The 10th annual PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) concluded this week and after two days of play and 1,626 eliminations, Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen emerged victorious in the $5,200 Main Event, banking $1,260,018.50.
The Dane entered final table play as far and away the largest stack remaining. His 11.2 million chips was more than twice that of his next closest competitor, “Vojta_R,” who had just over 5 million chips in front of his avatar. He made quick work of two players right off the bat. First, “dan82mur” raised pre-flop to 160,000, Kallllle made it 354,678, and dan82mur shoved for a total of 2.22 million. Dan82mur was in trouble from the start, his A-T dominated by A-K, and didn’t improve, hitting the rail in 9th place.
Not long thereafter, Kallllle had 9-9 up against “OU THE NICK,” who was all-in with K-Q. Nothing higher than an 8 hit the board, eliminating “OU THE NICK” in 8th place, though the $122,025 payday was likely a decent consolation.
After “Jle90” was knocked out in 7th place (by “VadziMoney”), Kallllle had, 16.4 million chips, more than half the chips at the table. VadziMoney was in second, but wasn’t even close, with just 4.46 million.
Kallllle got back to work, using pocket Kings to bust “WhySoSrsSon,” who was all-in pre-flop with pocket Fours. After that, the remaining five players worked out a deal, agreeing to a chop that closely mirrored where they stood chip-wise, leaving $100,000 and the WCOOP bracelet up for grabs. Here is what the prize pool allocation looked like:
Kallllle – $1,160,018.50
VadziMoney – $750,000
Vojta_R – $710,000
BackDoorovic – $650,000
Goleafsgoeh – $560,000
Kallllle took a few hits after that, but got back on track, knocking out VadziMoney in fifth place and BackDoorovic in fourth. After Vojta_R eliminated “Goleafsgoeh” in third, heads-up play commenced, with Kallllle holding about a 2-to-1 chip advantage.
It didn’t take long for Kallllle to end it, though a half hour or so in online poker time is a lot longer than the same period in live poker time. With just under 4 million chips remaining, Vojta_R four-bet all-in pre-flop with 3-3. Kallllle made the call with A-T and nailed the Ten on the flop. It was all academic after that as Vojta_R couldn’t hit his two outer on either the turn or the river, officially giving Kallllle the WCOOP championship.
“Well, now I am officially online world champion,” Thomas Pederson told the PokerStars Blog. “So, the next step must be the live world champion.”
By the way, as for his odd screen name, Pederson explained that it was actually a pretty random development from when he was a kid. A dishwasher at a café when he was 15-years old, the chef liked him and started calling him Kalle, after a former employee. Pederson didn’t think it made any sense, but the rest of the restaurant staff started calling him Kalle, as well. After a while, like most nicknames, it just stuck, eventually becoming the root of his poker screen name, “Kallllle.”
