stack as it eliminated him in 2nd place and sent him home with a $178,163 payday. DDBeast, who before yesterday did not have a six-figure score to his name on Stars, took down Event 53 and more than $212,000!
Seat 2: KingKaizers (1799316 in chips)
Seat 5: DDBeast (12368184 in chips)
KingKaizers: posts small blind 50000
DDBeast: posts big blind 100000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
KingKaizers: raises 100000 to 200000
DDBeast: raises 1900000 to 2100000
KingKaizers: calls 1586816 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (313184) returned to DDBeast
*** FLOP *** [2h 2s 3h]
*** TURN *** [2h 2s 3h] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [2h 2s 3h Th] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DDBeast: shows [Ks 8s] (two pair, Eights and Deuces)
KingKaizers: shows [5h Ad] (a pair of Deuces)
DDBeast collected 3598632 from pot
Congratulations goes to DDBeast and all 108 players making the money in Event 53!
PokerStars 2010 WCOOP Event #53 $1,000,000 Guaranteed
837 Entrants, 1,041 re-buys, 637 add-ons; $1,257,500 prize pool
*2-way chop
1. DDBeast $212,919
2. KingKaizers $178,163
3. KevBoyStar $122,606
4. justdec $91,797
5. TMoney0209 $64,761
6. rickwaa $52,186
7. Ericb09 $39,611
8. AboulRon $27,790
9. Nikolay5 $16,096