Patrick Serda Wins WCOOP High Roller For $469,191

(Photo: CBC.ca)

The highs and lows of the WCOOP continued yesterday when Patrick ‘prepstyle71’ Serda took down the $10,300 High Roller for $468,181, fighting off a host of huge names among the 244 runners to lift the title.

Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom, Chris "Moorman1" Moorman, the recently unmaskedLinus ‘LlinusLLove’ Loeliger, Liv Boeree, Philip Gruissem and many other notables were in the mix on day 9 of the online festival, all attracted by the $1.5million guarantee and ther kudos that go with lifting a high roller title.

Canadian Serda hit the headlines last year when he met Wiliam Kassouf heads-up in the EPT Prague 10K high-roller, agreeing to a deal with the talented but loud-mouthed Englishman which saw him take the lion’s share of the prizefund while Kassouf walked off with the trophy.

As PokerTube reported at the time, ‘The rather bizarre deal, reminiscent of the earliest days of the WSOP when nobody wanted the gaze of the gambling world on them, saw Serda agree to a heads-up deal without playing a single hand. Serda wanted the lion’s share of the money (€719,000) while Kassouf was happy to take the title and the trophy (plus a not-so-shabby €532,500!).’

Serda, however, found time to dispute the ‘facts’ in a tweet midway through his WCOOP title run…despite HendonMob and every other report stating otherwise…

In any event, Serda walked off with yesterday’s biggest WCOOP payday which saw a busy schedule crown 9 other champs, his field whittled down to 32 players for the start of day 2, only 31 of whom would be filling their pockets.

As the PokerStars blog stated: ‘In the end ‘pampa27’ had the unfortunate distinction of bubble boy after busting out of the event in the first five minutes of play… likely a small amount of relief to Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree who was also fighting from the short stack. Fortunately for Boeree, she lasted long enough to collect $22k for 30th place.’

The final table saw a number of players working on ‘refugee status’, including Australia’s ‘ROFLshove’, recent changes in the Australian gambling laws which have seen PokerStars depart meaning that he couldn’t play at home even if he wanted to.

When Serda eventually found himself heads-up against  ‘KumariOy’, talk of a deal was given short-shrift by the Russian…

prepstyle71: i know youre rich but do you wnat to look at all?

KumariOy: no ty

… obviously intent on adding to his title haul having scooped the $1050 Sunday Million back on day 1 of the WCOOP series for $310,290.

It wasn’t to be KumariOy’s day this time though, the dramatic finale described on the PS blog thus: ‘The final hand of the tournament proved to be a blockbuster with prepstyle71 flopping a set of fours against KumariOy's two-pair of kings and nines. KumariOy shoved the turn, and prepstyle71 called him as the 90.9% favorite heading to the river.

A meaningless J♠ peeled off the river, and prepstyle71 ended the day the exact same way he started it: on top.’

WCOOP-09-H: $10,300 NLHE High Roller Final Table Results