The 2005 World Cup of Poker

The PokerStars World Cup of Poker, a free to qualify competition among national teams of poker players was completed recently with 40 different countries putting forward five strong teams selected through two Tournament Leader Board picks, two heads-up qualifiers, and one player nominated by PokerStars after consulting with the team's captain.

The tournament was played online in a heads up elimination format until the semi-finals and then filmed in London. Taking part were England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, four USA Teams (USA California, USA Georgia, USA Oregon, Team USA), two Canadian Teams (Canada 1, Canada 2) and 29 National Teams for other countries with one team representing the rest of the world. And after a long battle it was Costa Rica who won the second PokerStars.com World Cup of Poker, defeating Norway in a dramatic final contest that lasted just seven hands. With the final tied at 2-2, the World Cup title was decided in a showdown between Costa Rica's Jose Rosencrantz and Norway's captain Allan Dyrstad.

After taking a 2-0 lead, the Costa Ricans looked set to coast to the title, but outstanding displays by Norway's Age Spets and Anders Berg took the contest into a fifth set decider between Rosencrantz and Dyrstad. The first big hand came at Dyrstad's peril. He came into the hand with AK and looked to play it to a win. But Rosenkrantz who came in with a mere 7 high flopped a straight and milked a 2-1 chip lead before Dyrstad got away from the hand. Then, just seven hands into the match, the key hand arrived.

Norway's Dyrstad found pocket queens and made the decision to play them slow. Rosenkrantz had 9T and got into the hand fairly cheaply. The flop came nine high and Rosenkrantz put every one of his chips in the middle. What he didn't know is that Dyrstad had the pair of nines dominated Dyrstad then went into the tank whilst in the bar, the Costa Rican team sensed the end was nigh. They clutched each other, begging for Dyrstad to be scared away. Dyrstad thought and thought. Finally, he said out loud that, after thinking, he believed if Rosenkrantz had a big hand he would not have pushed all-in. And because of that, "I call." It was the perfect read. Team Costa Rica was crestfallen. They knew their man only had five outs - the two nines and three tens remained in the deck. Surely the entire World Cup of Poker championship would not come down to a miracle? But the dealer pulled off the turn card and laid down...a ten - and the room exploded. With a Costa Rican flag flying, the country's team exploded into their "Oh yay, oh yay, oh yay, oh yay, Tico, Tico" soccer chant. The Norwegians couldn't believe what they saw.

There are two reasons why Costa Ricans - population 4 million - has won back to back Poker World Cups. Firstly, the Costa Rican poker scene was transformed by the arrival four years ago by a number of online poker sites in the capital city of San Jose and Nick Gullo's development of poker at Casino Europa. This boosted the economy as a whole and the poker action in particular. Secondly, Costa Rica is home to the Brenes brothers - Umberto, Alex and Eric - who have all appeared frequently on high stakes final tables all over the world for the last decade. Alex won the deciding heat of the 2004 World Cup and again made a decisive contribution in London. teams. THE WINNERS