The World Championship of Online Poker is back!  With a huge variety of tournaments spanning the next 17 days, this year’s WCOOP could possibly be PokerStars best. Kicking things off was Event #1, a $200+$15 buy-in NL 6-max Freeze-Out with a $1,250,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The tournament easily eclipsed its guarantee, as 8,538 players created a massive $1,707,600 prize pool. To put it in perspective, the Sunday Million last week had one of its biggest prize pools of the year, just under $1.8 Million.

Two players entered the final table with nearly identical stacks. “ChopSueyyyy” and “MMalipo” started the final-six with nearly t8,000,000 chips, or nearly 80BB’s.

Seat 1: LosChief (16714975 in chips)
Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (7669138 in chips)
Seat 3: JP OSU (3517313 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (7736246 in chips)
Seat 5: shuriken555 (2624087 in chips)
Seat 6: Futuro (4428241 in chips)

The first final table casualty occurred just two hands in. “Futuro” opened UTG and was faced with a 3bet from the BB, “shuriken555”. All the money went in before the flop, with Futuro’s JJ holding against his opponent’s 99:

Seat 1: LosChief (16702475 in chips)
Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (7794138 in chips)
Seat 3: JP OSU (3342313 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (7491246 in chips)
Seat 5: shuriken555 (2944087 in chips)
Seat 6: Futuro (4415741 in chips)
MMalipo: posts small blind 50000
shuriken555: posts big blind 100000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Futuro: raises 155000 to 255000
LosChief: folds
ChopSueyyy: folds
JP OSU: folds
MMalipo: folds
shuriken555: raises 495000 to 750000
Futuro: raises 1750000 to 2500000
shuriken555: raises 431587 to 2931587 and is all-in
Futuro: calls 431587
*** FLOP *** [8h 5h 7d]
*** TURN *** [8h 5h 7d] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [8h 5h 7d Th] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
shuriken555: shows [9h 9d] (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
Futuro: shows [Jd Js] (two pair, Jacks and Sevens)
Futuro collected 5988174 from pot

Busting in 5th place was “JP OSU”, a solid tournament player who had six $20,000+ scores to his name entering this final table. Unfortunately for him he was on the wrong side of a cooler, as his pocket Jacks ran into pocket Aces:

Seat 1: LosChief (14150975 in chips)
Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (11378137 in chips)
Seat 3: JP OSU (2795092 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (8799188 in chips)
Seat 6: Futuro (5566608 in chips)
LosChief: posts small blind 50000
ChopSueyyy: posts big blind 100000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
JP OSU: raises 122222 to 222222
MMalipo: folds
Futuro: folds
LosChief: folds
ChopSueyyy: raises 345668 to 567890
JP OSU: raises 2214702 to 2782592 and is all-in
ChopSueyyy: calls 2214702
*** FLOP *** [Qh 6d Th]
*** TURN *** [Qh 6d Th] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [Qh 6d Th 2h] [2c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ChopSueyyy: shows [Ac Ad] (two pair, Aces and Deuces)
JP OSU: shows [Jh Js] (two pair, Jacks and Deuces)
ChopSueyyy collected 5677684 from pot

“LosChief”, who had been fairly quiet, was the next to go, busting in 4th place for a $68k payday:

Seat 1: LosChief (4270342 in chips)
Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (27162336 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (5612360 in chips)
Seat 6: Futuro (5644962 in chips)
ChopSueyyy: posts small blind 80000
MMalipo: posts big blind 160000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Futuro: folds
LosChief: raises 240000 to 400000
ChopSueyyy: raises 712222 to 1112222
MMalipo: folds
LosChief: raises 3138120 to 4250342 and is all-in
ChopSueyyy: calls 3138120
*** FLOP *** [Ts Ks 6d]
*** TURN *** [Ts Ks 6d] [Qd]
*** RIVER *** [Ts Ks 6d Qd] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ChopSueyyy: shows [As Kh] (a pair of Kings)
LosChief: shows [8s 8d] (a pair of Eights)
ChopSueyyy collected 8740684 from pot

“Futuro”, a player with out a $10,000+ recorded score to his name on PokerStars, changed all of that last night, as he took home 3rd place and nearly $120,000 for his efforts:

Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (31711592 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (8609824 in chips)
Seat 6: Futuro (2368584 in chips)
ChopSueyyy: posts small blind 125000
MMalipo: posts big blind 250000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Futuro: raises 360000 to 610000
ChopSueyyy: folds
MMalipo: raises 7968574 to 8578574 and is all-in
Futuro: calls 1727334 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (6241240) returned to MMalipo
*** FLOP *** [7c 5s 6h]
*** TURN *** [7c 5s 6h] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [7c 5s 6h 2h] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MMalipo: shows [9s 9d] (a pair of Nines)
Futuro: shows [Kh 7d] (a pair of Sevens)
MMalipo collected 4893418 from pot

The final two players were your two final table chip leaders, ChopSueyyy and MMalipo. The players agreed to a chip chop which left them $25,000 to play for. In the end it was ChopSueyyy, another player with little success on PokerStars, taking home the title and over $234,000:

Seat 2: ChopSueyyy (36804209 in chips)
Seat 4: MMalipo (5885791 in chips)
ChopSueyyy: posts small blind 150000
MMalipo: posts big blind 300000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
ChopSueyyy: raises 366666 to 666666
MMalipo: raises 5181625 to 5848291 and is all-in
ChopSueyyy: calls 5181625
*** FLOP *** [9h As 5c]
*** TURN *** [9h As 5c] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [9h As 5c 6c] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MMalipo: shows [Th Qc] (high card Ace)
ChopSueyyy: shows [Ac 8s] (a pair of Aces)
ChopSueyyy collected 11771582 from pot

PokerStars 2009 WCOOP Event #1 $1.25M Guaranteed
8,538 Entrants; $1,707,600 prize pool

1. ChopSueyyy $234,421.82
2. MMalipo $183.940.20
3. Futuro $119,532.01
4. LosChief $68,304.0)
5. JP OSU $34,152.0)
6. shuriken555 $23,940.56