The three-week, 70-event long World Championship of Online Poker is coming to an end on PokerStars, but there are still more bracelets left to be claimed.
Joel "jbrown8777" Brown has been consistently picking up cashes for the last three weeks, and today he picked up a WCOOP bracelet as well after topping a field of 2,119 to win Event $65, a $700 buy-in six-handed no-limit hold'em tournament featuring progressive super-knockout bounties. Between his first-place prize and all of the bounties Brown earned, Brown walked away with a cool $142,377.55 to go along with his first WCOOP bracelet.
That big field meant a total prize pool of $1,409,135, half of which was split by the top 276 finishers and the other half went toward those progressive super-KO bounties.
Not long after the bubble burst on Saturday, it was 2014 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event winner Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz sitting on top of the counts with over 360,000 chips at a time when his nearest challenger only had around 225,000.
A couple of hours later they were down under 100 players, with Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez having moved into the top spot with Holz still in the top five.
Play continued through the end of the 28th twenty-minute level, with the field narrowing to just 42 players to end the first day of play. Russia's AironVega had grabbed the top spot before the last hands were dealt Saturday. Here's how the top of the counts looked overnight:
1. AironVega (Russia) -- 1,000,705
2. Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz (Austria) -- 961,349
3. Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna (Malta) -- 799,766
4. Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez (Finland) -- 696,429
5. huiiiiiiiiii (Austria) -- 696,429
6. mr.valerius (Russia) -- 678,044
7. VaRiAnCe_BF (United Kingdom) -- 637,744
8. Dtorres1 (Canada) -- 583,665
9. FaceRolly (Romania) -- 568,990
10. uremyatm (Denmark) -- 568,794
Also still in the hunt with below average chips were a couple of members of Team PokerStars Pro Online, Jorge "Baalim" Limon (in 29th position) and Grzegorz "DaWarsaw" Mikielewicz (in 34th).
On Day 2 it took an hour for the field to be trimmed to 30, with Grzegorz "DaWarsaw" Mikielewicz among the fallen in 37th for $2,113.70 plus $2,867.78 worth of bounties. An hour after that they were down to 19, with sanjizzy the new chip leader, Team PokerStars Pro Online's Jorge "Baalim" Limon in second position, and Holz and Rodriguez occupying the next two spots in the counts.
Forty-five minutes later they were down to 12, with Limon the new chip leader as the only player with more than 3 million.
VaRiAnCe_BF (12th), byoon (11th), and pokerturo (10th) would next go out, each picking up $6,482.02 from the regular prize pool plus the bounties they'd collected. Then mahmuttt88 went out in ninth, and after losing a couple of big hands Limon slipped from the top of the leaderboard to the bottom before falling in eighth.
A short while later sanjizzy finally went out in seventh to burst the final table bubble, like mahmuttt88 and Limon earning $9,863.94 plus bounties.
Nearly five hours into Day 2 the final table was set, with Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez back in first.
Seat 1: Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz (Austria) -- 1,582,398
Seat 2: Joel "jbrown8777" Brown (Canada) -- 2,401,480
Seat 3: Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna (Malta) -- 1,813,256
Seat 4: advenje (Netherlands) -- 1,269,128
Seat 5: Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez (Finland) -- 4,601,156
Seat 6: huiiiiiiiiii (Austria) -- 4,225,082
Just a few hands into the final table, the blinds were 40,000/80,000 when Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna open-raised all in from the small blind and advenje called all in from the big blind for nearly 1.03 million. P.Iv3Y had [Qd][6d] and advenje [Ks][Qs], and when the board came [Ac][5h][6s][2d][As] P.Iv3Y had aces and sixes to knock advenje out in sixth.
After that Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz found himself the short stack, and with the blinds up to 50,000/100,000 open-pushed his stack of about 1.36 million from the cutoff, getting called by Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez in the big blind. Holz had [Ah][Qs] but had run into Rodriguez's [Ad][Kd], then when the flop came [5d][Jd][3d] Holz was already drawing dead to finish fifth.
That makes Holz's sixth cash of this year's WCOOP, including another final table in the $51K Super High Roller (Event #47).
Rodriguez was in front with four players left, but Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna stole the chip lead away after winning a big all-in with pocket sevens against Rodriguez's pocket tens when four hearts came to give Martiradonna a flush.
It wasn't long after that Rodriguez was open-shoving for a little over 1.38 million (not quite 14 BBs) from the button with [9h][9d], then huiiiiiiiiii reraise-pushed from the small blind to isolate with [Ac][Kc]. The board rolled out [Tc][7h][3c][Jc][3s], meaning Rodriguez had fallen to another flush to exit in fourth.
That makes 10 cashes for Rodriguez in this year's WCOOP!
Just five hands later, Joel "jbrown8777" Brown opened with a 2x raise to 200,000 from the button, Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna three-bet to 586,425 from the small blind, Brown reraise-pushed all in and Martiradonna called all in with the 3,744,098 he had left behind.
Martiradonna showed [As][Qs] and needed help versus Brown's [As][Ks]. But the board brought five low cards -- [2s][8c][4c][Jc][7d] -- and Martiradonna was done in third.
Brown had nearly a 2-to-1 edge to begin heads-up play with 10,238,382 to huiiiiiiiiii's 5,654,118. Brown was making his eighth cash of the 2015 WCOOP while huiiiiiiiiii was making a seventh cash, but both were looking for a first bracelet.
After more than 20 minutes of battling between the pair the gap had narrowed considerably, with Brown only slightly ahead when two decisive hands happened in succession to end the tournament in rapid fashion.
In the first, Brown opened the action with a 2x raise to 280,000 from the button. huiiiiiiiiii responded with a three-bet to 770,000, Brown called, and the flop came [6s][4s][Qd]. huiiiiiiiiii check-called a bet of 700,000 from Brown, then check-called another bet of 1.54 million after the [3c] turn.
The river was the [7d] and both players checked this time. huiiiiiiiiii showed [Jd][Js] for jacks, but Brown's [Qs][Tc] for queens was better and huiiiiiiiiii was back down under 4.7 million.
The tournament's last hand then began with a button-raise to 280,000 by huiiiiiiiiii, called by Brown. The flop came [Qh][Th][6d], and it was Brown doing the check-calling this time after huiiiiiiiiii continued for 309,400. The turn was the [7s]. Brown checked again, huiiiiiiiiii hired 721,550 this time, and Brown called once more.
The river brought the [2c] and one more check by Brown. huiiiiiiiiii bet small -- 157,890 -- and Brown responded with a check-raise shove all in. huiiiiiiiiii called with the 3,181,100 left behind, turning over [Qd][Js] for a pair of queens.
But queen-ten had proven best for Brown again as he turned over [Qs][Td] for two pair, and it was all over -- Brown had won.
Congratulations to Joel "jbrown8777" Brown, Event #65 champion!
WCOOP-65: $700 NL Hold'em (6-Max, Progressive Super-Knockout)
Entries: 2,119
Total prize pool: $1,409,135 (half regular, half bounties)
Places paid: 276
1. Joel "jbrown8777" Brown (Canada) $110,970.75 (+ $31,406.80 in bounties)
2. huiiiiiiiiii (Austria) $82,786.68 (+$21,009.65 in bounties)
3. Mariano "P.Iv3Y" Martiradonna (Malta) $61,649.65 (+ $15,158.15 in bounties)
4. Luis "Turko_man" Rodriguez (Finland) $40,512.63 (+ $24,469.68 in bounties)
5. Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz (Austria) $26,421.28 (+ $7.798.07 bounties)
6. advenje (Netherlands) $14,866.37 (+ $3,766.56 bounties)
Check out results from the WCOOP as well as the last exciting changes on the WCOOP Player of the Series leaderboard over at the the WCOOP page.
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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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