Speedyfold Poker Blog

The WCOOP on PokerStars is well underway. In previous years this has been a tournament series that has got me licking my lips in anticipation. Large field, large buy-in, large stack, long blind levels, etc. OMG what was not to love. However this year’s WCOOP has been somewhat of a disappointment. Gone are virtually all of the 30 min blind levels. The stacks have frequently been a reduced size, and the starting blinds often have come in at a higher level. It is difficult not to think the series has been cheapened somewhat. It just doesnt feel that special.

Lets take tonights $320 HORSE event as a case in point:

There is a regular $33 HORSE tourney on Stars with 3000 starting chips, 12 minute blinds, and first levels of 20/40, 30/60, 40/80, 60/120, and 80/160. Regular, run-of-the-mill, ordinary HORSE tourney.

So, how special was Event 25 of the WCOOP I here you ask? A HORSE event with a $320 buy-in and 1180 entrants? I will tell you how special: 10 min blinds!! 5000 starting chips and first levels of 50/100, 50/100, 60/120, 60/120, and 80/160!!

It is a major disppointment that this has happened to virtually all events. God did I used to love playing this highly skillful series, where you’d still be pitting your wits 17 hours deep. Now it feels like so un-very-special in comparison.

All I can do is pray enough poker players moan in order that Stars re-instates the former glory of this series next year.

Overall I had a successful WCOOP. I cashed in 3 and made a nice overall profit. One of the new events this year was an 8-game event. I decided to chart my progress in this event for all to see. Here are the chip swings by game:-

2-7 Trip Draw - 4000 up to 4250
Limit Holdem - 4250 down to 4030
FL Omaha Hi-Lo - 4030 up to 4052
Razz - 4052 down to 3712
Stud - 3712 down to 3317
Stud Hi-Lo - 3317 down to 3312
NL Holdem - 3312 up to 3367
PL Omaha - 3367 down to 2137

2-7 Trip Draw - 2137 up to 2647
Limit Holdem - 2647 down to 2227
FL Omaha Hi-Lo - 2227 up to 3127
Razz - 3127 up yo 3332
Stud - 3332 up to 3442
Stud Hi-Lo - 3442 down to 3392
NL Holdem - 3392 up to 3681
PL Omaha - 3681 up to 4821

2-7 Trip Draw - 4821 up to 4981
Limit Holdem - 4981 down to 2821
FL Omaha Hi-Lo 0 2821 down to 653
Razz - 653 down to 0

From this, extremely limited sample, my most consistantly productive game was 2-7 trip draw (3 increase out of 3). My least productive was Limit Holdem (3 decreases out of 3). NL Holdem also saw 2 increase out of 2.

In terms of swings PLO is probably the big one, no doubt reflective of my kamikaze approach. In the first rotation I lost over a third of my stack. And in the 2nd rotation I gained almost a third on my stack.

The biggest killer of all was the final LHE rotation sliding from 4981 to 2821.

Whilst the tournament was enjoyable, despite a rubbish result, the structure left a lot to be desired. The limit games were running at stakes 4 times the blinds, rather then double the blinds. It left a wierd feeling of comfortable stack, following by a feeling of extreme shortness.

All said and done, a bit of fun, but structure improvements needed, and better play needed from yours truely

A very dramatic final table took place in the WCOOP Main Event on PokerStars, with many swings and bad beats taking place. The players agreed a chop with 5 players remaining. Here are the details of the agreement:

StaffBryanS [Host]: ckingusc: $1,065,432
StaffBryanS [Host]: liberace: $1,375,249
StaffBryanS [Host]: AJKHoosier1: $782,542
StaffBryanS [Host]: ShoesRDurrty: $801,153
StaffBryanS [Host]: Markush13: $961,718

They carried on playing with ckingusc picking up the win and the extra $200,000 left on the table

1st: ckingusc - $1,265,432
2nd: liberace - $1,375,249
3rd: AJKHoosier1 - $782,542
4th: Markush13 - $961,718
5th: ShoesRDurrty - $801,153

WCOOP 2008 Main Event

This is the current online MTT stats of the final table players

ckingusc $55,623 profit
liberace $79,181 profit
AJKHoosier1 $379,240 profit
Markush13 - Negative ROI from 333 MTTs, Qualified via a $215 satellite
ShoesRDurrty - Negative ROI from 11 MTTs, ABI $20!
Sumpas - Negative ROI from 335 MTTs, Qualified via a $215 satellite
klslcz - Negative ROI from 558 MTTs
BOLLPOKER - Negative ROI from 125 MTTs
kovi99 - Negative ROI from 801 MTTs

125 players entered the $10,300 HORSE Event in the WCOOP. A tough contest saw DocHolatchya beat PokerStars Pro aakkari to the bracelet

1 DocHolatchya United States $287,500.00
2 aakkari Brazil $200,000.00
3 crazyjanie United States $150,000.00
4 pycb United States $112,500.00
5 pumped4good United States $75,000.00
6 djk123 United States $59,375.00
7 7CardRyon United States $46,875.00
8 gipsy74 Russian Federation $38,750.00
9 MadCaddy United States $25,000.00
10 Empire2000 United States $25,000.00
11 goodolehank United States $25,000.00
12 MrSmokey1 United States $25,000.00
13 Humberto B. Costa Rica $18,750.00
14 ozenc Netherlands $18,750.00
15 floes United States $18,750.00
16 jerrod United States $18,750.00
17 Exclusive Netherlands $13,125.00
18 double joker United States $13,125.00
19 THAY3R United States $13,125.00
20 LeeNelsonP* New Zealand $13,125.00
21 gibralter11 United States $13,125.00
22 bigjoe2003 United States $13,125.00
23 str8flushin5 United States $13,125.00
24 astarisborn United States $13,125.00

WCOOP $25,500 Heads-up Event

1 stevesbets United States $560,000.00
2 ElkY United Kingdom $320,000.00
3 zivziv Israel $160,000.00
4 GavinGriffin United States $160,000.00
5 LadyMaverick United States $100,000.00
6 VictorRamdin United States $100,000.00
7 PAW717 United States $100,000.00
8 brianm15 United States $100,000.00

WCOOP Event 5 - NL Holdem

A great event to look forward to is Event 5 of the WCOOP on PokerStars on 7th Sept. This is the high roller $10,300 buy-in NLHE.  Standard table size of 9 players at a table.

Currently there are 36 entrants, 13 of which are from Team PokerStars itself.  Those entrants are as follows:

aakkari (Team PokerStars)
Allingomes
Bebop86
Born2Dogbaby
ChadBrownPRO
Dariominieri (Team PokerStars)
DOTTT
Exclusive (Team PokerStars)
GavinGriffin (Team PokerStars)
Goral
holla @ yoboy
HouseeLover
jcamby33
John Duthie (Team PokerStars)
Katja Thater (Team PokerStars)
klslcz
Kravchenko (Team Pokerstars)
LadyMaverick (Team PokerStars)
LucaPagano (Team PokerStars)
MiniTilt
Money800 (Team PokerStars)
Moorman1
nofingclue11
snake8484
stevesbets
stevejpa (Team PokerStars)
stpauli111
taktloss47
Telefonkiosk
THE__D__RY
tjbentham
Tom McEvoy (Team PokerStars)
Tulkaz
VictorRamdin (Team PokerStars)
William

Each player gets 25,000 starting chips and the blind speed is 30 mins per level, starting at 25/50

He appeared from nowhere to take down the biggest tournament in online poker history (the 2007 WCOOP Main Event), winning over a million dollars, however almost as quickly he has been consigned to history as the biggest cheat.

TheV0id, it is heavily speculated (and lets face it, very likely) was running several IDs in the tournament. This doesnt really give any edge hand to hand, but what it does mean is that he could play each ID very loose aggressive, knowing that if one or more busts out be is still alive in the tournament. What this breaks is PokerStars “One Person per tournament” rule, echoing what is obviously the case in live poker.

Whereas in MTTs two players can come from the same IP (eg you and your brother are playing the same tourney), those two IDs must always be different people. Pretty hard to check sometimes, but as a matter of policy checks are made on final tablists in all big tournaments.

The problem for TheVoid was that in a tournament of such size, PokerStars naturally got straight on the phone for a bit of an interview and to wrap the story, but when a person confirms their identity and then shows no idea whatsoever about the tournament, that can only lead to one thought, that being that players with the same IP are not the people listed, but in fact the same person.

TheV0id was stripped of his prize, and everyone was bumped up a spot. Whereas I do not condone what TheV0id did, he did however win the tournament based purely on ability, and on that aspect alone I feel sorry for the outcome. The one good thing to come of it is that it is a great warning to others players, and hopefully they can all learn from his lesson.

The WCOOP is a series of online poker tournaments, staged at Poker Stars.

It is widely regarded as the best of all online poker series. Part of the reason for this is that it is held just once a year, and part is because of the large guaranteed prizepools, and deepstack structure of all events. Skillful poker players should revel in this series. Some events last 15-20 hours, so it is far from the usual online donkfest. Highly recommended if you know what you are doing.

WCOOP stands for World Championship of Online Poker