WCOOP events bring NL rebuys, Stud chop

The world's biggest online tournament series, PokerStars' WCOOP, served up rebuy madness and some chop action in a classic poker variant yesterday with two more events.

Event 13

There's nothing in tournament poker quite as unhinged as a rebuy event. The early stages play more like a cash game than a tournament as the players gamble it up to amass a big stack before the rebuy period ends.

Yesterday saw the first rebuy event of this year's WCOOP, the $215 No-Limit Hold'em, attract a big field of 2,234 with its $1 million guarantee. Thanks to an astounding 2,635 rebuys and 1,524 add-ons, the prize pool ballooned to $1,278,600 in the end.

By 5:15 a.m. EDT, with blinds at $20,000/$40,000 and antes at $4,000, the final table had been set. nitbuster enjoyed a significant chip lead over his closest competitor, BeL0WaB0Ve, but neither of them would be there at the end.

nitbuster steadily held onto his lead until play was three-handed, at which point moe32746 would take over the reins as chip leader.

In the end it was lrdvoldemort who would emerge victorious. He started off by taking out nitbuster at 7:07 a.m., with A-Q versus A-J, giving him a slight lead going into heads-up play.

Within 20 minutes he had claimed a 2-1 chip advantage, and 10 minutes after that he was on the verge of a win with a 4-1 lead. At 8:03 a.m., a full 17 1/2 hours after the early madness of the rebuy period began, lrdvoldemort had claimed his first WCOOP bracelet when he flopped trip fives against moe32746's flopped pair of nines.

Event 14

A few years ago, plenty of old-school poker players were worried that Seven-Card Stud was a dying game in a world gone crazy for No-Limit Hold'em. Event 14 of this year's WCOOP revealed that Stud still enjoys plenty of popularity.

A field of 627 players put down $320 apiece for their shot at the $100,000 guarantee, building the total prize pool up to $188,100. Among them was a full contingent of standard-bearers for Team PokerStars Pro, including Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Andre Akkari and Isabelle Mercier.

All of them would make early departures, and in fact none of the team pros would even cash in Event 14. Gavin Griffin lasted the longest before busting in 103rd place, seven spots out of the money.

The final table was set by 4:30 am EDT, with adsonvonmelk enjoying a big chip lead over the rest of the field, followed by Mildred 53 and tiffaniejoy.

Those three players would be the last ones standing nearly two hours later, at which point Mildred53 suggested a chop based on chip equity. adsonvonmelk would have none of it, leaving him a standard payout when he was eliminated at the hands of tiffaniejoy just 10 minutes later.

The last two at the table quickly made a deal to take $25,000 each and play for the remaining $3,608.50 and the WCOOP bracelet. Mildred53 went on a tear, building a 7-1 chip advantage before a key hand where tiffaniejoy showed down aces full of kings, only to be bested by Mildred53's jack-high straight flush.

Within minutes the tournament was through and Mildred53 was crowned WCOOP's Stud champ for this year.

The WCOOP hits the halfway mark of its schedule with Event 15 ($320 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em) and Event 16 ($215 Pot-Limit Omaha) kicking off this afternoon. Be sure to check in with PokerListings later for a full recap of the action.

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