The World Championship of Online Poker sped things up a bit with Event #19. The $109 buy-in tournament was unique in that levels were only ten minutes long. This made it different than standard turbo tournaments that rely extensively on luck, though the excitement of constant all-in shoves is still prevalent. The prize pool was a guaranteed $1.25 million. PokerStars had to lay extra money down since only 11,085 players registered to play.
Many players from Team PokerStars registered for the tournament including World Series of Poker champions Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Cada. Other PokerStars players included Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Vanessa Rousso, Humberto Brenes, and David Williams. Due to the nature of the tournament, it did not take long for the final table to form:
Seat 1 – oncecajun – 6,608,773
Seat 2 – dogsballs – 6,965,076
Seat 3 – damaven – 3,860,386
Seat 4 – Cairns1987 – 2,589,857
Seat 5 – bagnus – 1,209,088
Seat 6 – Buzlbar – 1,272,080
Seat 7 – pierreguay – 2,484,966
Seat 8 – hoodskier – 4,137,770
Seat 9 – DSchec – 4,127,004
Heads-up play surfaced rather quickly between dogsballs and Dschec. Dogsballs took an early lead but Dschec continued his aggressive play to get back on top. The tournament ended rather quickly when both players went all-in. Dogsballs’ AhKs went up against Dschec’s pocket deuces. The Jc5d6s7cJd lost the coin flip for dogsballs. Dschec turned his $109 investment into a $175,000 payday while dogsballs won $127,500 for his second place finish. The total payout table was as follows:
1st – Dschec – $175,000
2nd – dogsballs – $127,500
3rd – hoodskier – $90,000
4th – bagnus – $62,500
5th – Cairns1987 – $50,000
6th – Buzibar – $37,500
7th – oncecajun – $25,000
8th – damaven – $12,500
9th – pierreguay – $8,500