Steven Van Zadelhoff Claims 2017 WCOOP Main Event Title

The 2017 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is now in the bag, with 2,183 players having entered its $5,200 NLHE Main Event to create a huge prize pool of $10,915,000. At the end of three days of action, it was then Dutch pro Steven Van Zadelhoff who successfully managed to overcome his opponents, including Canada’s Joshua “joshuah333” Herman heads-up, to claim the title, and a first place prize of $1,624,502.
Day 1 saw the large field reduced to just 281 players, which was whittled down further to a final table of nine by the end of Day 2, with Zadelhoff holding one-third of the remaining chips. Van Zadelhoff subsequently took care of romanooo64 in 8th, before Georgios “Geokarak” Karakousis (A-Q) called off an all-in against Zadelhoff (10-9) and lost to exit in 6th.
By the time three-handed play had been reached, Bernardo “Machadada RS” Rocha proposed striking an ICM deal, which was flatly turned down by Zadelhoff, who stated:
“We can make it winner take all?”
Half an hour later, Zadelhoff (A-K) sent Rocha to the rail in 3rd, leaving the Dutchman and Joshua “joshuah333” Herman to battle it out for top honors. Soon after, Zadelhoff increased his 2:1 chip lead over Herman to a 7:1 chip advantage when the deciding hand was played with the Canadian pushing all-in preflop holding A-2 and receiving a call from Zadelhoff with A-J. The J-7-5-K-8 board which ensued then put paid to Herman’s tournament hopes, who collected $1,173,713 for his runner-up finish, while Zadelhoff was crowned the 2017 WCOOP Main Event champion.
Final Table Results:
1: Steven “SvZff” van Zadelhoff (MlT) $1,624,502
2: Joshua “joshuah333” Herman (Can) $1,173,713
3: Bernardo “Machadada RS” Rocha (Brz) $848,016
4: Alexandre “Cavalito” Mantovani (Brz) $612,697
5: JeremiieLand (At) $442,677
6: Georgios “Geokarak” Karakousis (UK) $319,838
7: Heikki “Kekkhou” Piira (Fin) $231,085
8: romanooo64 (Thai) $166,961
9: Michael “imluckbox” Addamo (Thai) $120,630
Also taking place was a lower buy-in $215 NLHE Main Event, which attracted a massive 15,626 players, resulting in a $3,125,200 prize pool. The competition was eventually won by Jaloviina007 who walked away with a top prize of $350,336 for his impressive efforts.