PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker

9/8/09 - The current edition of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) continued to pack 'em in at the weekend with Event 9 - the $215 buy-in NLHE competition alone attracting an entry field of some 11 131 players, and the following event, number 10, registering 300 poker aces prepared to pay the $10 300 buy-in for the High Roller action. 
 
The High Roller field generated a prize pool of almost $3 million, which meant that the main prize - won by a Swedish player from Linkoping using the handle Sumpas - came in at $611 455. Sumpas survived the star-sprinkled field to enter the heads up with a 5 to 1 chip lead over the experienced Mike Sowers. It still took the unknown Swede another hour to put Sowers away in second place with a $448 500 runner-up cash.
 
It was Sumpas's second major win - he reportedly finished deep in the WCOOP Main Event last year for a take-home of $415 150.
 
The two had bested some of the most well known names in poker, including Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Peter Eastgate, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Rousso, Ylon Schwartz, Steve Paul-Ambrose, J.C. Alvarado, Katja Thater, William Thorson, Dennis Phillips, Alexandre Gomes, John Duthie and Hevad Khan. On the final table itself were the likes of Kevin Saul, Scott Freeman, Pete Traply, and Dustin Dorrance-Bowman.
 
Six figure payouts went all the way down to the 7th player on the High Roller final table this year.
 
The giant 11 131 player entry field for Event 9 - the $215 buy-in NLHE tourney created a prize pool of over $2.25 million, generating a main prize of $303 876 and highglighting once again the interest in online poker competitions of this nature.
 
The 20 hour competition turned out to be something of an endurance as well as skill test, which was won by a Slovakian player using the handle 'ternoplayer' who made a remarkable recovery from starting heads up against 'maxisou' at a significant chip disadvantage to gaining the ascendancy and finally claiming the main $303 876 prize. Maxisou's second placing was worth $214 828, with the six figure paydays extending to 4th place.
 
Thus far the WCOOP has lived up to expectations in terms of overtaking the generous guarantees provided by PokerStars - of the eight events played as InfoPowa went to press, only three failed to reach the guaranteed prizepool limit and required relatively small top-ups from the organiser. $5.1 million has been paid to contestants thus far, whilst almost 25 500 players have participated from 124 nations across the globe.