Sure, it was a Friday afternoon. People might have taken off work. Heck, some people might have taken vacation days. After all, it was the first event of the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker. It’s like baseball’s opening day, the first day of summer vacation, and your first cold beer all wrapped into one. All of that said, it’s no less than darned impressive to see 7,211 people from 86 different countries sign up for a weekday event at 14:30ET.

With $1,443,400 sitting in the prize pool, those thousands of players sat down for battle in the $215 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed event. Six of those players weathered cold decks, bad beats, and more than 14 hours of play to reach the final table. If you’d like a look at how those fourteen hours looked, check out the WCOOP Event #1 Live Blog.

The final six players were staring at a $212,179 first prize and six rather deep stacks. With the blinds at 15,000/30,000/3,000, the final six players sat with the following stacks.

Seat 1: - DoV - (3455180 in chips)
Seat 2: CURDOG1KCK (1258356 in chips)
Seat 3: scarface_79 (3016834 in chips)
Seat 4: SilverSocks (4867367 in chips)
Seat 5: pffwhatever (2199042 in chips)
Seat 6: shane147 (6854221 in chips)

Though talk of a deal broke out at the start of the final table, it was scuttled almost immediately. There began the deep-stacked marathon final table.

It took a full hour from the start of final table play to see the first exit. Shane147 came in for a raise to 200,000. Scarface_79 re-raised to 900,000 and Shane147 put him all-in for 2,491,608 more. Wanna guess the hands?

shane147: Kh-Qd
scarface_79: Qs-Qc

Would you rather watch it play out or read about it? How about seeing it as everyone else did?

In a beat scarface_79 will likely remember for some time, the turned straight beat his pair of queens and put him out in sixth place for $23,686.

Half an hour later, the Cinderella ROI story of the day emerged. Twenty-six year-old CURDOG1KCK (the KCK short for Kansas City, Kansas) won his $215 seat for $8.80 in a PokerStars satellite. After 16 hours of play, CURDOG1KCK finally got his short-stack in the middle with As-7s against SilverSocks Kc-9s. It a roller-coaster, stomach-churning board, CURDOG1KCK fell behind, jumped ahead, and then fell disgusted in fifth place on a Qs-9h-5d-Ad-Kd board. The river aside, the return on CURDOG1KCK's $8.80 investment earned him $49,075.

With four players remaining and a protracted negotiation complete, the players ultimately agreed to a deal under the following terms.

DOV: $110,000
silversocks: $136,894
pffwhatever: $94,136
shane147: $182,409

While the players had locked up their money, there still remained $20,000 on the table and the first 2008 WCOOP bracelet for which to play.

Shane147 seemed ready to finish it off or get to bed. In a quick succession of three hands, shane147 doubled up all three of his opponents and fell into fourth place.

There was more at stake here than $20,000 and a bracelet. A country's pride hung in the balance, as well. In the history of WCOOP, a history that goes back to 2002, the British folk have made it to more than 40 WCOOP final tables. They also had never won a bracelet Shane147 was their first hope of 2008. For a moment, it seemed as though he would give it all away.

And then something, as it always does, happened. Shane147 flopped top pair against 29-year-old Parisian - DoV -'s pair of tens with an open-ended draw. You don't have to watch the video below to know - DoV- did not catch. Regardless, for fourth place and a good deal, - DoV - picked up $110,000.

That bust-out seemed to open the floodgates. Before anyone could blink, SiverSocks had gotten his A-T against shane147's A-Q. A queen on the flop and no miracles to come and SilveSocks took the broze in third place, good for $136,894.

The heads up battle could've lasted a long time. Shane147 had pfffwhatever outchipped, but not by a huge margin. It appeared, however, Shane147 was ready to gamble. And gamble he did with J-2 all-in against pfffwhatever's A-J.

Wanna guess what fell on the flop? How about you just watch.

And it was with that deuce on the flop that Britain found its place in WCOOP history. No longer the PokerStars bridesmaid, Britain can now hold its veil high and walk down an aisle all its own into the online poker history books.

To watch the whole final table play out, check out this highlight show from PokerStars.tv

Watch WCOOP TV Event 1 - $215 Hold'em (6 max) on PokerStars.tv

Congratulations to all the winners. Full results can be found on the PokerStars WCOOP page. Final table results are below.

2008 WCOOP Event #1 Final Table Results
Based on finishing order and four-way deal

1. shane147 (United Kingdom) $202,409
2. pffwhatever (Austria) $94,136
3. SilverSocks (Netherlands) $136,894
4. - DoV - (France) $110,000
5. CURDOG1KCK (United States) $49,075.61
6. scarface_79 (United States) $23,686.20