Raul Mestre Wins World Championship of Poker 2011

Raul Mestre has won the inaugural 2011 World Championship of Poker, after overcoming a field of 135 players over 2 days to lift the title, and collect the $250,000 first place prize.
The International Federation of Poker (IFP) organised event took place in London on Saturday, and after 11 hours of play the invitational tournament was reduced to just nine players.
The following day, the final table got underway with Spanish talented poker pro Raul Mestre out in front as the chip leader. Also at the table were 2 players from Germany, 2 from Japan, as well as others from Brazil, Serbia, Australia and the UK.
UK pro Victoria Coren then proceeded to eliminate Kinichi Nakata (Japan) in 9th ($10,000), and Tim Reese (Germany) in 8th ($12,500) to move up the leader board.
After Takuo Serita (Japan) exited in 7th ($15,000), Raul Mestre then eliminated Sandra Naujoks (Germany) in 6th ($17,500). Mestre (9-8) had pushed his big stack all-in on a 2-7-8 rainbow flop into his opponent’s pocket kings, only to make trip 8’s on the river.
Victoria Coren then eliminated Marsha Waggoner (Australia) in 5th ($20,000), while Mestre dispatched Slavko Tomic (Serbia) in 4th ($25,000) and Igor Trafane (Brazil) in 3rd ($50,000) to get the heads-up phase of the competition underway.
Mestre had a slight edge at the start of play, but 50 minutes later Coren was in big trouble after being dealt A-J and calling her opponent’s pocket fives shove.
She lost that hand reducing her chips to 180K to Mestre 1.17 million, and a short while later Coren finished the runner-up ($100,000) holding A-3 to Mestre’s A-5.
UK’s Victoria Coren has now earned around $1.3 million from live tournaments, whereas Raul Mestre takes his live earnings to $755,022. He has also won a further
$271,976 playing online under the screen name “Sir_Donald.”