Seven-card stud is one of the hardest forms of poker to master because of the wealth of information a player must store within the first few seconds of every hand. At a full table, a player ideally must remember all seven suits and ranks of his opponents' up cards in order to more accurately calculate odds and predict his opponents' holdings. He must commit all of this to memory before the other players throw their hands into the muck, which is usually an act of futility.
Last night, 696 players bucked up the $300 buy-in (with $20 entry fee), each for the chance to prove that he was the best seven-card stud player on PokerStars. The tournament had a small guarantee of $100,000, tied four-ways with deuce-to-seven triple draw, limit hold'em, and razz for the lowest guarantee of any event in the 2007
World Championship of Online Poker (
WCOOP). The actual prize pool of the event was more than double the guarantee, at $208,800. The first-place prize in the event was almost $49,000.
Randy "Randers" Haddox was the final-table bubble boy. He collected $2,088 for ninth place. The final table itself featured a familiar face with
Florian "spielraum.at" Oberauer, a player who had already taken down a
WCOOP event this year. He won
event No. 2, the pot-limit five-card draw event, earning $42,850. He was in good shape to take down his second bracelet of the year when he entered the final table in third place. The chip leader at the final table's start was
Ubsolute, another notable Internet player who has six previous Online Player of the Year-qualified finishes.
Ubsolute saw his stack halved early on in the tournament, but managed to bring it back up a bit by the time play was sixhanded. The six remaining players had similar stacks and decided to make a deal that gave them fairly even payouts and left $6,000 on the line for the eventual winner, per the PokerStars chopping rules. Both Lystig and Grape were sent to the rail within minutes of the dealmaking discussion, leaving play fourhanded.
Spielraum.at missed joining the ranks of
Kyle "kwob20" Bowker and
spawng as two-time
WCOOP bracelet winners when he became the next player eliminated. His pair of tens went up against Ubsolute's two pair and failed to improve, and he left the table with $19,805 as a result of the chop deal.
Dersu then went out in third place when his rivered pair of aces wasn't enough to best sascos' two pair. He made $22,360 from the deal. Ubsolute was the chip leader when heads-up play began. He ended the tournament when he made a pair of aces to beat out sascos' pair of fours. Ubsolute won the extra $6,000, putting his total winnings at an even $25,000, and the coveted gold
WCOOP bracelet.
The final results were:
- Ubsolute - $25,000*
- sascos - $19,902*
- Dersu - $22,360*
- Florian "spielraum.at" Oberauer - $19,805*
- Grape - $21,011*
- Lystig - $18,828*
- bull_99 - $6,096.96
- scrubbyz - $3,967.20
* Payout reflects a six-way deal with $6,000 remaining on the line for the eventual winner, per the PokerStars chopping rules.
Today's tournament, which started at 3 p.m. ET, is the $300 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event. The tournament has 1,536 entrants (which guarantees 225 paid places) and a prize pool of $460,800, more than double the $200,000 guaranteed for the event. Tomorrow's event is a $300 buy-in (with $20 entry fee) sixhanded no-limit hold'em event with a $400,000 guarantee. That tournament starts at 3 p.m. ET. To sign up for PokerStars to play in tomorrow's event - or any of the seven remaining events - and to collect an exclusive deposit bonus through
Card Player, please
click here. For a list of events remaining in the
WCOOP,
click here.
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