It was a battle that went down to the wire and one that eventually saw Patrick Leonard sneaking past Benny Glaser at the death to scoop the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Player of the Series title and the $25k bonus that goes with it.
It’s hard to imagine breaking so many records, as Glaser did throughout this year’s WCOOP, and not coming out on top.
Seven victories looked set to give the 34-year-old English pro – known on PokerStars as 'RunGodlike' – top spot in the overall standings, but Leonard was fighting until the end. And it's never over until it's over.
Approaching the last few events, Glaser held a very slim lead, and it all came down to the final day and event #105-H, the $1,050 Super Tuesday.
It's not over until...
Glaser fired twice but couldn’t make either bullet count, whereas Leonard ran all the way to the win, with a heads-up deal and victory over his friend Eduardo 'Eduardo850' Silva.
That last-gasp $54,506 cash was enough for Leonard to overtake Glaser (who actually fell to third spot on the overall table behind the still-anonymous 'FAL1st' from Thailand) and scoop the extra $25k that went with the title.
Leonard was classy as always, tweeting respect to Glaser afterwards.
Glaser replied saying, "See you then, man."
You wouldn't bet money against the two players going on to dominate the 2024 SCOOP as well.
2023 WCOOP overall leaderboard
| Place | Player | Points |
| 1 | Patrick 'pads1161' Leonard (UK) | 2165 |
| 2 | 'FAL1st' (Thailand) | 2015 |
| 3 | Benny 'RunGodlike' Glaser (Canada) | 1970 |
| 4 | Renan 'Internett93o' Bruschi (Brazil) | 1925 |
| 5 | Rui 'RuiNF' Ferreira (Brazil) | 1750 |
| 6 | Kelvin 'Kelvin_FP:AR' Kerber (Brazil) | 1670 |
| 7 | Jerry 'Perrymejsen' Odeen (Sweden) | 1625 |
| 8 | Gabriel 'pinguinho' Baleeiro (Brazil) | 1280 |
| 9 | Joao 'Naza114' Vieira (UK) | 1180 |
WCOOP by numbers
Biggest and Smallest
$6,000,000
That was the final prizepool for the High version of the WCOOP Main Event, followed by the Medium and Low Mains.
$2,960
It was the restricted Women’s Event (99-L: $5.50 NLHE Progressive KO) that saw the smallest prize pool of all, though even that broke its $2500 guarantee.
$1,047,257
As we already reported, Ivan 'ILS007' Stokes pocketed the biggest prize of all with his $1,047,257 World Championship of NLHE victory in the $10,300 buy-in Main Event (WCOOP 98-H).
$408
Not all WCOOP prize pools are created equally. The smallest winner’s prize was just $408, won by Synned Gil in the Progressive KO Women’s Event (WCOOP 99-L: $5.50 NLHE).
75,029
The biggest field of the series appeared in one of the smallest buy-in events, as you’d expect, with 75,029 runners in the opening event of the 2023 WCOOP (01-L: $5.50 NLHE [Phase 2], $400K Gtd).
25
Conversely, the smallest field was in the Championship High Roller, which attracted just 25 entries at $10,300 apiece in WCOOP 55-H: 8-Game [High Roller], $275K Gtd
78
That’s the number of tournament victories Brazil’s finest amassed from the 340 on offer, almost double that of runners-up, the UK, with 40 victories. Austria filled out the podium with 19 wins.
1
Winning a WCOOP event is laudable whatever the circumstances, but check the following countries and decide for yourself whether they’ll be happy or not with their minimum haul: Armenia, Aruba, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, Slovakia, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
