The first event of the 2009 PokerStars World Championship Of Online Poker concluded this morning, with online player "ChopSueyyy" earning the first official 2009 WCOOP bracelet, as well as nearly 1100 times their initial buy-in.

That's right, as an amazing example of what makes these types of huge field online poker events such great value, ChopSueyyy earned $234,421 for only a $215.00 investment, but that's not to say it didn't take some work.

Event #1 of the 2009 WCOOP,  a No-Limit Hold 'em 6-max, attracted 8,538 players and amassed a total prize pool worth $1,707,600- $457,600 more than the posted guarantee. 

Amongst that starting field sat many of the top live and online players in the game including most of the PokerStars pros, and just to get to the final table, ChopSueyyy had to battle many of them for over 16 solid hours. 

Once making the final table, ChopSueyyy still had to deal with an aggressive final six that held well known poker pro Jason "JP OSU" Potter as well as a big stacked, "LosChief," with more than double ChopSueyyy's chips.

No deal was struck at the final table until play reached heads-up, so it would still be close to another 3 hours before ChopSueyyy would finally successfully clear these last obstacles and claim the top prize which- even after the deal with runner-up "MMalipo"- was still worth close to a quarter of a million dollars.

The final table finish positions for the PokerStars 2009 WCOOP Event #1 were as follows:

1st.  ChopSueyyy- $234,421.82*?

2nd.  MMalipo- $183.940.20*?

3rd.  Futuro- $119,532.01?

4th.  LosChief- $68,304.01?

5th.  JP OSU- $34,152.01?

6th.  shuriken555- $23,940.56

*Totals reflect final table deal.

For more information on this or the other events that comprise this year's PokerStars WCOOP, visit www.pokerstars.com.


Story by Mark Anderson