The Biggest Payday in Online Poker History

What has 23 events, 40,280 entrants, $24,218,600 in prize money, 23 gold bracelets, a dash of big-name poker pros, and a millionaire winner? Why, the PokerStars 2007 World Championship of Online Poker, of course.

The highly anticipated king of online poker tournament series, affectionately called the WCOOP, was a celebration of poker pleasure for even the most nitpicking poker enthusiasts. For those who like playing heads up, shorthanded, or in shootout events, the WCOOP had them covered. Players who prefer H.O.R.S.E., Omaha, seven-card stud, or razz over no-limit hold'em, the WCOOP had a place for them. Heck, the tournament series had even deuce-to-seven triple draw and pot-limit five-card draw in its poker-variant buffet. A player could buy into a tournament directly for as little as $215 and as much as $5,200.

The WCOOP is held in the same regard by online poker players that the World Series of Poker is by live players. The WCOOP is also showing quite a few similarities to the WSOP. The WSOP has consistently outdone itself year after year. It had its biggest year yet in 2007 with 54,288 total entrants over 55 events, both numbers larger than they were last year. The WCOOP also had its biggest year ever with 40,280 entrants and 23 events. In fact, the WCOOP averaged more entrants per event than the WSOP, 1,751 compared to 987.

Another comparison that is easily made between the WSOP and the WCOOP is the fact that both tournaments have H.O.R.S.E. events with much higher buy-ins than their main events. At the WSOP, the winner of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event is quickly becoming as recognizable as the winner of the $10,000 no-limit hold'em main event. This year's WCOOP took a stab at establishing the same phenomenon when PokerStars scheduled its second-annual $5,200 H.O.R.S.E. event to accompany its $2,600 no-limit hold'em main event.

The WCOOP also featured some incredible stories. A prominent female poker pro made the final table of the biggest event in online poker history and earned the biggest payday of her career. Two previous World Series of Poker bracelet winners snagged their second pieces of poker-inspired wrist jewelry in the series. An online poker tournament player's worst nightmare became realized - an Internet disconnection that potentially could cost him tens of thousands of dollars - but with the help of his selfless opponent, he saw a happy ending. Some players fought on the digital battlefields of the PokerStars felts for almost entire days to finally clinch their WCOOP bracelets and online poker glory.

The events were, indeed, both numerous and diverse, and the plethora of side stories were truly captivating, but most eyes were on the crown jewel of the tournament series - the main event.

Online Poker's Biggest Payday
In last year's main event, the winner would have been awarded more than $1 million if no deal was made at the final table. Well, a deal was struck, and eventual winner J.C. "area23JC" Tran left the table "just" $680,000 richer than when he woke up that day.

Cue the 2007 WCOOP, which offered online poker players another chance to win a historic seven-figure first-place payday. The main event had 2,998 entrants and a prize pool of nearly $7.5 million.

When it got down to the final table, a member of Team PokerStars, Vanessa "LadyMaverick" Rousso, was still alive. LadyMaverick showed that she was a tenacious survivor during this final table, but she could not survive long enough to take down the title. She slow-played a flopped two pair to the river, which put out a third spade. She finally made her move here, only to find her all-in bet called by ka$ino, the event's eventual winner, who held the 9 2 for a flush.

Ka$ino, for his win, pocketed a record first prize for an online tournament, $1,378,331. The win, however, did not come without a bit of controversy. PokerStars, which has proven itself a leader in security and data privacy, announced that the original winner, "TheV0id," had been disqualified. In an official announcement, PokerStars said TheV0id was in breach of the PokerStars Terms of Service, and "in the interests of game integrity has been disqualified from first place."

Vanessa Rousso Scores Her Biggest Cash Ever
Vanessa "LadyMaverick" Rousso didn't do too badly for herself in this year's WCOOP main event. Her second-place finish zipped more than $700,000 into her PokerStars account.

What's even more impressive about her score was that it was also the biggest tournament cash in her poker career, period, including live-tournament winnings. (She has two live-tournament cashes for about a quarter of a million dollars each under her belt.) She was in her 30th hour of being awake when she finally busted out of the tournament.

"If anyone doubted that poker was a sport before this … ," she said. "It definitely required endurance - not just mental, but physical."

FossilMan Digs Up Some WCOOP Gold
Team PokerStars member Greg "FossilMan" Raymer now has to make a decision every time he attends a live poker tournament: Should he wear his WSOP bracelet, his WCOOP bracelet, or both? Well, maybe neither …

"I don't actually find jewelry that comfortable to wear," Raymer said.

Nevertheless, the 2004 WSOP main-event champ is truly proud of his win in the WCOOP $320 pot-limit Omaha (with rebuys) event, for which he earned $168,362 to go along with his new bracelet. Raymer outlasted 771 other entrants to win the event, a field that he said was particularly adept.

"The players were relatively good all the way through the event," he said. "It was probably of a higher quality than you'd see in most tournaments, online or live."

Mig.com's High-Flying Path to Victory
Fresh-faced, young online poker pros have been carrying their poker chops to the live-tournament arena with great success lately. Players like Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve" Saul and Jared "TheWacoKidd" Hamby went on rampages this summer that led to huge victories in live tournaments. But nothing compares to leaving your laptop behind to play in a WSOP event, only to return to your computer with a shiny new bracelet on your wrist.

Widely recognized online pro James "mig.com" Mackey did just that when he took down a $5,000 no-limit hold'em event at this year's WSOP, a feat that earned him $731,000 along with the coveted WSOP bracelet. He then went on to earn his second poker bracelet in the WCOOP. The young-looking, fiery-haired poker prodigy from Pottsville, Arkansas, secured his WCOOP bracelet in a $1,050 buy-in no-limit hold'em event. The event was huge; it had 3,325 entrants and a prize pool of $3.3 million, a prize pool that was bested by only the main event itself.

Mackey said, straight up, "No chops as long as I am playing," at the final table of his event. Indeed, that stance worked out for him, as he turned over the nut straight in the final hand to squelch his opponent's all-in bluff. That final pot earned him $580,000 and his second poker bracelet in less than four months.

Shooting Blanks in the Shootout
The one fear that online poker players have above all others is that of their Internet going out when they're heads up at the final table of a major event. Exactly this happened during the no-limit hold'em triple-shootout event of the WCOOP. Zock'n'Rock and lyerly_ were heads up, with lyerly_ in the lead, when lyerly_ was suddenly disconnected. Only a few hands went by before Zock'n'Rock asked the PokerStars support team to pause the tournament to allow lyerly_ to reconnect (something Zock'n'Rock was not obligated to do; he could have rapidly stolen blinds from lyerly_ until lyerly_ was eliminated).

PokerStars support contacted lyerly_ as he scrambled to a friend's house to reconnect and continue the heads-up battle for the bracelet. He eventually won the tournament, the almost $77,000 first-place prize, and the gold WCOOP bracelet. Zock'n'Rock, on the other hand, earned $51,000 and an immeasurable amount of respect for his gesture of sportsmanship.

The Long, Long, Long, Long Road
To say that some of the tournaments in this year's WCOOP ran long would be an understatement. Some of the event winners had to endure the poker grind for almost an entire rotation of Earth.

The series' events lasted for a combined 360 hours from start to finish. That's 15 full days of poker. The average time that it took to finish a tournament was almost 16 hours. The luckiest players were those in the $530 pot-limit Omaha event (won by buck21), which lasted just less than 13 hours.

The "unluckiest" two players were ka$ino and AB_illusive, both of whom had to last for more than 20 hours to snag their bracelets. AB_illusive bagged almost $400,000 for taking down the $530 no-limit hold'em event, which lasted 20-and-a-half hours, while ka$ino earned more than $1.3 million for almost an entire day's work - 22 hours.

But then, ka$ino likely has never made more than $62,000 an hour for a day's work in his life, so one assumes he can't complain too much.

The long tournaments, especially the three flagship no-limit hold'em events held on the Sundays during the series, raised the question of whether or not PokerStars would make these tournaments two-day events next year.

Vanessa Rousso, one of those players most affected by the time concerns, thinks that - while she hasn't heard of anything set in stone - such a change is likely.

"I was really tired toward the end; I had been up for almost 30 hours," she said. "It's worse than just being awake for 30 hours; it's like being awake and doing math problems for 30 hours. If we could just get a little break, you know? After 14 hours of play, if they'd let the players go to bed and start the next day, that would be great. I think they're considering it, and I hope that they do decide to go with a two- or three-day structure."

Lee Jones, ex-poker room manager of PokerStars and current host for the European Poker Tour, was slightly less hopeful.

"With online poker, it's not as simple for people to schedule a two-day tournament," he said. "But there are definitely discussions going on."

So, it looks like the answer to that, along with many other questions, will have to wait until next year's WCOOP, which will likely be - once again - the biggest online poker tournament series of all time.