The World Poker Tour World Online Championship crowned its first no-limit Holdem winner of the series yesterday as the final table of the $3k 8-max championship came to a close. His name is Gavin Cochrane and he took home $540,644.
Cochrane’s previous high stakes success in tourneys has largely come from pot-limit Omaha events. Most recently he took third in the £10,000 + £500 PLO event at the British Poker Open in London. In 2018 he took 192nd in the WSOP Main Event.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the shift to Holdem provided a jump in popularity with players ponying up 1,062 entries. With a little over $3 million in the pot, there was plenty to play for as the final nine convened online.
To the final table
Cochrane came to the final table with a prodigious chip lead, having almost double Thomas Boivin’s second place. It didn’t take long for his luck to change though.
After bluffing into Dmitri Yurosav with a missed straight draw, Cochrane found himself nearer the middle of the pack and fighting for every chip.
Sam Grafton took 9th after having his pocket kings cracked two hands running and went to the rail with $40,144. Play chugged along slowly from there with Ognyan Dimov of Bulgaria (8th - $48,427) and Jiachen Jong of Canada (7th - $61,171) dropping out.
Then Cochrane’s luck turned again. He chopped out Daniel Colpoys legs, then sent him to the rail in 6th ($87,296) with a pre-flop all-in and a coinflip that came up Cochrane. Then he turned his attention to Shyngis Satubayev and sent him away in 5th ($123,298).
Thomas Boivin took back the chip lead during four-handed play. The game slowly turned into Cochrane v. Boivin as hey each picked off one of the remaining players – Yurosav, who took 4th (KK v A8), and Kamphues in 3rd. They collected $173,956 and $256,728 respectively.
Cochrane v Boivin - heads up challenge
Things weren’t looking great for Cochrane with 36.7 million in chips to Boivin’s 70.1 million. But both players were deep. Cochrane’s stack represented 45 big blinds as heads up play began.
Cochrane didn’t need to make any moves. Slowly Boivin’s stack rose and Cochrane’s fell till he picked up 7s-5s in the big blind. After calling Boivin’s raise the flop came 8d-6d-4d.
He’d flopped a straight.
Lucky for Cochrane, Boivin had hit top pair with his 8-7os and was happy to get it in for Cochrane’s remaining stack. Cochrane held and the lead changed hands once again.
From there it was a smooth ride until his off-suit A-J held against Boivin’s A-4. Boivin went out as first of the losers and took home $388,119 for his trouble.
This is another first in that the WPT will be engraving the first name on the Mike Sexton Champions Cup.
Along with his name embossed in silver, Cochrane also won $540,644, and a $15,000 entry to the Tournament of Champions which comes with a hotel room and free flights to whatever poker room is both large enough and open enough to host the event.
