$$ Cash 4 Seat $$

by Katja Thater

Horses are not a new love to me. I spend my entire life in wellington boots on a ranch. No wonder that I prefer H.O.R.S.E games at the poker table.

You think that doesn’t add up?

If you want to train a horse. it´s all about knowing your opponent. You have to be quick in responding new situations. You need to be flexible and able to change gears. And last but not least: you must stay cool, no matter what comes. This is very similar to the action at the poker table.

In WCOOP Event # 18, more than 2000 horses saddled up. Mixed games have become extremely popular. It was not really a surprise that the field became that big. This year at the WSOP the non-hold’em games were particularly popular. It looks a little bit like a lot of players are tired of getting of holding only two cards in their hands.

Not unlike real horse sports, the WCOOP stable was filled with some really experienced racing horses who know how the wind blows on turf, and also by some wild and frenetic broncos with an eye on the win. Some of these youngsters with courage and a heart of a winner are sometimes able to beat an old hand.

But not on this Sunday.

The start signal was given and I picked up very nice and chatty tables. After a few hours of play, we all got hungry and were trying to figure out to get some food via e-mail. After 11 hours on the turf my race was over and I had to go back to stable, finishing 48th.

Because a horse could not fall asleep promptly after running that long I watched the final table and found a familiar name: Sensor.

I played with him a long time at the same table. All night long I was really impressed by his style: patience paired with a very good feeling for the right spots. Never on tilt - no goofy plays - very cool, no matter what came. Chapeau and congratulations again to you, Sensor. You are the real horse whisperer!

Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari has been hanging out in Barcelona for the European Poker Tour and playing WCOOP at the same time. This is a road dispatch from the Brazilian bomber himself.

By Andre Akkari

EPT started in the best way possible to me, and in the city I admire most in all of Europe - Barcelona. Maybe because it is most similar to Brazil, every Brazilian who visits this city falls in love with it. The Barcelona Event is also the one that makes me most eager to play. I love the casino and the hotel where all the qualifiers and Team PokerStars Pros are accommodated is awesome. All this always makes me long for the EPT Barcelona.

This time in particular, I had one of the best seasons in Barcelona at the Main Event itself. I had a wonderful day, playing my best poker at tables that were not so difficult, and getting in the top 10 on Day 1A. On the second day I went further, building my stack in a consistent way. Unfortunately I ended up being busted out very close to the bubble. On the flip side, the biggest harvest of my good run came from the online game.

My start at WCOOP went as well as it could have, and I got in the money at many events, going very deep into the $530 a two-day event with more than 7,000 players. I was eliminated in the 47th position. In the mean time I made the final table of the $530 Second Chance Event, enjoying the company of my Team colleague Noah Boeken.

Apart from the WCOOP events, I also made several final tables of regular tournaments like the $ 100 +R, $55 +R, getting the title at the $ 22+ R. All this is thanks to the wonderful Barcelona air.

Now I will keep playing and getting ready to arrive in London in my best shape, where I hope my performance will be better at the Main Event, at last making my first final table at the European Poker Tour.

Omaha hi-lo split is a kind of poker game where you can see more action than in any other kind of poker and this final table was a good example of this statement - chips were changing hands fast, players stacks were going up and down. For example “PieOhMy” started with 816k , then was down to about 100k, than up to a chip lead of about 1.3 million and finally out in 3d place.

I was worried a little bit about the structure of the tournament - when I played mixed holdem event at the WSOP it looked to me that most of the action there was in a limit section of the tournament - but here there was a proper balance between limit and pot-limit game.

“BUCKIZ6″ started this final table with the decent cheap lead and kept this position for almost all final table until his victory with a prize of $55,800. He was playing very aggressive. His style, combined with a good portion of luck, was unbeatable this particular day.

On the final hand, both players has good starting hands and no surprise that there was a raise and reraise before the flop. “BUCKIZ6″ had Kc-Kd-2s-3c and “jamie2000″ has Ah-Js-5d-2c . Both of them hit the flop– Kh-8c-5h - so most of the money went into the pot on the flop, the low didn’t come and “BUCKIZ6″ won the tournament.

Alexander Kravchenko is a member of Team PokerStars.

by Victoria Coren

The WCOOP $25,000 Heads-Up Championship turned out to be the most nerve-wracking tournament I’ve ever played. It wasn’t the size of the buy-in (I’ve played for this crazy price twice before, once making a profit of $17,000 and once for nada) but the structure. There was something incredibly intense about being just three heads-up matches away from $100,000 - and six matches away from $560,000.

My first match turned out to be a relatively easy victory, although I was told that my opponent (named BBJ) is considered to be a very good player. When we sat down, I knew nothing about this BBJ except what I could glean from the information in front of me. Our opening conversation went like this:

Vicky Coren: Hi. GL.
BBJ: U’ll need it.

From this I knew that my opponent was definitely male. It also told me that he was probably American, very likely under 30 years old, and - most usefully - that he was bound to play very aggressively. Nobody would make that opening remark if they were planning to play a wily, trappy game. Good; this was in my comfort zone. As a female player, I have plenty of experience (live and online) of opponents who think a battering ram will simply scare me off the table.

BBJ did indeed set off by raising every time he had the button, and continuation betting every street if I called. Experience told me my best strategy was to try and turn his aggression against him - ie. to let him pick up a series of pots without much contest, believing that he was running me over, and to play passively even when I had a big hand. This seemed like a player who would keep betting to make me pass, so all I had to do (if I hit anything) was not pass. Sure enough, our match burned itself out pretty quickly, with most of the field still in action, which left me time to make a nice cheese sandwich, mmm.

My second opponent, with the field of 64 down to 32, was named gunning4you. When I greeted him at the start, he replied in a much more relaxed and friendly manner - which was immediately more worrying. The cleverer the player, in general, the nicer they behave. Have you ever heard the old saying that you have nothing to fear from a roaring lion? It’s the ones who slink about quietly that represent the most danger.

There isn’t much to report from my second match, because I don’t think I was in front at any stage. Gunning4you played a much slyer, more cunning and dangerous form of poker. He didn’t inflate the pots too
much to begin with, recognizing this as unnecessary for a good player in a deep-stack tournament. His timing was strong, and his instincts sharp. He made excellent value bets on the river, which I was usually obliged to call when I was just a pip behind.

In my defence, I was on horrible form for that second match. I had only two decent starting hands (KK, which lost to A9, and AA which won a tiny pot since we both checked it down after four diamonds came) and missed the flop with everything else. If I tried a bluff, Gunning had something to call with. It was the kind of match where, every time you see a flop, you feel like you’re being punished for something.

But this is not to detract from Gunning’s play: I was really impressed. He seemed like a nice guy and a very strong heads-up player, I hope he goes a long way in the tournament. But I won’t find out until it’s all over, since it’s time for me to go to bed and dream about what I would have done with $560,000.

Note: Once Vicky went to bed, her opponent busted out in the next round and stevesbets went on to win the bracelet. Read about that in the WCOOP Event #19 wrap up. Vicky is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

by Lee Nelson

The final table of the $25,500 buy-in heads-up tournament was like none I’ve ever observed. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, a Team PokerStars pro, battled it out with Steven “stevesbets” Jacobs at such a furious rate that at times I thought I was watching a ping pong championship instead of a poker match.

In stevesbets semi-final match he played so fast that his opponent ziv ziv commented that he thought be was playing against a computer because no living human could possibly play that rapidly. Enter ElkY, who a Starcraft video game wizard and placed second in the Cyberworld Games, and you have a matchup of lightning fast decisions in which the players must have seen at least twice as many hands as in a normally paced match. The pace of the match was truly remarkable and the lead shifted back and forth multiple times.

At one point Elky had a 3-to-1 chip lead after stevesbets allegedly mis-clicked (I can’t imagine why), but stevesbets clawed his way back to even. They jockeyed back and forth at the same precipitous rate, but when the dust settled stevebets emerged victorious and collected the $560,000 first prize with Elky taking home $320,000 for second.

I wonder if they can spend that loot as fast as they made it? I wouldn’t bet against it!

Lee Nelson is a member of Team PokerStars Pro. Be sure to check out the full WCOOP Event #19 Final Table Report

by Noah Boeken

Winning WCOOP Heads-up tournaments has always been a huge goal of mine. Having watched fellow Dutchman Rob Hollink win the Heads-up in the first WCOOP ever, I was eager to follow in his footsteps and take this tournament down.

Unluckily for me I was met with my elimination in the very first round. I went 146 hands deep against my opponent “MickBt23″ before going all in on a flip. I ended up getting it all in with AK against TT. The board ran out rags and I was busted out early. AK got me into trouble a few times in this tourney. It can be a tricky hand to play properly heads-up.

I came back to watch the final eight play, as this was the first big jump in money. Everyone was guaranteed over $16k in winnings at this point, which was over $10K more than the final 16 paid out. I noticed that fellow Magic the gathering player player and LAPT winner Julien Nuijten was still in it and was playing really strong. He grinded down his opponent ‘pokerjamers’ playing a balanced poker game until he had a big chip lead. Then Julien put the pressure on and took his opponent out.

In other final eight action, player ‘Benba’ took out ‘evilly’ in what was the quickest match of the quarter finals. Huxfluxen was the next to win his quarter final as he busted out sqmpork after a heated battle. The last match pitted Lucarelli and IFiNishfish against each with IFiNishfish as the eventual winner.

By the time the semi-finals were set, all the players were playing extremely well. They had each won many matches in a row, and were comfortably playing in most situations, and overall were showing huge confidence. Preflop no one was willing to commit much money and were rather trying to trap each other. What decided the final four ultimately came down to not making mistakes and instead producing sound decisions and maintaining a high level of mental endurance.

IFiNishfish faced off against Huxfluxen. This heads-up really didn’t last long. On the tenth hand both players ended up all in on a flop of [5s 4s 3h]. Hux had 55 for a set, up against the flopped nuts of IFiNishfish who had 67. The board came turn K river K sending the pot to Huxfluxen with his runner runner full house. It was all over on the next hand when Hux took the last 100k off of his opponent in a blind all in.

PANDAChan12 (Julien) faced off against Benba in the other match. Julien continued to play his strong pre and post flop style, again grinding his opponent down pretty well until getting involved in a huge cooler hand. Julien and Benba ended up with first nut against third nut, and Benba doubled up huge. Julien took the chip lead back about 20 minutes later when he tripped up middle pair on the turn. It didn’t take much longer for Julien to win the match.

Going into the heads-up final both players wanted to make a deal. Instead of playing for an extra $50K for first place, both players decided to take $70K and play for the remaining money. Play seemed to loosen up as both players were assured some nice money. Both players started to open up some more, with Julien getting in the hole early. Eventually both players were all in on the flop with Julien holding a pair against the flush draw of Huxfluxen. The flush hit on the turn, and Huxfluxen won the bracelet.

Watching this event play down with the best players battling it out was really a great experience for me. I am confident that my own thinking of how I played today combined with the analysis of watching the others (including the eventual winner) will prove to have been a really good rehearsal for the $25K Heads-up event

I will be playing in the WCOOP on Sunday. Wish me luck!

Congratulations to all the players that have cashed in this year’s WCOOP, and good luck to the rest of you that are going to cash!

Noah Boeken is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

by Steve Paul-Ambrose

Mixed holdem has quickly gone from an experiment at the 2007 WSOP, to a very popular format for tournament poker. In Event 12, nearly 1,500 players put up the $320 buyin to compete for a first prize of more than $73,000. My tournament came to an early end. After losing several big limit holdem pots, I pushed over a raise with A7s. My opponent called with K9s but unfortunately caught a 9 and I was sent to the rail.

The tournament had a phenomenal structure though, with deep stacks right through until the end. In what can only be described as a marathon final 15, Randers went from chip leader to final table short stack to champion, beating 011180 heads up after over 17 hours of play. As is often the case in mixed holdem tournaments, the limit holdem rounds drove much of the action in the later stages of the tournament, as players fought hard for the larger blinds.

This morning though, the two key hands heads up came during the no limit rounds. The first was Randers getting a huge double up when he pushed over a reraise with AT but was called by 011180’s JJ. The ace on the flop gave him the chip lead and 25 hands later when his A6 held up against A5, Randers was a WCOOP champion.

Congrats to Randers and all final table participants!

Steve Paul-Ambrose is a member of Team PokerStars Pro. You can find him under the screen name stevejpa.

by Tom McEvoy

A new world record was established the other day in PokerStars Pot Limit Omaha Tournament. It was the largest number of players to ever participate in an Omaha tournament in history. This is not a surprise. Every guarantee in the first 8 events of the WCOOP has been exceeded-often by close to 50%, as the number of players has gone thru the roof.

My own tournament was cut short on a flop that contained a 9c-8c and the 4-d. I had the Queen, Jack,Ten, 9 with two clubs. I decided to gamble and raised my opponent’s bet, got reraised and then went all-in. Alas, I got no help and his two pair stood up. I was a strong favorite to win this hand, but got no help and reported to the rail. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

I thought the final table was very exciting as Mary717 from Tacoma blasted thru the field to claim the title and the bracelet, as well as a lot of cash. When it was 8-handed, Mary was the shortest stack. When it was 7 handed-one short of the final table, Mary was the shortest stack. When it got down to the final 6, Mary was the table leader with $2,204,333 in chips and never looked back, storming thru the final table, always keeping the chip lead.

I am really looking forward to the rest of the events, and as a member of Team Pro, I like the chance to compete in various games. PokerStars has a game for everyone and a buy-in to fit almost every budget.

by Vanessa Rousso

As the inaugural PokerStars WCOOP $10k buy-in event looms large, I feel like I did as a kid in the days leading up to Christmas. On September 7th at 2:30 p.m ET, Poker Stars will launch WCOOP Event 5, a $10,300 buy-in with a whopping $2 million guaranteed prize pool. With that kind of guarantee, you can expect at least 200, players in the running. Never before (to my knowledge at least) has there been an online poker tournament of this scale–rivaling some of the most prestigious live big-buy-in circuit events.You can rest assured that many of the world’s top pros will ante up for this first-of-its-kind event. So even if you can’t afford to play, you won’t want to miss the action from the sidelines. PokerStars will be running WCOOP livestream radio broadcasts on the 7th to cover this event in addition to a highlights show on pokerstars.tv on the 8th.

As for me, I just arrived in Barcelona for the EPT Barcelona event, which begins here on the 10th of September, only to realize that if I intended to keep up with the daily WCOOP events (which I wouldn’t miss for anything), I would have to completely switch up my sleep schedule. This is because the events are scheduled for 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. EST daily–which translates to 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. in the time zone that I am in! So it looks like I won’t be getting to bed until 6:00 a.m. or so, in order to be prepared to go deep in the WCOOP events. Luckily for me, the EPT events here happen to start unusually late in the day (3 p.m. for the main event and as late s 9 p.m. for some of the prelims). This means that my night-owl sleep schedule will jive well with playing in some of the live events I plan to play in the coming weeks as well.

With that, I’m off to get some dinner…or, would that be breakfast? Best of luck to all of you that plan to join me in the upcoming WCOOP madness, and feel free to stop by my table anytime!

Vanessa Rousso is a member of Team PokerStars.

by Tom McEvoy

We are less than a month away from the WCOOP and I for one can hardly wait!

I look forward to this tournament all year long. Where else can I play one or sometimes two major online tournaments a day right in the comfort of my own home? PokerStars has really outdone itself this year with the additional of several high buy-in events as well as the more reasonably priced tournaments. There is a tournament that fits every budget. With more than $30,000,000 in guarantees, this tournament series will be the biggest online event in history.

Not only does PokerStars have by far the largest online tournaments, it is one of the biggest tournament series period. That includes all the major brick and mortar tournaments in casinos the world over. What’s not to like?

There are tournaments in every kind of poker game during the WCOOP, so whatever your specialty is–or even if you want to play in in multi-game events–there is something for everybody.

I hope to see you at the final table–preferably with me.

WCOOP starts Friday September 5 on PokerStars.com. Tom McEvoy is the 1983 World Series Main Event champion and a member of Team PokerStars Pro.