WCOOP 2014 Kicks Off on Poker Stars

The most prestigious online tournament series is back. World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2014 has kicked off last night with the $109 No Limit Hold'em event of the fitting title - 'WCOOP Kickoff'. The very first event attracted more than 10,000 runners and that enabled the winner, RahvusKala of Estonia to take home the prize of $137,290!

The huge prize pool of $1,012,900 was divided amongst top 1,350 players and top eight players were all guaranteed to take home five-figure sums. Top two, however, would walk away with the money in excess of $100K - a sick value for a hundred bucks investment.

The 'WCOOP Kickoff' was a two-day event and by the time tournament was six hours underway, it was already into three digits, with just 669 players still standing. Well, some of them may have been standing, but probably most were sitting behind their computer screens. The field continued to shrink rapidly and as the last hand of the day was dealt, only 32 players had virtual chips to return to today. At that point, it was 'luis_faria' of Portugal leading the way with close to 5.6 million in chips, more than a million ahead of German 'Mutombooh'.

Refreshed and ready for action, the players grabbed their mice and other types of controllers to finish what they have started, and there was no lack of action. It took only about two and a half hours to reach the final table of nine. The Day 2 leader, ‘luis_faira’, failed to keep up the pace and was eliminated in the process, claiming 16th place and the prize of $2,532.

As final table got under way, players continued to show no fear. Already on the fourth hand, ‘Mutombooh’ ($7,090) hit the rail, quickly followed by ‘Hasseh922’ ($11,141). Next two to go were ‘MG10tze’ ($20,258) and ‘call2light’ ($30.387).

The play continued as despite some players’ willingness to discuss the deal, others were refusing and that meant the big pay jumps were going nowhere. Soon after failed deal negotiations ‘Kabotajoe’, last German at the final table, was ousted in fifth place, earning $40,516. He was soon joined by ‘Brendy88’ whose fourth place finish was good for $50,645.

Three handed play was marked by the Russian player ‘Drogbaaaaaaa’ who was able to come back from the verge of elimination when his pocket Eights found the way out against pocket Queens of 'RahvusKala', but he was still destined to finish in third when his Kings fell against the suited connectors of the same player.

This left ‘RahvusKala’ of Estonia and Denmark’s ‘7.045.pptY’ to battle for the first place, but at this stage players were finally ready for the deal. They left $14,000 to play for with Estonian getting about $10K more from the deal. He added further $14K to that, when he finally brought the Dane to his knees for a grand total of $137,290. ‘7.045.pptY’ took $113,771 for his efforts.

This year’s WCOOP will feature total of 66 events, with all sorts of buy-ins and games to fit everybody’s taste. We will be bringing you the most important highlights as the Series crowns new champions and pad some pockets with some serious cash, especially with the $10 million guaranteed Main Event!