The World Championship of Online Poker’s Event 29 proved to be a huge success this past Friday. The 6-max, No-Limit Texas Hold’em rebuy event pulled 852 players for a total of 1,011 rebuys and 658 add-ons. With the buy-in at $530, the prize pool far exceeded the $400,000 guarantee. It hit a whopping $1,260,500. The top 132 players landed in the money, but only one was lucky enough to walk away with the bracelet. toto hk , of the United States, claimed the victory and took $211,133.76 in winnings.
Many Team PokerStars Pros showed up for this event. Andre Akkari, Noah Boeken, Humberto Brenes, Chad Brown, Bill Chen, Vicky Coren, Alexandre Gomes, Gavin Griffin, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Joe Hachem, Hevad Khan, Alex Kravchenko, Tom McEvoy, Dario Minieri, Chris Moneymaker, Lee Nelson, Luca Pagano, Steve Paul-Ambrose, Raymond Rahme, Victor Ramdin, Greg Raymer, Vanessa Rousso, and Katja Thater all wanted a slice of the action. Only Boeken and ElkY made it to the money.
Here’s the starting line-up for the final table:
Seat 1: grunter321 1,247,525
Seat 2: AceOfSpade11 3,212,254
Seat 3: DuckU 3,000,127
Seat 4: PiKappRaider 2,442,144
Seat 5: isuckoutonu 1,305,742
Seat 6: Roothlus 1,508,208
The first one to hit the rail was Roothlus. PiKappRaider called Roothlus’s all-in move and it was pocket queens versus pocket jacks, respectively. With 7d-As-3d-4c-Ks on the board, Roothlus was out of luck and settled for sixth place. A half hour later, grunter321 was next. Again, pocket jacks couldn’t do the trick. AceOfSpade11 held pocket kings, and the board cards Tc-3d-2h-8d-Qh couldn’t save grunter321. He left Event 29 holding fifth place. The next battle was between isuckoutonu and short stack DuckU. Both players hit a pair of aces when the flop fell 3h-7c-2d-6c-Ac, but DuckU’s king was just a notch higher than isuckoutonu’s kicker. Isuckoutonu got fourth place and DuckU, the Event 5 second place finisher, moved on to the final three.
At this point, the clock was stopped to discuss a potential deal. DuckU, though still the short stack, kept insisting on receiving second place prize money or else he wouldn’t agree to a deal. Ultimately, no deal was made and the three continued.
PiKappRaider charged to the chip lead and made it clear that he was taking this tournament down. DuckU remained the weaker stack and when he landed pocket fives, he made his move and shoved all-in. He was up against chip leader PiKappRaider who had pocket eights. DuckU must have been praying for another five, but it didn’t show up. Instead the board showed Ad-6s-3c-Ks-Ts. DuckU finished in third place.
PiKappRaider and AceOfSpade11 entered heads-up play. PiKappRaider had 8,456,478 chips, nearly double of AceOfSpade11′s 4,259,522. AceOfSpade11 had to endure fifteen minutes of rough play before he was able to make a move. With Jh-Th in hand, AceOfSpade11 raised to 120,000 pre-flop and PiKappRaider called. The flop rolled out Jd-7c-9s. AceOfSpade11 then raised to 180,000, which PiKappRaider quickly check raised to 480,000. AceOfSpade11 then pushed all-in. PiKappRaider called and the cards were shown – Js-9h. PiKappRaider had hit two pair on the flop, putting him as the favorite. A turn of 5s and a river of As proved to be no help for AceOfSpade11. PiKappRaider took first place, the bracelet, and $211,133.76 in prize money. AceOfSpade11 took second place and a nice $157,562.51.
