WCOOP 2014 sees nearly $58 Million Awarded as Prizes
Tuesday Morning saw this year’s World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) come to an end with the WCOOP Main event. The 2 days event had attracted 2,142 players, all of whom had either parted with $5,200 or won their way into the finale through the satellites available.
The Main Event was the climax to a series that started back on the 7th of September, when WCOOP-01 started off the series with a $109 $700k guaranteed “WCCOP Kickoff” event. 66 events later, $57,983,192 had been won in prizes, and over 138,000 entries had been made in the events that were part of the world’s largest online series.
It was also the first time the WCOOP Main Event had been live streamed by the PokerStars media team. James Hartigan and Joe “Stapes” Stapleton were both up before the crack of dawn in order to commentate on the final table of this $10,000,000 guaranteed event. In fact, the tournament played out a little quicker than expects, and the stream missed the first two eliminations from the final table, meaning fans didn’t see railbird favourite Viktor “Isiildur1” Blom finish in 9th place for a $107,100 return on his time and investment. 8th place went to Canadian “MaltLiquor40” who added $160,650 to his PokerStars balance. You can catch up on the rest of the action by going to the stream below and watching the final table as it played out. Alternatively, the results will be posted below the video.
Once the action got 6 handed, a deal negotiation began between the players to chop up the remaining prize pool, including the $1,820,700 planned 1st prize. Leaving $200,000 for 1st place, the players ended up agreeing the following deal:
Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz – $1,100,000
Faraz “The-Toilet 0” Jaka – $945,000
Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion – $780,227
Daniel ‘”19Dan86″ Rudd – $769,813
Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins – $708,251
Claas “neckbr4ke” Stoob – $651,430
Following the nearly hour long deal discussions, the players got back into playing the tournament to a conclusion, and trying to pick up the remaining $200,000 for 1st place. The final table took another 2 hours to play out to a conclusion, and it was Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz who picked up the title and the extra cash to take his total earnings from this event to $1,300,000. The final six ended up busting in this order:
1st: Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz
2nd: Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins
3rd: Claas “neckbr4ke” Stoob
4th: Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion
5th: Faraz “The-Toilet 0″ Jaka
6th: Daniel ‘”19Dan86” Rudd
Other notable finishes include Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin who finished 263rd, PokerStars Team Online’s Alex “Kanu7” Millar who finished in 262nd. PokerStars Team Online’s Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara finished in 245th while former EPT Grand Final winner Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo finished in 234th. Assad91, who won two both WCOOP-09 and WCOOP-28 titles this year, finished in 145th. Team PokerStars Pro, and final table host, Jake Cody finished in 59th, which would have been interesting if he had made it another 50 places higher.
The WCCOP has also been running a Player of the Series competition, and Alan “Mr Negreanu” Gold was the one to grind his way to the prize. What was the prize I hear you ask? Entries and expenses for the PCA and EPT Grand Final, as well as a ticket for the TCOOP Main Event. Gold was given a sweat during the final day of the Main Event. He had been eliminated on Day 1, and “Assad91” was the only player in a position to take away the Player of the Series title from him. Gold had to hold his breath as the Main Event restarted, but he was able to exhale when Assad busted in 145th place, confirming his title.
The runners up for the title, “psyhoagromor” and “Assad91”, didn’t go away empty handed. “Psyhoagromor” picked up a 2015 PCA package as well as a TCOOP Main Event ticket, and “Assad91”, and the rest of the top 5 on the leader board, all picked up a TCOOP Main Event ticket.
The rest of the series has been as successful as we have come to expect from the WCOOP, and we have seen every single event beat it’s guarantee. We’ve had a look at some of the statistics from this year’s event, and players from 51 countries have cashed, with players from Canada leading the way by winning $9,078,823,82 across all of the WCOOP Events. The UK was in 2nd, but was over $2 Million behind those from “The Great White North.”
Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz Won the 2014 WCOOP Main Event
Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz’s Main Event win was enough to put him on top of the 2014 WCOOP money list, with Faraz “The-Toilet 0” Jaka not too far behind him. All of the top 5 earners this WCOOP were at the Main Event final table, but some had done more in other events than others:
Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz – $1,300,000.00
Faraz “The-Toilet 0” Jaka – $949,516.21
Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion – $844,881.03
Daniel ‘”19Dan86″ Rudd – $769,813.52
Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins – $710,517.46
WCOOP is over for another year, and we have a new set of champions to add to the growing list of online tournament heroes. WCOOP will be back next year for another month of high stakes tournaments, highlighting some new, and some old, faces while they earn new titles to add to their résumé. We’ll have to wait for next year to see who the big stories are going to be about, but until then, we congratulate Fedor Holz and Alan Gold for their achievements, as well as the rest of the players of the 2014 WCOOP.
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