Pokerstars’ 2011 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is off to a flying start with two events attracting over 17 000 entrants alone.
On Sunday more than 7,500 hopefuls went into action on the first day of the tournament, entering the first of the events, a $200 No-Limit Hold?em Six-Max Two-Day with a one million dollar guaranteed prize pool.
That was followed by another big field of 10,107 players who registered for event 3, a $200 No-Limit Hold?em Two-Day.
Whilst those events are still running, there has been one high roller WCOOP event decided already, with a winner declared from the 200 entrants in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold?em High Roller event, which convincingly bust through the $1.25 million guaranteed prize pool as big name players lined up to get in on the virtual action.
The final table was soon distilled down to chip leader Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee on 464,693, who was chased by Skilled G (414,743); Evan “SenorPokes” Jarvis (275,219); Tobias “PokerNoob999” Reinkemeier (258,933); MatchBalla (238,785); xraypies (139,394); Ashley “DYBYDX” Mason (84,062); roi kin23 (76,435) and Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese as the low stack man on 47,736.
The heads up was reached with the elimination of McPhee in third place, which still gave him a respectable payday of $235 000. That left Ashley Mason facing xraypies in the grand finale, with Mason holding an almost 4 to 1 chip lead that dictated a fast end to the game, and Mason emerging the winner and claiming the main prize of $430 000.
His opponent earned a runner up prize worth $310 000.
The excitement and action on the giant Pokerstars site was marred Monday evening European time when the site crashed in the midst of a plethora of MTT and cash games, upsetting literally thousands of players and igniting discussion on the top online poker forums.
The technical glitch lasted less than an hour, but site management faced a monumental task of getting the tournaments running again, with players being advised:
“All tournaments have been paused while we attempt to resolve the issue affecting gameplay. Tournaments will resume as soon as possible. When we are ready to resume, we will post a 5-minute warning before doing so.”
They were good to their word, although debate on the disruption and the consequences and possible compensation to players continued as we went to press.