The numbers get more staggering every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s midweek or midnight, the players are entering WCOOP events at a staggering rate. For the $215 4-max No-Limit Hold ‘Em Event #9 there were an impressive 3,290 entries. Only three events in last year’s WCOOP had more players.
Actually, there were 3,290 players in Event #9, but not participants. Isabelle “NoMercy” Mercier never arrived at the tables. She was eventually blinded out. Amazingly, she still finished in 1,802nd place, finishing better than more than 1,400 participants.
There were, however, plenty of Team PokerStars pros in the event. Humberto Brenes, Barry Greenstein, Tom McEvoy, Luca Pagano and Alex Kravchenko were just some of the big names to participate. Kravchenko had the best result, finishing 26th.
While the early action was fierce, with players getting eliminated from the shorthanded tables at an astonishing pace, it slowed down considerably at the end. The final five competitors desperately wanted that $95,410 slated for first place out of the $685,000 prize pool. Nobody was willing to shove his or her chips in the middle without serious deliberation.
It turned out that Event #9 belonged to Europe. Four of the final five players were Europeans. The final three were Scandinavians, including eventual winner jonasof87. The Norwegian emerged victorious from a marathon final table, outlasting Swedish player emiwarg. Norwegian EirikS finished third and American 3232 took fourth.
Here is where they all stood entering the final table:
The final table — consisting of only four players — took almost two and a half hours. Here was the early chip count:
1. jonasof87 3,001,309
2. 3232 2,324,442
3. EirikS 2,319,637
4. emiwarg 2,224,612
Not long into the final table, jonasof87 took a big hit with a busted flush draw. But that would not slow him down. Slowly but surely jonasof87 built his stack back up, putting himself in decent position to win the tournament.
The key hand came when jonasof87 tangled with third-place finisher EirikS. After being patient for so long, jonasof87 re-raised all-in pre-flop with Ad-5d. EirikS had pocket eights. The board produced a bunch of blanks, but the turn brought the magical ace. It gave jonasof87 life, and that was all he needed. From there on, the tournament belonged to jonasof87. He took out all three final table competitors himself.
The first elimination of the final table came after over two hours of final four play. jonas87 had trip kings to dispose of fourth-place finisher 3232. He then finished off EirikS with A-Q vs. A-6.
The winning hand came with jonas87’s K-Jo vs. emiwarg’s pocket nines. jonas87 hit a Broadway straight on the turn to end the tournament and complete the European domination. In particular, there was no stopping the Scandinavian’s in this event.
2008 WCOOP Event #9 Final Table Results
1. jonasof87 (Norway) $95,410.00
2. emiwarg (Sweden) $55,930.00
3. EirikS (Norway) $36,190.00
4. 3232 (United States) $26,320.00
Congratulations to jonasof87! For more information about WCOOP Event #9, see the live blog. To watch the final table in its entirety, go to PokerStars.tv.
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