This is it. The culmination of the largest annual online poker tournament in the world – The World Championship of Online Poker. Brought to you by… who else, the largest online poker site in the world, PokerStars. The Main Event is the tournament to win in any tournament series, and the WCOOP Main Event is definitely no exception. The $5,000 + $200 event featured an astounding $10 million guaranteed prize pool! It drew the best of the best from around the poker world, including many of the PokerStars Pros themselves. A total of 2,144 participants entered the tournament, raising the prize to $10,720,000 and making millionaires of the top two finishers. This was a scheduled two day event with Day 1 ending after level 22.
Joining professional players such as Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Peter Eastgate, Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousso, were stars from other parts of the world with enough money to play poker with the big boys and the amateurs with a dream. If you played in the Main Event you may have held a virtual seat next to the likes of Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame, former pitching great Orel Hershiser, or former tennis superstar Boris Becker, as all three took their shot at the million dollar payday.
Unfortunately for the pros, Day 1 was not too kind, as all but one were among the 1,966 players eliminated by the end of the first day. Only German PokerStars Pro Jan Heitmann remained, in 47th place. He would end up going out in 141st place, collecting $13,936 for the effort.
Here’s the top 10 leaders in chips at the end of day 1:
1. TheMasterJ33 – 925,921 chips
2. pakd650 – 776,413 chips
3. 5902838181 – 734,682 chips
4. SexSeen – 696,659 chips
5. HEMIpowerSWT – 695,540 chips
6. GIVE_IT2 – 654,843 chips
7. Jovial Gent – 632,010 chips
8. reddeevil – 611,559 chips
9. GtRealGtOut – 580,712 chips
10. djk123 – 555,410 chips
Many of the leaders found it tough to stay on top throughout the day though as even the chip leader at the start of the day was gone fairly quickly. TheMasterJ33 couldn’t make it past 87th place, but still took home $17,152.
A few of the Day 1 leaders did continue their good fortune, however. The final table featured 3 players who battled through day 2 to make it to the last 9 standing. The chip leader was djk123, with over 12 million in chips. Next was another survivor, Jovial Gent, with over 10 million in chips. The remaining 7 players and their chip counts were:
Udon Wannit – 4,549,346
reddeevil – 4,222,220
Chong94 – 3,857,482
PeachyMer – 3,617,956
Xaston – 2,150,576
Supa4real – 1,004,760
Mudvaynes – 700,486
Eventually, it would come down to the final two players, Jovial Gent and Udon Wannit, with Gent holding a commanding 3 to 1 chip lead going into heads-up play. His lead would hold as the players didn’t take long to get it in. The final hand saw Jovial Gent flop 2 pair with K6 and Udon Wannit playing very aggressive with his pair of sixes and that was the end of the tournament and the end of another great WCOOP series.
Final table finish and payouts:
1st place: Jovial Gent – $1,715,200.00
2nd place: Udon Wannit – $1,286,400.00
3rd place: reddeevil – $933,712.00
4th place: djk123 – $643,200.00
5th place: Xaston – $482,400.00
6th place: Chong94 – $375,200.00
7th place: Mudvaynes – $268,000.00
8th place: Supa4real – $182,240.00
9th place: PeachyMer – $96,480.00