The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars has long dominated the online tournament landscape, but this year they face some competition in the form of 888poker’s XL Eclipse.
Parker “888tonkaaaa” Talbot Nearly Goes Back to Back
The series spans 15 days and is comprised of 197 events. It kicked off on Sunday with a $160 buy-in, $300,000 GTD opening event that drew 1,700 entries and created a $345,000 prize pool.
It took nearly 14 hours for Thailand’s “ImTriggered” to claim the title and $58,270.50 top prize. Not only that, “ImTriggered” went on to make the final table of The Whale, a monthly $1,050 MTT (with rebuys) on 888, ultimately finishing in fifth place for $18,386.
At the same time, the $109 buy-in Event #12 ($30,000 Sunday Tornado) played out. That event attracted 206 entries and saw 888poker Ambassadors Xuan “888Xuan” Liu and Parker “888tonkaaaa” Talbot both make the final table.
Liu finished fifth for $1,800, while Talbot, who recently signed with Upswing Poker, went on to win it for $6,450.
Final Table Results
1 Parker “888tonkaaaa” Talbot (Canada) $6,450
2 “neverfoldQ5” (Germany) $4,650
3 “_zufurduo_” (Argentina) $3,525
4 “PeyNixon” (UK) $2,625
5 Xuan “888Xuan” Liu (Canada) $1,800
6 “AhCacao” (UK) $1,500
7 “unclesala” (Switzerland) $1,200
8 “JohnFoot” (UK) $900
9 “HappyMonkey9” (UK) $600
The next day, Talbot nearly went back to back in the Tornado, making the final table of Event #27 ($15,000 Tornado). However, Ukraine’s Roman “Romeopro33” Romanovskyi stopped him heads-up to win $5,332 while Parker had to settle for second place money of $3,844.
“Romeopro33” Wins XL Eclipse High Roller
Stopping Talbot wasn’t all Roman “Romeopro33” Romanovskyi did. After winning Event #27: $15,000 Tornado for $5,332, he went on to become the first player to win multiple XL Eclipse titles after topping a field of 171 entries to win Event #36 ($500,000 High Roller) for $107,500.
Making both wins even more meaningful, Romanovskyi donates more than half his winnings to charity as part of his TwoPlusTwo “Charity Marathon.” He has a goal of winning $600,000 playing online, with $400K of that going to charity. There’s no timeline for the marathon, which has been going on for a couple years now, but winning the High Roller certainly brought him much closer to accomplishing his goal.
Final Table Results
1 Roman “Romeopro33” Romanovskyi (Ukraine) $107,500
2 “laciababy64” (Czech Republic) $77,500
3 Simon “Isildur1337x” Matsson (Sweden) $58,750
4 “allesrigged” (Germany) $43,750
5 “Poker86ss” (Netherlands) $30,000
6 Nicholas “PKaiser” Fierro (Chile) $25,000
7 “2pacnrw16” (Germany) $20,000
8 “AlexMax15” (Arabia) $15,000
9 “AriGold17” (Canada) $10,000
Here’s a look at some others who’ve won XL Eclipse titles:
- Niklas “tutten7” Astedt (Sweden) won Event #4: $150,000 Mega Deep for $28,050
- Sebastian “p000cket000” Sikorski (Canada) won Event #13: $50,000 Turbo Mega Deep for $11,542.50
- Nicolas “PKaiser” Fierro (Chile) won Event #17: $15,000 Lightning 6-Max for $5,564
- Ivan “nomoney4ever” Banic (Croatia) won Event #30: $15,000 Lightning 6-Max for $5,070
- Cristian “progree69” Sampaoli (Argentina) won Event #35: $20,000 Monsoon for $4,810.05
- Pim “SuprNintend0” de Goede (Malta) won Event #37: $200,000 Mini High Roller for $37,500
- Pedro “gusma” Madeira (Brazil) won Event #39: $15,000 Tornado for $3,979
All XL Eclipse winners qualify for the series-ending Champion of Champions Event on September 26 at 6 pm GMT. The winner of that tournament will receive a $13,000 package to the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe at King’s Casino Rozvadov in the Czech Republic.
