Zachary “ckingusc” King Wins 2008 WCOOP Main Event!

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The 2008 PokerStars WCOOP finally concluded this past weekend, with the 2-day Main Event highlighting online poker’s biggest tournament series. The $5,200 buy-in attracted 2,185 of the best poker players in the world, and all of them had their eyes set on the prestigious gold bracelet and of course the $1.7 million first-place prize. Day 1 play ended after nearly 13 hours, leaving only 60 entrants to play on when Day 2 resumed on Monday afternoon.

The 2nd day saw the final 5 tables go at each other at uber-insane levels. After the first hour, the remaining field had been trimmed down nearly in half to just 32 players. As I saw some of the action myself on the rail, I witnessed a lot of crazy plays and aggressive moves that costed a lot of big name players a shot at going deeper. WCOOP superstar ElkY had hopes of closing out his series with a huge win, but it was not to be as he went out in a disappointing 21st. My good friend Charder30 caught some tough breaks late in the match, and just couldn’t catch some much needed momentum as he went just before the final table in 11th place. The unfortunate bubble boy would be FluffDog87, who would receive $87K for his pain and suffering of going out in 10th place.

With that elimination the final table for the event was finally set. Liberace was the chip leader with just over $13 million in front of him, with Markush13 closely behind at $11 million and change. And despite being short-stacked with just around 3 million chips, online poker veteran AJKHoosier1 was still the consensus fan favorite to take it down.

With that being said, action at the final table was heavy and quick, much like the beginning of Day 2 in general. There were some quick eliminations just a few dozen hands in. Kovi99 and BOLLPOKER met their demise early in the match, going out in 9th and 8th, respectively. With blinds then reaching $80K/$160K, it would be players klslcz and Sumpas who would hit the rail in 7th and 6th place. Sumpas’s elimination opened the door for deal talks during 5-handed play.

Now since Liberace had about 60% of the 55 million remaining chips in play, he had the obvious leverage in the chip-chop deal that was being proposed. However, it took a couple hands and some careful negotiating on all the parties to come to a beneficial deal. In the end, they got everything worked out, with Support leaving $200K on the table to play for.

Once the numbers were worked out play once again got off to a quick start. ShoesRDurrty and Markush13made some ill-timed moves just a few hands after the deal was made, and both ended up going in 5th and 4th place. AJKHoosier1 was still the short stack as 3-handed play began, but he was hoping to gain a leg up and use his invaluable tournament experience to his advantage. Unfortunately for him, the momentum just never swung back in his direction, and he ended going out in an unlucky 3rd place.

Heads up play would start with Liberace still holding a solid 1.5 to 1 chip lead on Zachary King akackingusc. However, a few hands into HU play, the tables turned in favor of King. Both players got all their chips in a flop of 8 3 7. With 40 million chips in the middle of the pot, this would either win the match forLiberace, or give all the momentum and the chip lead back to Zachary. The Q 7 of Liberace would prove to hardly be any type of huge favorite against the flush draw and over cards that were held by ckingusc. The King on the turn gave the lead back to Zachary, and the flush he hit on the river just added a little bit of insult to injury.

With the newly-found chip lead, it was time for ckingusc to put the squeeze on his opponent one last time and lay claim to the extra $200K in prize money on top of the esteemed WCOOP gold bracelet. This came in the form of an all-in push pre-flop with A 8 that was called by the K J of Liberace. Both players hit top pair on the flop, but it would be ckingusc’s Aces holding up as the turn and river came up empty for his rival - giving Zachary King the WCOOP Main Event title!

Here are the final payouts (with the chop figures included) - see everyone next year at the WCOOP:

1. ckingusc $1,265,432
2. liberace $1,375,249
3. AJKHoosier1 $782,542
4. Markush13 $961,718
5. ShoesRDurrty $801,153
6. Sumpas $415,150
7. klslcz $305,900
8. BOLLPOKER $196,650
9. kovi99 $121,267