Monday, Sept. 22, 2008

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Rousso makes final table as WCOOP nears end

Vanessa Rousso nearly netted herself a WCOOP bracelet.

By Sarah Polson

Two more events played out over the weekend as the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker progressed toward its main event. Saturday saw Vanessa Rousso make it to the final table of the Limit Hold'em Six-Max event, and high rollers paid out big money for some H.O.R.S.E. as well.

Both events drew enough players to top their guaranteed prize amounts once again. The H.O.R.S.E. event in particular more than doubled its guarantee, with Brazilian pro Andre Akkari nearly making it to first place to maximize his return on the buy-in.

However, neither Rousso nor Akkari was able to turn in a WCOOP bracelet win over the weekend. Here's how the events played out and how the Main Event is looking so far after its first day of play:

Event 30

The $1,050 Fixed-Limit Hold'em Six-Max event drew 580 players to the virtual felt on Saturday. That boosted the resulting prize pool up to $80,000 beyond its $500,000 guarantee.

Two Team PokerStars pro players ended up grabbing significant chunks of that prize pool. Rousso made her way to the final table where she landed in third place to pick up $59,450, while Chris Moneymaker also turned in a good performance, finishing in 13th place for $5,220.

It initially looked like Rousso was going to win the event, especially when the final table got down to three-handed. She had more than $2.6 million in chips versus $1.4 held by drood and the $241,647 aasezz had to hold on by a thread.

That thread was all aasezz ended up needing. He started his battle back by taking most of drood's chips, and as drood was clinging to life, Rousso hit a bad patch. Suddenly all three players were fairly evenly matched.

However, something had to give, and it was Rousso. She took a big hit from drood and couldn't recover, eventually ending up out in third place. Then aasezz went to work on drood and after about an hour, the match was finally over.

The final-table results are:

Place	Name	Country	Prize
1st	aasezz	United States	$107,300
2nd	drood	Canada	$80,040
3rd	LadyMaverick	United States	$59,450
4th	brendol	Finland	$40,600
5th	juuuiice	Canada	$29,000
6th	Zak0707	United States	$17,400

Event 31

The second event on Saturday was the $10,300 H.O.R.S.E. event. It had a guarantee of $500,000, but after 125 players signed up, the resulting prize pool was $1.25 million.

Some of online poker's most familiar screen names were drawn to the event, including Daut44, Timex, luvgamble, CHUFTY, mig.com, PearlJammer, The Omaholic and more. Team PokerStars had a good showing as well with John Duthie, Raymond Rahme, Dario Minieri, Victor Ramdin, Hevad Khan, Noah Boeken and Joe Hachem sitting down at the virtual felt.

Only the top 24 players would get paid in this event, and there were a few familiar names who made it into the money. Lee Nelson, THAY3R, Humberto Brenes and MrSmokey1 all walked away with some money.

The highest-ranking pro when all the cards were dealt was Akkari, who succumbed to DocHolatchya to finish in second place. The final-table results are:

Place	Name	Country	Prize
1st	DocHolatchya	United States	$287,500
2nd	aakkari	Brazil	$200,000
3rd	crazyjanie	United States	$150,000
4th	pycb	United States	$112,500
5th	pumped4good	United States	$75,000
6th	djk123	United States	$59,375
7th	7CardRyon	United States	$46,875
8th	gipsy74	Russian Federation	$38,750

Event 32

On Sunday there was only one event on tap, the $5,200 No-Limit Hold'em WCOOP main event. Scheduled for two days of play, the $10 million guaranteed event drew 2,185 players to boost the prize pool to $10,925,000.

The first day of play concluded with just 60 players left, well into the money since the top 324 were getting paid.

Humberto Brenes continued a good run in this year's WCOOP with a 234th-place cash in the main event. THAY3R and Vanessa Rousso also joined him in the money, but were unable to make it to Day 2.

Orel Hershiser also made a good showing with an 89th-place cash.

Still in the mix for the final day today are Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Ryan "Daut44" Daut, but you know they're going to be up against some stiff competition as they battle for a top prize of more than $1 million.

Stay tuned to PokerListings to find out how it all plays out. Or if you want to check out some of the action yourself, head to PokerStars.

Related Articles:

• WCOOP action heats up as series winds down
• ElkY scores again but amateurs still rule WCOOP
• Pros dig deeper into WCOOP events

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