A strong interest in UltimateBet.com's $2,000,000 online poker championship series this past weekend catapulted the prize pools of the final four UBOC events beyond their initial guarantees to an impressive $1,218,300 in prize money. This included an $807,000 grand finale that paid out $181,575 to the winner.
On Friday, December 14, at 8 p.m. ET, UltimateBet guaranteed $100,000 in Event #10, a 6-seated No Limit Hold'em tournament. 320 players logged on and played in this first online poker event, inflating the prize pool by 60% to $160,000. It was déjà vu on Saturday at 2pm ET when Event #11's final prize pool totaled $101,300, over $26,000 more than what was initially guaranteed.
While Sunday's 2pm ET tournament was impressive with $150,000 in guaranteed money at stake, it was UBOC's Event #13 that has the entire online poker industry talking.
The UltimateBet Online Championship's main attraction, a $750,000 Guaranteed No Limit Hold'em tournament, began Sunday night at 5pm ET. The total prize pool eclipsed the guarantee by $57,000. A total of 807 players claimed a seat in the $1000+50 online Texas Hold'em tournament at 5pm ET, pumping up the final prize pool to $807,000. The final table of the online poker tournament was streamed live on UltimateBet.com. Annie Duke, one of the world's top poker professionals, hosted the live webcast.
An exhausting 10 hours and 32 minutes after the first shuffle-up-and-deal was called, an online poker player with the moniker PSMONEY topped off his impressive chip stack with the remainder of his opponents' dwindling chips and was declared the winner. For his victory, PSMONEY has secured an impressive $181,575. A total of 90 players--more than 10% of the players in the tournament--walked away with a profit, including NEVERLOVEDU and BOSSMENLO, the second and third place finishers who left the online poker table with $108,945 and $74,647.50 respectively.
While Event #13 was UBOC's most lucrative online poker event to date, the tournament wasn't entirely about money. Poker legend Phil Hellmuth played in the Texas Hold'em tournament with a bounty on his head, undoubtedly attracting a wave of players to the virtual poker tables. For knocking the 11-time WSOP bracelet winner out of the online poker tournament, a player who goes by the name R_A_Y has secured an exclusive 20-minute poker lesson over the telephone with Hellmuth.
The UltimateBet.com Online Championship kicked off on December 7th. Over the course of 10 days, the online poker site hosted 13 guaranteed online poker events including 6-Seat No Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha, No Limit Hold'em, Limit Hold'em, and Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better tournaments.
In addition to the more than $2-million won by online poker players, UltimateBet.com added a $100,000 Leader Board competition to the mix. Final results of the Leader Board competition will be released this week.
About UltimateBet:
Designed with the assistance of the best poker players in the world - Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke - UltimateBet provides the best poker games available on the net. Players can download the free poker software, play in free ring games and tournaments and get tips from these pros to learn the sport or to enhance their playing strategy. UltimateBet currently has over 2 million registered players.