It was a fittingly action-heavy final weekend for this year's WCOOP with Daniel Negreanu, Scott Sever and Alex Kostritsyn making final tables.
Yesterday also saw George Danzer fall short in his bid for 2012 WCOOP POY as he busted out of the Main Event still trailing Norway’s mikal12345 by 65 points.
Here’s a complete recap of all the action on the final weekend of the 2012 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker.
Event 60 $700 Pot-Limit Omaha [Heads-Up]
Russian online player Danya Kop beat nine rounds worth of heads-up opponents to win $54,211 in the Heads-Up PLO event yesterday.
One of those events you won’t find at the WSOP, Event 60 drew 418 players to create a prize pool of $280,060.
The event drew plenty of Team PokerStars Pros with Jason Mercier, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Raymond Wu and Vivian Im all trying to prove their Heads-Up PLO supremacy.
Lex Veldhuis was the only PokerStars pro who made the money, however, and even he fell out of contention in the round of 32.
The round of 16 was lacking big-name players but Danya Kop certainly didn’t care as he easily busted his opponent yeffshin.
Kop went on to beat d-mon-d, jedimaster82 and then finally Mefisto6661 to claim his first WCOOP bracelet.
Here’s a look at the final-eight payouts:
Champion: Danya Kop (Russia) -- $54,211.40* Runner-up: Mefisto6661 (Russia) -- $52,211.40* 3rd (tie): egor1987 (Gemany) -- $19,604.20 3rd (tie): jedimaster82 (Sweden) -- $19,604.20 5th (tie): TryToExploit (Poland) -- $8,961.92 5th (tie): Gakn29 (Canada) -- $8,961.92 5th (tie): d-mon-d (Norway) -- $8,961.92 5th (tie): Asul (Romania) -- $8,961.92
Event 61 $320 No-Limit Hold’em [SuperKnockout]
Online player Zackmorris99 survived an ultra-competitive field to take the title and $81,119 cash in Event 61.
A total of 3,355 players bought into the bounty tournament to create a main prize pool of $516k and an equal amount of $516k set aside for bounties.
The Team PokerStars Pros hit the virtual felt hard with Daniel Negreanu, Lex Veldhuis, Randy “nanonoko” Lew, George Danzer, David Williams, Angel Guillen and Sandra Naujoks all looking to make a big score in the tournament.
Victor Ramdin made the deepest run of them all, eventually finishing in 15th place for $2,454.
Recent Partouche Poker Tour winner Ole “wizowizo” Schemion made the final table third in chips with 2.6 million.
Schemion made a great run but eventually hit the rail in fifth place to take down a $22k consolation prize.
Meanwhile Zackmorris99 would pull off an incredible upset by beating selinantis heads-up. Zackmorris99 entered heads-up play with only 3.8 million chips to selinantis’ 12.9 million.
Here are the complete final-table payouts:
1. zackmorris99 (Mexico) $81,119.32 2. selinantis (Lithuania) $60,450.39 3. anthonyff (United Kingdom) $42,893.94 4. m_2508 (Austria) $29,708.52 5. wizowizo (Germany) $22,216.81 6. gangst3m1 (Germany) $17,050.11 7. pixigirl123 (Denmark) $11,883.41 8. Sahara08 (Denmark) $6,716.71 9. Liz00n (Russia) $4,133.36
Event 62 $2,100 HORSE
Alex “joiso” Kostritsyn narrowly missed out on his second WCOOP bracelet by coming in second place in Event 62.
The $2,110 HORSE event attracted a pro-heavy 165-player field who combined to create a $330,000 prize pool.
As expected there were plenty of Team PokerStars Pros on hand with Daniel Negreanu, David Williams, Jose Barbero, Eugene Katchalov and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier all looking to do some damage.
Chad Brown, who already has one WCOOP final table this year, was the only Team Pro who made it into the money.
Brown eventually hit the rail in 13th place to collect $5,775 in prize money.
Event 62 was somewhat of a marathon affair with over 12 hours needed just to reach the final table of eight players.
Kostritsyn entered the final table as one of the shorter stacks but that didn’t stop him from immediately chipping up.
In the end the Russian pro finally busted in second when online player babyjess28 hit a full house during a round of Stud-8. Kostritsyn also made the final table of Event 57 on Friday.
Here are the final-table payouts:
1st babyjess28 (Canada) - $71,775 2nd joiso (Russia) - $51,150 3rd paulgees81 (Canada) - $39,600 4th chopi7 (Russia) - $28,050 5th PICKLED EGG (Brazil) - $18,150 6th muchbetter (Brazil) - $14,850 7th TIETYMM (Germany) - $11,550 8th NoraFlum (Mexico) - $9,075
Event 64 $10,300 8-Game High Roller
Jason Mercier outlasted Daniel Negreanu and Niki Jedlicka to win his second WCOOP bracelet in arguably the toughest final table of the 2012 series.
The high-roller tournament drew 93 of the best eight-game players in the world with $930,000 up for grabs in prize money.
Ville Wahlbeck, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Theo Jorgensen, George Danzer, David Williams and Eugene Katchalov were among the numerous high-stakes pros who signed up for the tough tournament.
Three-time WCOOP bracelet winner Anders “Donald” Berg bubbled the final table coming in seventh place.
The final table still had some serious star-power with Scott “gunning4you” Seiver, Ben Yu, Jedlicka, Negreanu and Mercier all chasing a new WCOOP bracelet. Really the only non-high-profile player was Ireland’s Gozoboro.
Seiver entered the final table as the chip leader but was surprisingly the first player to fall.
Negreanu, who has never won a WCOOP bracelet, made it to three-handed but had the misfortune of going from chip leader to out in under 10 minutes during a round of Limit Hold’em.
That paved the way for a heads-up match between Mercier and Irish opponent Gozoboro.
Gozoboro and Mercier entered heads-up nearly even in chips but in Mercier proved unstoppable, taking down the $253,425 for first place and his second WCOOP title.
Here are the complete final-table payouts:
1. Jason Mercier (Canada) $253,425.00 2. Gozoboro (Ireland) $169,725.00 3. Daniel Negreanu (Canada) $130,200.00 4. Niki "RealAndyBeal" Jedlicka (Austria) $88,350.00 5. Ben "BensBenz" Yu (Mexico) $65,100.00 6. Scott "gunning4you" Seiver (Canada) $48,825.00
Event 65 $5,200 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event – Day 1
The 2012 WCOOP Main Event started with a bang yesterday drawing 1,825 to create a staggering $9.1 million prize pool with $1.6 million set aside for first place.
The prize pool nearly doubles the original guarantee, which was already set at a hefty $5 million.
Mike “munchenHB” Telker finished atop the chip counts with 587,433 chips but Mike “Timex” McDonald, Ole “wizowizo” Schemion, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Mickey Petersen and Kevin “WizardofAhhs” Thurman all made it to Day 2 as well.
Vanessa Selbst, George Lind, Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown, Martin Staszko, Ville Wahlbeck, Theo Jorgensen and Daniel Negreanu were among the 1,500+ players who busted on Day 1.
Even RaiseOnce (the rumored account of Phil Ivey) played the massive tournament although he busted in 773rd place.
A total of 245 players booked their ticket to Day 2 of the contest. The money begins at 225 players left so the bubble will burst early on Day 2.
Action resumes at 14:30 ET today. Here are the top 10 chip leaders heading into Day 2:
1. munchenHB (Cyprus) -- 587,433 2. moukari6 (Finland) -- 536,563 3. hnidel (Czech Republic) -- 442,654 4. JRADF79 (Belgium) -- 422,268 5. The Lag rat (Costa Rica) -- 416,817 6. sly caveat (Portugal) -- 409,459 7. SNG Grind_15 (Norway) -- 405,168 8. Rens02 (Netherlands) -- 385,579 9. leech4555 (South Korea) -- 369,185 10. NL_Profit (Russia) -- 362,355Visit www.pokerlistings.com