Two Plus Two Older Archives - PokerStars World Cup of Poker reaches semi-finals

PokerStars World Cup of Poker reaches semi-finals

The PokerStars World Cup of Poker is down to four teams after this past weekend’s action. The PokerStars World Cup of Poker is the first-ever fully sponsored poker competition. 7725 players from 27 countries competed in the two PokerStars World Cup qualifying tournaments. PokerStars is giving away $100,000 in prizes, 16 cruises, and $16000 in travel expenses and taking no entry fees inthis event. In addition, the cameras of the World Poker Tour will be on hand to capture the action between the four remaining nations.

To get to this point, 28 teams competed in preliminary divisional round-robin matches. The top two teams from each division formed poker’s “Sweet Sixteen”. Each team was comprised of four players, who played four heads-up matches against their opponents, plus a playoff match in the event of a tie. This past weekend, the last two rounds were completed. On Sunday, the eight remaining teams from Norway, USA East, Costa Rica, Finland, Italy, South Africa, Germany, and the Netherlands played down to the final four, who would each win a cruise for two for each team member, $1000 cash, and a shot at the prize pool of $100000 to be awarded to the top four places.

In the first quarterfinal match between USA East and Norway, Clubs (New York, NY) and Per Hansen (Akershus) traded wins for their respective teams in the early going, but that was as close as Norway would get. TheBeat (Liverpool, NY) and liljohn1789 (Mount Pleasant, MI) secured the win for USA East in 1 hour and 26 minutes.

In the Italy/South Africa quarterfinal, Italy drew first blood when Generale (Mestre Venezia) won in 22 minutes. However, scotty_k (Johannesburg), cazdee (Sandton) and piejay (Johannesburg) would run the table for the South Africans, who clinched after piejay’s 1 hour, 13 minute victory.

The quarterfinal between Costa Rica and Finland required a playoff match to settle the differences between the equatorial and Nordic nations. These were the tightest matches in the round of eight, as each of the matches took over one hour. Wilbert and Nibbling, both of Espoo, won the first two matches to put Costa Rica on the brink. But Costa Rica responded from their 2-0 deficit with wins from millon (San José) and rolada1 (Tibas) to tie the series. Thus it went to a playoff, where rolada1 defeated Nibbling in 1 hour and 8 minutes to send the tournament’s only Central American team aboard the Caribbean cruise.

Just as exciting was the match between Germany and the Netherlands. The first three matches were played on Sunday, but the fourth was postponed due to prior arrangement. After Sunday’s action, RamJanne (Zoetermeer), and bull_99 (Den Haag) had the Netherlands in good position with a 2-1 lead. bruce lee (Herzogenrath) scored the lone German tally on Sunday. The Germans were thus put in a spot where they would have to win both of their last two matches to survive. That's exactly what they did. When BurgerKing (Cologne) beat johank (Eibergen) in the remaining match to tie the score at 2-2, the Dutch again went to johank to try seal the victory for them in the playoff match. But the Germans selected bruce lee, who had different plans, making quick work of johank in a 20-minute match to send Germany to the final four.

The rest of the action now takes place aboard the beautiful Voyager of the Seas cruise liner, which sails from Miami on January 18, 2004, and stops at four Caribbean ports before returning on January 25. The winning team will receive $50,000, the second place team will win $24,000, third place will walk away with $16,000 and fourth place will earn $10,000 for their effort. Players earned a spot on their World Cup of Poker teams without putting up one cent of their own -- two players on each team won their way in through tournaments that cost just 50 Frequent Player Points to enter, one player on each team was there by virtue of being the PokerStars Tournament Leader Board winner from February to October for their country, and one player on each team was nominated by the above three. With its unique flavor and exciting heads-up action, the PokerStars World Cup of Poker should capture attention in poker circles across international borders for years to come.

For more information on the PokerStars World Cup of Poker, please visit http://www.pokerstars.com/wpt_worldcup.html