PokerStars Concludes 2022 WCOOP Take 2

One of the most anticipated poker events of the year, the PokerStars WCOOP, concluded its final tournament on November 9th. The $10,300 WCOOP Main Event ended with “luis_faria” from Portugal taking home the $1,293,825 first-place prize. 

WCOOP Take 2

Usually, PokerStars’ WCOOP events take place throughout September. This year, however, PokerStars was forced to reschedule its online WCOOP, the largest tournament of the COOP series, due to severe server outages attributed to cyber-attacks. According to PokerStarsUSA, the outages were due to DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. The cyber attacks came on September 25th, one of PokerStars biggest days of the year. The online poker brand had five tournaments scheduled that day, including three Main Events with guarantees of $100,000, $40,000, and $20,000. During the DDoS attack, PokerStars’ website was inoperable and forced the tournaments to be rescheduled to the first weekend in November. 

Almost $80 million in prizes had already been awarded during the first half of the PokerStars’ WCOOP before the cyber attacks on September 25th. PokerStars upped the ante for the November tournament, giving players what they deserve with five more days of WCOOP action. WCOOP Take 2 took place November 5th – November 9th and guaranteed a prize pool of at least $27,918,600 million. The November tournaments were broken up into three buy-in levels for players, as was the tournament in September. The five-day series featured 66 tournaments, including three Hold ’em and three PLO Main Events. 

Luis Faria Wins $10k Main Event

The biggest event for online poker players this year was the $10,300 WCOOP Main Event with a guarantee of $7,000,000 that took place on November 9th. The WCOOP event brought in 760 entries, with some recognizable names at the final table, including Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos, “YannickPoker,” and Luis “luis_faria” Faria. 

Faria entered the final day as the chip leader and took down his competitors one by one. Faria held onto his position until it was just Hungary’s “Beorni21” left. Beorni21 started the final hand with an Off Suit, King-Five, and luis_faria an Off Suit, Nine-Seven. The flop revealed a Seven of Clubs, Two of Hearts, and Five of Diamonds. Both players refused to back down, growing the pot to 7,938,000 heading into the turn. A Seven of Spades was revealed, confirming luis_faria as the winner of the hand, but boerni21 refused to back down, doubting whether luis_faria had a Seven. After the river was dealt, and a Queen of Clubs revealed, Boerni21 made the fatal mistake of betting the remaining 20,125,391 chips he had at the last minute. 

Luis “Luis_faria” Faria took home the grand prize of $1,293,825, bringing his total lifetime winnings to $2,105,055. Boerni21 still ended the day as a winner, taking home $950,078 in prize money. The top 9 players from the WCOOP Take 2 tournament each received at least $122,217 in prize money. 

Other notable results from the weekend

From the $109 Main Event, Bulgaria’s “gimley14” secured the main event top prize of $277,042, not bad for a $109 buy-in. UK-based player “Twicyyy” also received a massive payout of $603,142 for winning the $1k Main Event.

The $10k PLO Main Event brought in just 92 players but still awarded a significant payout of $218,961 for first-place winner Ka Kwan “kaju85” Lau. The $1k PLO Main Event was won by Eelis “EEE27” Pärssinen for $105,975, and the $109 PLO Main Event was won by “ShipitFTW911” for $37,299.

Mac Daniel is a Michigan native and freelance writer for PlayOnlineCasino and PlayOnlineSportsBetting. He has experience writing about a wide variety of topics, including healthcare, tourism, non-profit organizations, and most recently casino and sportsbetting news. To check out more of his work, visit: playonlinemichigan.com