We’re rolling into the final weekend for WCOOP 2009, as it was Event #34 wrapping up in the wee hours of the morning. This event was a $215 no-limit Hold’em tournament featuring “big antes” from the start. The guarantee was set at $500,000, but as has been the trend in the WCOOP, the guarantee was just a stepping stone to the final prize pool. A total of 3,650 players entered, bloating the total prize to $730k.
There was little doubt that plenty of the PokerStars Pros would make it for this one with a prize like that on the line. The list of pros included Chris Moneymaker, Chad Brown, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Elky – Bertrand Grospellier and Humberto Brenes. The popular Costa Rican, Brenes, was the big winner of the pros. However, he wont be retiring on his 239th place finish – a win of $474.50.
PokerStars tried to pump up the action and aggression in this tournament by collecting antes from the very first hand. That meant that sitting around for the nuts would be tough, as the more aggressive players would just take pot after pot, building their stacks. However, even with the “big antes”, it was over 14 hours until the final table bubble finally burst, sending the final nine to a very coveted position in a tournament such as this. Even 9th place would be guaranteed over $5,800, but everyone was gunning for the 1st place prize of over $100k!
The top nine players held the following chip stacks heading into the final table:
Seat 1: 72good with 1,935,503 in chips
Seat 2: PokerProGG with 2,185,321 in chips
Seat 3: Raoeoiku with 866,555 in chips
Seat 4: JUNFI with 247,593 in chips
Seat 5: Artiecat with 859,772 in chips
Seat 6: vara33 with 3,227,438 in chips
Seat 7: Koln4ever with 4,886,063 in chips
Seat 8: Shark 00100 with 1,115,769 in chips
Seat 9: joeppiej with 2,925,986 in chips
After the long battle to get to the main stage, it only took about a half-hour for three players to be quickly eliminated. Then things changed considerably, as the players slowed down a little. This event started at 2:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, but it wasn’t until early Thursday morning that play got down to three-handed.
When there were three, the players – Koln4ever, vara33, and PokerProGG, decided to discuss a deal. The host of this tournament, PokerStars Pro Tom McEvoy, moderated the discussion and announced the final deal numbers to which the players agreed. PokerStars had set a rule that $10,000 must be set aside for the eventual winner, but other than that, the players agreed that Koln4ever would get $98,282.70, vara33 would get $83,779.11, and PokerProGG would take $68,183.19.
vera33 would be the next eliminated, and thus probably most happy about the deal. That put Koln4ever and PokerProGG heads-up, with Koln4ever have a dominating lead of over 16 million in chips to about 1.9 million for PokerProGG. It didn’t take long for the final hand to come, as PokerProGG pushed with AK pre-flop and was called by the 33 of Koln4ever. The board was no help to PokerProGG and he was eliminated in second place. That left the $10,000 extra prize money as well as the title of WCOOP Champion to Koln4ever.
Final Table Results:
1st place: Koln4ever – $108,282.70 (after Final Table deal)
2nd place: PokerProGG – $68,183.19 (after FT deal)
3rd place: vara33 – $83,779.11 (after FT deal)
4th place: Shark 00100 – $41,975.00
5th place: joeppiej – $31,025.00
6th place: Raoeoiku – $23,725.00
7th place: Artiecat – $16,425.00
8th place: 72good – $9,125.00
9th place: JUNFI – $5,840.00