One of the most appealing factors of the annual WCOOP is that it offers a little bit of everything, tailoring to the varying preferences of online poker players from all over the world. Event #27 of this year’s WCOOP was no exception as it provided a twist that the previous 26 events did not. In this event ($530 NLHE Triple Shootout), players participated in three single table tournaments, and finishing in second place in any of them meant the player was finished.
The hero of this event, “TheActionKid”, dominated all three tables he played on, outlasting the other 729 players that entered this No Limit Hold’em Triple Shootout event. In just short of 16 hours of play, he took home a cool $76,545 cut of the full $364,500 prize pool. Just barely shy of first was SgtKyle who placed 2nd overall for a total prize of $51,030.
The Final Table was comprised of the following players:
Seat 1: lipster99 5,000
Seat 2 Jorj95 5,000
Seat 3: tictac 5,000
Seat 4: porcelet 5,000
Seat 5: TheActionKid 5,000
Seat 6: WiscoMurray 5,000
Seat 7: SgtKyle 5,000
Seat 8: Rip_Cheese 5,000
Seat 9: ElkY 5,000
PokerStars Pro, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, made the final table and worked his way up to 5th place, where he reached his very own dead end in this event. Fifth place scored him a nice $20,047.50 win. ElkY’s effort in this tournament only added to the huge success he had over the last couple weeks in the 2008 WCOOP. He cashed in $320,000 for a big 2nd place finish in this year’s Event #19, $14,561 for a 14th place finish in Event #20, $10,950 for a 15th place finish in Event #23 and the $8,070 he scored for a 12th place finish in Event #25.
Not much time passed at all until the first player was eliminated from the Final Table. Poker can be grueling at times, especially when you get your money in with the best hand and wind up short. Tictac endured this feeling when he hit a set of fours against eventual 2nd place finisher SgtKyle’s two pair (sixes and fours). Sure enough, a six on the river completed SgtKyle’s much needed full house for the win, sending tictac to the rail.
After the initial elimination, cautious play ensued for the next hour and a half, leading to WiscoMurray’s exit in 8th place. Wisco hit top pair top kicker on the flop with all his chips on the line. ElkY made the call with a set of sixes which was further made better as he hit a full house on the river.
Several moments later porcelet was eliminated after he pushed his small stack all in with pocket sixes. Lipster99 made a snap call with big slick and lady luck awarded him a king on the flop to take porcelet out in 7th place. Porcelet also made the final table of Event #28 later that day!
Further displaying their cautious nature, the remaining six players continued on for another 2 hours without any elimination. During this time there were very few all-ins at all. Then out of nowhere lipster99 exited the scene in 7th place. A few hands later ElkY made his 5th place exit. The very next hand after ElkY’s elimination, Jorj95 was taken out of the tournament.
Lipster99 had all his chips in against SgtKyle’s pocket sevens which made a set on the flop. ElkY had AQ over SgtKyle’s KJ but to no avail, SgtKyle hit a nut flush over ElkY’s two pair. SgtKyle dominated this table and quickly gained chip leader status early on. It wasn’t until heads up play that he would meet his match.
TheActionKid gained a good portion of chips by taking Jorj95 out with pocket sixes against Jorj’s 45suited. Rip_Cheese, who remained under the radar to this point was crippled in a hand vs. TheActionKid, and taken out only a couple minutes later by SgtKyle. This left SgtKyle (33,708 chips) and TheActionKid(11,202 chips) to battle it out for first place.
TheActionKid turned the tables around in a much needed hand with top pair against SgtKyle’s missed straight flush draw. As quickly as the last four players left, the tournament was over as TheActionKid won it over with quad eights. It was a grand finale of a finish for this Event #27 – A challenging, nail biting tournament indeed.
WCOOP Event #27: $530 No-Limit Hold ‘Em Triple Shootout:
1. TheActionKid $76,545.00
2. SgtKyle $51,030.00
3. Rip_Cheese $36,450.00
4. Jorj95 $27,337.50
5. ElkY $20,047.50
6. lipster99 $14,580.00
7. porcelet $10,206.00
8. WiscoMurray $6,561.00
9. tictac $3,645.00