The 2008 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker certainly did not disappoint online poker fans with drama and big prize totals. Concluding on Monday night, the second of two days of the $5,200 buy-in Main Event was, according to a press release distributed by PokerStars on Tuesday, “the largest online poker tournament ever held”.
One player reveling in the limelight was the main event winner, Chingusc who pocketed a cool $1.2 million – one of the largest amounts of money ever awarded in an online poker tournament.
The 22 year old student from South Carolina otherwise known as Carter King eventually placed 1st in the event; capturing the WCOOP Main Event bracelet in the process, only four months after his 6th place finish in the FTOPS $2,500 event for $101k.
There were 2,185 entrants in the Main Event, creating a total prize pool of $10.9 million, which means that the tournament surpassed its guarantee by 9%. Overall, the WCOOP awarded nearly $40 million in prize money in 33 events.
Team PokerStars Pro member Bertrand “ElkY“Grospellier led the online poker room’s contingent, cashing seven times for over $400,000, including a 21st place finish in the Main Event. He commented, “The WCOOP is a great tournament to play in preparation for upcoming events like EPT London and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. The prize pool is enormous and there is such an incredible variety of players and styles. No other online tournament compares to the WCOOP.”
The international event saw players from Gibraltar, Iran, Uganda, Bahrain, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Luxembourg, and even the Faroe Islands cash. Interestingly, Americans took two-thirds of the total number of bracelets up for grabs, or 22. Canada, Norway, and Sweden each took two.
The final nine players hailed from six different countries. In the end, here’s how the payouts looked after a five-way chop:
1st Place: ckingusc, $1,265,432.23 (United States)
2nd Place: liberace, $1,375,249.81 (United Kingdom)
3rd Place: AJKHoosier1, $782,542.90 (United States)
4th Place: Markush13, $961,718.76 (Belarus)
5th Place: ShoesRDurrty, $801,153.80 (United States)
6th Place: Sumpas, $415,150.00 (Sweden)
7th Place: klslcz, $305,900.00 (United States)
8th Place: BOLLPOKER, $196,650.00 (France)
9th Place: kovi99, $121,267.50 (Austria)
All told, the WCOOP represented a highly-successful tournament series for PokerStars, which accepts U.S. players. The site’s marquee tournament is the Sunday Million, which runs every weekend at 14:30 ET. It comes with a buy-in of $215 and guarantees at least a $1.5 million prize pool. It’s the largest weekly online poker tournament held.
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