Nine 2012 WCOOP Cashes, One Title, Third on Series Leaderboard
Steve Illini213Barshak (pictured) has been on a tear during the ongoing PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, or WCOOP. In fact, he is in a two-way tie for third on the series’ leaderboard, which shells out prizes to the top five and a grand prize that includes a champion’s trophy, 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure package, 2013 EPT Grand Final package, 2013 TCOOP Main Event ticket, and a custom chip set. Needless to say, there’s a lot to play for.
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Barshak has padded his WCOOP stats by finishing in the money nine times in the first 47 events, a 20% success rate. He even took home a WCOOP bracelet in Event #29, a $1,050 No Limit Hold’em tournament, and banked $225,000. All told, his nine cashes have earned him over a quarter of a million dollars as of the end of 47 tournaments. And, there’s still plenty of time left for him to do even more damage with this weekend’s Main Event and WCOOP finale.
Here are Barshak’s nine in the money finishes so far:
Event #5: $215 No Limit Hold’em Turbo Rebuy, 44th for $3,221
Event #10: $320 No Limit Hold’em Ante Up, 10th for $3,526
Event #17: $320 No Limit Hold’em 10-Minute Levels, 73rd for $1,209
Event #20: $215 Limit Hold’em, 28th for $712
Event #22: $10,300 No Limit Hold’em High Roller, 38th for $17,820
Event #29: $1,050 No Limit Hold’em, 1st for $225,490
Event #31: $530 No Limit Hold’em 10-Max Triple Shootout, 48th for $1,368
Event #42: $215 No Limit Hold’em, 35th for $3,470
Event #47: $265 No Limit Hold’em Turbo Knockout, 177th for $667
Barshak is camped out in Costa Rica to play online poker and told the PokerStars Blog what it felt like to win a WCOOP title in Event #29: “Winning a title has been a huge goal of mine since I started playing professionally two-and-a-half years ago. It has felt like a long time coming and I’ve had a lot of big runs and final table bubbles in major online and live events. It feels great for everything to come together, play my ‘A’ game, and win the bracelet.”
He’s planning to pump quite a bit of his winnings back into online poker, although we’re certain the Costa Rica pokercommunity will see a chunk of it as well. In the same interview, he painted a picture of what’s next: “I plan on going to lot of big live events and should be playing my first $25K soon. Winning a major live event is another big goal of mine that I know I am going to accomplish very soon. I love working on my game and always trying to become better. I’m really excited for what the next year entails for me.”
He’s at #3 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Rankings, his highest position ever, on the strength of nearly $3.4 million in career MTT earnings tracked on our site. Besides his WCOOP success, Barshak has won the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up and final tabled the Super Tuesday this year for over $170,000 total. He’s been a member of PocketFives since 2007.
Three events with nearly $1.5 million in total prize money are on deck for Thursday in the PokerStars WCOOP:
Event #54: Thursday, September 20 at 06:00 ET
$320 No Limit Hold’em
$300,000 Guaranteed
Event #55: Thursday, September 20 at 11:00 ET
$530 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys
$600,000 Guaranteed
Event #56: Thursday, September 20 at 14:00 ET
$2,100 Pot Limit Omaha Six-Max
$500,000 Guaranteed
As of the start of Wednesday’s action in the 2012 WCOOP, here’s how the top five on the WCOOP Leaderboard stand:
1. LuckyLukeKK (Norway) – 355 points (12 ITM, 2 bracelets)
2. GeorgeDanzer (Germany) – 305 points (13 ITM, 1 bracelet)
3. Steve Illini213Barshak (Costa Rica) – 240 points (9 ITM, 1 bracelet)
3. utvekklo2 (Sweden) – 240 points (7 ITM, 1 bracelet)
5. Eugene Katchalov (Ukraine) – 230 points (8 ITM, 1 bracelet)
