The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) held by Poker Stars, awarded the biggest prize in the history of online poker last night in their $5,200 buy-in main event, with a $2.2 million dollar grand prize. This was given to the player who goes by the screen name “POTTERPOKER,” but his real name is Tyson Marks.
The multi-table tournament regular, who also goes by the screen names MISSOUKAJOE, JUMP PUTT, and SU1C1DEJACK on several other poker sites, already had over $1.3 million in online career tournament earnings.
Over twelve hours of play was required to wittle the field down from over 2400 players to 271, with 306 players making the money bubble. This lengthy process could be due to the favorable structure of Poker Stars WCOOP over the past few years, as many pro poker players have commented that the tournament’s outstanding attention to detail can certainly pay dividends to the more adept participants.
Marks came into the final table of the tournament with a massive chip lead, and although never certain, his opponents had to be intimidated that with a skilled veteran holding such a sizeable chip advantage, the top prize and bracelet may have already been in tow.
Nevertheless, at least one of his adversaries provided worthy resistance, and that player was joeysweetp.
Even his prowess, however, wasn’t too difficult to overcome.
With POTTERPOKER holding such a decisive chip advantage over his competition, you would be sure that Marks decided against discussing a chop for prize money amongst his peers. The situation was very similar in last year’s main event, as there was also no discussion of a deal.
Joeysweetp traded a few pots back and forth with fellow player Russian_nuts as the play went to three-handed, and eventually took down his opponent. But despite his ability to double-up, joeysweetp was heading into heads-up play with a big hill to climb.
When play was heads-up, Marks’ chip advantage over his opponent was a staggering 5 to 1.
David did everything he could do to take down Goliath, but he came up empty. The end of the tournament finished when POTTERPOKER held 
against joeysweetp’s 
. At the 100,000/200,000 blind level, with a 25,000 ante, joeysweetp opened with a raise on the button, and was called from the big blind. The flop fell 
, and Marks bet, only to be called by Joeysweetp. The turn was the 
. Marks led out again, only to be re-raised all-in, but with the absolute “nuts,” it was an easy snap-call for POTTERPOKER. The river was a meaningless 
, and saw the grand prize and WCOOP Main Event bracelet awarded to Tyson Marks.
While the main event of the WCOOP was certainly the talk of the day, you can’t ignore that the final table of the $10,300 8-Game High Roller event was still ongoing. This event also drew a potent pool of 133 players, with names like Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Pat Pezzin, and Alex Kravchenko in the middle of the mayhem.
Kravchenko ended up winning the event, and taking down the $345,800 first place prize for Team PokerStars.
Several big names were in the running for the WCOOP Player of the Series title as well, such as Jason Mercier and Jon “PearlJammer” Turner. The Series title was awarded to James “Andy McLEOD” Obst however, who made four WCOOP final tables, and claimed his second WCOOP title in 2010. For his win, he earns packages to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, the Spring Championship of Online Poker, and the EPT Grand Finale.
The richest online tournament on record generated an outstanding $12.1 million dollar prize pool, $2.1 million over what last year’s event generated. Last year’s event was record-setting as well.
The championship event this year drew 2,443 players, and was extended over the course of two days.
It may come as a surprise to many to see the online tournament field generate this much interest. The World Championship of Online Poker started in 2002, and didn’t come close to creating the buzz and enormous prize pools that it has over the past few years.
It just may be a testament to the growth of online poker as a whole.
Below are the payouts for the $5,200 WCOOP Main Event:
Winner – Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks $2,278,097.50
Runner-Up – joeysweetp $1,404,725.00
3rd – Russian_nuts $1,019,952.50
4th – dazzy2004 $696,255.00
5th – Jack “jackellwood” Ellwood $509,976.25
6th – Darren “darrenelias” Elias $396,987.50
7th – ROMDOM $280,945.00
8th – Grayson “gray31” Ramage $183,225.00
9th – carryhero $112,988.75
