September 25, 2008 (InfoPowa News) — Carter King (23) is the online champion in this year's PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker main event, which was held online this week.
In a gruelling two-day tournament, King (user name 'ckingusc') survived a record field of 2,185 entrants in the $1,500 + $200 event, which generated a prize pool of almost $11 million.
Sixty players survived to Day 2, but were whittled down to a final table of nine from several countries. The quality of the competition can be assessed by looking at some of the big names that did not reach that final table, such as Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Christian "charder30" Harder, Alex "august35" Kostritsyn, Ryan "Daut44" Daut, Scott "xmrstyle" Bohlman, and Dustin "neverwin" Woolf.
The final nine players were of diverse nationality, and the final payouts were influenced by a five-way chop to end the tournament thusly:
Carter 'ckingusc' King from the USA – $1,265,432.23
liberace from the UK – $1,375,249.81
AJKHoosier1 of the United States – $782,542.90
Markush13of Belarus – $961,718.76
ShoesRDurrty of the USA – $801,153.80
Sumpas from Sweden – $415,150.00
klslcz of the USA – $305,900.00
BOLLPOKER of France – $196,650.00
kovi99 fom Austria – $121,267.50
Overall, the WCOOP awarded nearly $40 million in prize money in 33 events. Stuart “thedonator” Patterson and Jon “PearlJammer” Turner led the way with ten cashes each in WCOOP events, the duo finishing "in the money" in 30 percent of events.
Team PokerStars Pro member Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier led the online poker room's pro team, cashing seven times for more than $400,000, including a 21st place finish in the Main Event. He commented: "The WCOOP is a great tournament to play in preparation for upcoming events like EPT London and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. The prize pool is enormous and there is such an incredible variety of players and styles. No other online tournament compares to the WCOOP."
Players from the United States cashed 3,776 times; players from Canada cashed 604 times; and United Kingdom PokerStars members cashed 495 times. There were 118 countries represented on the overall list of money bubble finishers. The international event saw players from Gibraltar, Iran, Uganda, Bahrain, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Luxembourg, and even the Faroe Islands cash. American players took 22, or two-thirds, of the total number of winner's bracelets. Canada, Norway, and Sweden each took two.