799 brave souls with little regards for money stepped up to the plate this afternoon to put down their first $300+$20 investment into tonight’s WCOOP Event #31. If the Pot Limit Omaha game of the event wasn’t enough gamble for them, add in the short handed 6-max and re-buy aspects and well there’s chips and cash flying around at a break-neck pace. Despite the 933 re-buys and 534 add-ons to the 5000 starting chips, the tournament did not quite reach its $700,000 Guarantee so PokerStars footed the bill to award 120 players with a slice of the guaranteed prize pool and one lucky player the six figure $119,000.00 first place prize with a shiny WCOOP bracelet.
There was not a Team PokerStars Pro at the final table tonight but Jason Mercier led the team to a 46th place finish as he was joined by Humberto Brenes (66th place) and Andre Akkari (114th place) in taking some money off the tournament tables. Here’s how the remaining Team PokerStars pros fared up this evening:
Barry “barryg1” Greenstein 374th
Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier 349th
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken 466th
Florian Langmann 418th
Greg “FossilMan” Raymer 597th
George Danzer 464th
Johannes Strassmann 227th
John Duthie 431st
Johnny Lodden 511st
Katja Thater 667th
Marcel Luske 317th
Chris “Money800” Moneymaker 234th
Jose Ignacio 372nd
Hevad Khan 456th
Steve Paul-Ambrose 130st
William Thorson 551st
Ylon Schwartz 331st
On to the big money at the final two tables, Shawn “sprstoner” Glines (shown here at the 2007 WSOP) ran into a bit of a cooler when both he and KRUTHE flopped sets on the board of 3♥ 9♦ 2♥ Kâ™ 7♥ and KRUTHE’s set of nines overcame the set of deuces for a huge 2.5 million chip pot sending Glines home in 10th place ($9,100.00).
Taknapotin got the money in good holding A♥ 10♣ 3♣ A♣ pushing a small stack preflop against the Q♦ 7♠Q♥ 9♠of GotURead. Unfortunately for Taknpotin the pot got taken by GotURead with the queen on the turn with the board showing 2♣ 5♥ J♠Q♣ 10♥ . Taknapotin took away $12,950.00 in ninth place.
Aces were not lucky tonight as ProCasanova took 8â™ A♦ 10♥ A♥ up against the wrap straight draw of KRUTHE who was holding 8♣ 9♦ J♦ 9♣ with the flop showing 4♦ 7♥ 10â™ . Both players got their money in on the flop as the 4♣ helped no one on the turn but the 6♦ on the river hit KRUTHE’s straight and sent ProCasanova out of the tournament in 8th place ($12,950.00).
GotURead would break hand-for-hand play by sending ur_beatAA home as the two got their chips into the middle preflop for a sizable 1.5 million chip pot. GotURead held 7♦ Kâ™ K♥ J♥ while ur_beatAA held queens and connectors Qâ™ Q♥ 10â™ 9â™ that failed to connect on the 5♣ 3♦ 7♣ J♦ 6â™ board as ur_beatAA couldn’t beat the two pair of GotURead and left as tonight’s final table bubble boy earning $12,950.00 in the process.
Seat 1: GotURead (4375095 in chips)
Seat 2: exmanager (1071953 in chips)
Seat 3: ImaLuckSac (606396 in chips)
Seat 4: Craps4Dinner (579168 in chips)
Seat 5: berdyfish (174888 in chips)
Seat 6: KRUTHE (5857500 in chips)
The table’s starting chip counts seemed to slant towards the dealer’s box as KRUTHE and GotURead held nearly 80% of the chips in play as the blinds started at 15K/30K and berdyfish on the severe short stack.
berdyfish would manage a quick double up in hand seven off Craps4Dinner when 2♣ 8â™ K♥ K♦ held up over Craps4Dinner’s double suited Kâ™ J♦ 5♦ 10â™ to take the 274,776 chip pot on the sailboat laden board 4♥ 5♣ 4♦ 4â™ 3â™ . Another double up for berdyfish over KRUTHE right before the first break of the final table got berdyfish up over 400K as KRUTHE continued to hammer the table with the chip lead.
Here were the chip counts heading into the break:
Seat 1: GotURead (4000095 in chips)
Seat 2: exmanager (711953 in chips)
Seat 3: ImaLuckSac (471396 in chips)
Seat 4: Craps4Dinner (269280 in chips)
Seat 5: berdyfish (459552 in chips)
Seat 6: KRUTHE (6752724 in chips)
After the break KRUTHE immediate snagged another two million in chips mostly from GotURead with several big bets that GotURead couldn’t find an answer to.
KRUTHE continued the crushing shortly after the blinds moved up to 20K/40K taking down two players in short order. First, Craps4Dinner moved in a short stack of 239,280 after raising the pot and having KRUTHE come over the top on the button holding 6♣ A♣ 7♠A♦ . Craps4Dinner would need some help holding A♥ 4♣ 9♣ 8♥ and got it on the 10♦ 5♦ 7♥ flop giving Craps4Dinner several straight outs. The A♠changed nothing but gave KRUTHE a set, and the 3♣ on the river missed the straight outs as Craps4Dinner finally rolled a seven but will get sixth place money tonight ($21,000.00).
Two hands later berdyfish took a plethora of aces 9♦ A♣ A♦ A♠and short stack up against the 120,000 chip raise of KRUTHE and push all in for 364,552. KRUTHE held the double suited K♥ J♦ 9♥ 2♦ and promptly nailed the nut straight on the flop 7♠10♣ 8♦ 4♣ K♣ that left berdyfish looking for a miracle runner-runner trips on the board that failed to hit. With the cracked aces, berdyfish swam away with fifth place ($33,250.00) which added to previous big scores during SCOOP Event #4 a 5th place for $28K, and Runner-up at the Sunday Million in May 2007 for nearly $100K.
exmanager managed a double up to the tune of 963,906 against the wall of chips that is KRUTHE as the chip leader won 11 of 12 hands in a row just pausing enough to give exmanager those aforementioned chips.
Ground down to 322,792 Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee would pick his spot and shove after getting 3-bet by GotURead holding K♥ A♦ 10♥ 9♥ with the blinds still at 20K/40K. GotURead turned over aces with connectors A♥ 7♣ 8♣ Aâ™ , and this time the aces would hold up on the all small board as ImaLuckSac would be drawing dead by the turn as MacPhee walked away with fourth place ($47,250.00). With the fourth place finish MacPhee added to his impressive tournament resume here at PokerStars which includes cashes PokerStars $55k Guaranteed and $15k Guaranteed for a combined $29k, then he won $38,300 for second in a PokerStars $100 rebuy tournament (read about his APPT Macau tournament here)
exmanager was soon handed a pink slip from KRUTHE after this hand occurred:
In what looked like an Omaha Eight or Better hand, KRUTHE made 2♥ 3♥ 3♣ A♣ work against the queens Q♣ 8♠Q♦ K♠of exmanager hitting a wheel on the 4♥ 9♣ 3♦ 5♣ 10♦ board sending the suit home in third place ($67,900.00) setting up the head-up battle below:
Seat 1: GotURead (2879266 in chips)
Seat 6: KRUTHE (9785734 in chips)
After knocking out 3 out of the 4 final table players, KRUTHE held a sizable lead against GotURead but shortly after heads-up play started deal talks broke out. Host Steve Paul-Ambrose graciously found the chip chop numbers we had an agreement leaving $14,000.00 on the table for Event #31’s champion.
GotURead: $92,805.74
KRUTHE: $101,444.26
Heads-up play would last all of 14 hands as KRUTHE’s aggression with the huge chip lead was too much for GotURead as KRUTHE went on a tear winning seven of the last nine hands including the WCOOP title clenching hand below with the blinds at 25K/50K:
The jacks of GotURead J♥ Q♣ 2♦ J♦ couldn’t hold up against the 8â™ 5♦ 9♥ K♣ as KRUTHE would find a king on the flop thru the 3♥ Kâ™ 2♣ 7♣ 10â™ board and took that pair to the 2009 WCOOP Event #31 bracelet and the extra $14,000 set aside from the deal for the champion!
Be sure to check out WCOOP.com for the latest on the Player of the Series leaderboard and PokerStars.TV for nightly recaps of all the WCOOP action.
WCOOP Event #31 $700,000 Guarantee Pot Limit Omaha (6-Max)
(*denotes 2 way deal)
1. KRUTHE (malmoe) *$115,444.26
2. GotURead (BARCA) *$92,805.74
3. exmanager (brazil(nochat)) $67,900.00
4. ImaLuckSac (Coeur d Alene) $47,250.00
5. berdyfish (Bethel) $33,250.00
6. Craps4Dinner (New York) $21,000.00
