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On a day where Andy Murray fought off exhaustion to become the first British man to win a Grand Slam tennis tournament since 1936, our friends from the motherland had another enormous sweat on their hands this evening.
From five sets of magic on the courts of Flushing Meadows to the flopped sets and backdoor flushes of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, it was English rose and Team PokerStars Pro Live Boeree who got hearts racing with an epic run in WCOOP Event #24.
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It was the $215 No Limit Holdem 4-Max event, with Boeree one of a field of 2,784 entrants, creating a $556,800 prize pool which easily exceeded the advertised guarantee.
Team PokerStars was represented by the likes of Christian de León, Mickey Petersen, Angel Guillen, Jose Barbero, Daniel Negreanu, Victor Ramdin, George Danzer, Martin Staszko, Andre Coimbra, Shane Schleger, Maxim Lykov, João Nunes, Randy Lew, Marcin Horecki, Vicky Coren, Vanessa Rousso, George Lind, Lex Veldhuis and Humberto Brenes, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful in this event as the top 360 players finished in the money.
Feeling the bubble pain was General Tso0 from Costa Rica who bubbled in 361st place to miss out on minimum $406.46 collect by the narrowest of margins.
Team PokerStars Pros Chad Brown (348th - $406.46), Henrique Pinho (294th - $506.68) and Johnny Lodden (136th - $907.58) all reached the money, but as the field narrowed, we were hoping to see another Team Pro grab WCOOP gold with Liv Boeree and Poland's Grzegorz Mikielewicz both still in contention.
With 60 players left, Boeree was sitting second in chips and things were getting exciting. With 25 players left both red spades were surviving and we were getting ready for a party at PokerStars HQ. However when Mikielewicz departed in 22nd place ($2,561.28), our hopes rested with on the shoulders of Miss Boeree.
Boeree was with the chip leaders for much of the event, but things got tense as play slowed up considerably approaching the final table. From 20 players to 16 was a grind. Then 16 players to 12 took even longer.
Boeree lost a key preflop coinflip with king-queen against ace-jack to find herself under some pressure, and with ten players left, she was one of the short stacks and looking for a double up when the following hand happened:
Poker fans around the world gave out a collective sigh of dismay as Boeree flopped the nuts only to see it viciously run down by the backdoor flush of Goldshark's dominated hand. Boeree will no doubt be disappointed to get so close to WCOOP glory as $4,699.39 for 10th place will be little consolation.
With the railbirds a little thinner, play continued to crawl towards the final table.
While pots were mostly small, we saw a massive hand explode between the big stacks of hyroman and pitaoufmg with eight players left. Aces versus kings is a cooler any day of the week, but four-handed it equals 4.2 million in the pot preflop at the 12.5k/25k level. hyroman was the unlucky victim, falling in 8th place as pitaoufmg stormed to the chip lead.
It created an interesting situation on the final table bubble. With six players left, one table was heavy with 8 million in chips and three of the big stacks, while the other was a little lighter with just 2.8 million chips.
While noh65 was battling connection issues, ZeelandBoy tried to take advantage with a ten big blind-steal holding an unimpressive [9s][6c]. But ZeelandBoy couldn't sneak through as noh65 re-connected and found [qs][qh] in the small blind to see ZeelandBoy depart in 6th place as the final table line up was set:
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Final Table line up
Seat 1: majus26 (3,021,176 in chips)
Seat 2: Artem205 (4,152,548 in chips)
Seat 3: pitaoufmg (3,922,373 in chips)
Seat 4: Goldshark (1,737,434 in chips)
Seat 5: noh65 (1,086,469 in chips)
The blinds kicked off at 17.5k/35k with a 4,375 ante for the final table as the players were able to enjoy the relative luxury of being five-handed for the first time in the tournament. The short-stacked noh65 was the first to make some inroads, winning a nice pot after making a straight to climb back into the mix.
While noh65 found some momentum, Goldshark couldn't get much going on this final table and was first to be eliminated.
After calling two raises preflop, Goldshark was allowed to see the turn card for free after majus26 checked the [5s][4s][6h] flop. The [Qh] turn paired up Goldshark's [Qd][Js] but when the chips went in, Goldshark was drawing dead against majus26's [6d][6c] set of sixes. With no river card to help, the [As] rolled off to leave Goldshark to depart in 5th place for $11,085.88 in prize money.
After raking in the healthy pot, majus26 was the first to throw up the idea of a deal, however Artem205 was keen to play on.
Interestingly, things started to go the way of majus26 after the deal talk was squashed. majus26 chipped up a little through Artem205 before nailing pitaoufmg in a series of hands. After winning a nice pot with an uncontested river bet on a double-paired board, majus26 found three streets of value with ace-jack on [9c][5d][Ad][Jc][Ts] before landing the knockout blow.
pitaoufmg min-raised and majus26 moved all in. pitaoufmg called it off holding [as][8h] and was in dominant shape against majus26's [ad][5d]. pitaoufmg was looking good for a double up on the flop of [2h][8c][5h], but the [5c] struck on the turn to see majus26 find trips to leave pitaoufmg in deep trouble. The river was the [Tc] to leave pitaoufmg to pick up $17,349.88 for 4th place.
majus26 was out to a big lead and extended even further after making a straight holding [3c][7c] on a board of [5c][2h][7h][6d][4d] as noh65 fired a couple of blank bullets with just king-high.
Meanwhile Artem205 was down to a little over twenty big blinds, which went into the middle preflop holding [9s][9d]. majus26 was the aggressor with [jh][kh], and the gamble paid off on the [5s][Jc][Ad][2s][2d] board. A jack for majus26 was enough to eliminate Artem205 in 3rd place for $28,574.97.
Heads-up chip counts
Seat 1: majus26 (10,849,432 in chips)
Seat 5: noh65 (3,070,568 in chips)
A three-to-one chip lead grew on the first hand of heads-up play, but noh65 pulled some back with a full house holding [ts][8c] on a board of [5c][Td][Kh][Th][8s].
However moments later, it was all over.
With the blinds at 40k/80k/10k, moh65 min-raised before majus26 overbet shoved all in. noh65 had around 2.5 million behind, and decided to call it off and gamble with [ts][9s]. It was a genuine race when majus26 showed up with [2d][2s] but the board ran out [5s][7c][Kh][3c][Ah], leaving the pair in front to see moh65 add $49,293.50 to the cashier for 2nd place. Meanwhile the WCOOP title and $81,015.74 in prize money head to Austria with a memorable win for majus26. Congratulations!
WCOOP Event#24 $215 NLHE (4-Max) Final Table Results
Number of entrants: 2,784
Prize pool: $556,800
Places paid: 360
1st majus26 (Austria) - $81,015.74
2nd moh65 (Norway) - $49,293.50
3rd Artem205 (Ukraine) - $28,574.97
4th pitaoufmg (Brazil) - $17,349.88
5th Goldshark (Norway) - $11,085.88
With a total of 65 events on the PokerStars WCOOP schedule, there are plenty more opportunities to get among the action with events running right through until September 24th. For more details head to the WCOOP home page or check out WCOOP radio for daily shows at 15:00 ET.
Heath "TassieDevil" Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.