After the build up, the early rounds and the long battle that made up the final, not to mention the countless contests to determine who would fly to the Bahamas to represent their country, the new World Cup of Poker champions have been crowned. Germany, led by PokerStars Shooting Star Jan Heitmann, emerged victorious tonight after a 16 hour day in the poker saddle.

After a day of heady competition, a changing leader board and shovels full of good natured banter, Germany overcame a determined Italian Team led by Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano to win the fifth incarnation of the event. After a long day the end came after just one hand of heads-up play; Heitmann's Q-8 ultimately over-taking Pagano's Q-9 to make a flush on the river.

"This has been a great experience, a really great tournament" said Heitmann during the trophy presentation. "Our team played fantastic. We got lucky a bit but overall we played very good poker."

Heitmann and his team collected $100,000 for first place, part of a $290,000 freeroll prize pool added entirely by PokerStars.

The final featured each of the nine teams that qualified for this battle in the Bahamas over many weeks of competition online. One of many unique twists, chip stacks were determined by points won in five single table tournaments that saw the Great Britain team, led by Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren, hold the chip lead going into the final.

Their journey was a roller coaster one, at times caught out by bad luck but able nonetheless to mount comebacks, albeit with a slice of more favourable luck.
It was a similar story for Team USA, aside from their slightly better fourth place finish.

The defending champions, whose line up featured to former winners in team captain Greg Raymer and internet tournament grandee Shaun Deeb, feel foul of bad luck when many times it seemed the momentum was flowing in their favour. This and other incidents were just some of the key moment spectators could see for themselves on EPTLive's unparalleled coverage that featured every hand - including hole cards.

Testament to the competitive nature of this most unique of team poker events was the careful staying power of each team, with several hours passing before the first elimination. There was also the tense mixture of not wanting to let team mates down. Poker is essentially an individualist pursuit. The sudden change in mentality towards a team approach baffled some, Vicky Coren particularly who folded a hand she freely admitted would have seen her shove her money in had it been hers.

"It's unnatural to be concerned for other people's welfare..." she said before folding her hand, all too aware, like others around her, that a single mistake would cost not just her but the whole team.

That said the World Cup of Poker lived up to its reputation of being one of the most fun event to play and watch, surrounded by a camaraderie that saw all the participants sticking around till the end. No team was beyond tasting success. Germany were ultimately victorious but all teams were in contention, even the ninth place Canadian team, led by Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, could rightfully blame bad luck (notably jacks) for their demise.

Either way the result was another great World Cup of Poker. Congratulations to all the teams involved, and to Germany for a great achievement...

Watch WCP V: Team Germany wins the WCP V. on PokerStars.tv

Here's a look at the final results...

1st - Germany - $100,000
Jan Heitmann (Captain), Georg Geissler, Malte Strothmann, Bastian Wulff, Peter Schmidt.

2nd - Italy - $70,000
Luca Pagano (Captain), Michele Migliore, Pennisi Omar, Valeriano Bilancetti, Fabrizio Villa.

3rd - New Zealand - $50,000
Lee Nelson (Captain), Nicholas Webb, Richard Grace, Wayne Lo, Jordan Bryant.

4th - USA - $30,000
Greg Raymer (Captain), Shaun Deeb, Benjamin Zamani, Jarred Gabin, Bruce Armstrong.

5th - Great Britain - $10,000
Vicky Coren (Captain), Steven Devlin, Laurence Houghton, Derek Morris, Karl Mahrenholz.

6th - Poland - $10,000
Marcin Horecki (Captain), Jerzy Slaby, Pawel Chmiel, Patryk Slusarek, Leszek Krawcynski.

7th - Latvia - $5,000
Krisjanis Jurdzs (Captain), Vjaceslavs Ivanovs, Juris Saicans, Ance Laganovska, Dmitrijs Kurchins.

8th - Mexico - $5,000
JC Alvarado (Captain), David Huber, José Francisco Muñoz Osuna, Antoine Barriere, Jorge Lozano.

9th - Canada - $5,000
Daniel Negreanu (Captain), Blair Maltby, Dennis Hamlyn, Wanda Whitlock, Tammy Bailey.

For a fine comb account of the day you can check back through any of the links below, which as well as details of key moments also explain one of the most heroic tournament structures known to man...

Let the finals begin
We're underway
Happy to be here
Closing in
Two tables to go...
Final table about to start
Final table updates
Play continues in the final

That it for another year on the World Cup of Poker, one of the many side features at this year's PCA. Tomorrow marks the start of the $25,000 High Roller event that should pitch togther some of the world's best players in this unique setting.

Play starts at 12 noon ET. See you then.

If we let our imaginations wander, we see a benevolent poker deity sitting on a cloud of cash with a quaint abacus at his fingertips. It is he who will decide for what these tenacious PCA runners will fight.

In our wildest of dreams we predicted a $2.5 million first prize. Even Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem called out at the welcome party that a $2.5 million prize would be a fanciful but happy result.

And so when the man from the cash clouds set aside his abacus and spoke from the mount, we dutifully fell over in shock and reverence.

The first prize of the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is something few tournament runners have ever seen.

Three. Million. Dollars.

The $12,674,000 prize pool means 199 of the starting 1,347 players will walk away with cash. The top three players will win at least one million bucks. No matter how you slice it, whoever wins this event will join poker's elite by week's end. Now, it is only a matter of determining who that person will be.

It is, without question, reason to celebrate (just as Victor Ramdin's table did with 21 minutes left in the night).

When Day 1A ended, Brazilian Felipe Ramos walked away with a staggering 360,000 chips. No one here today could eclipse that mark. Still, there are several players here who have more than enough chips to do significant damage to Ramos and the other 350-400 players.

Among those players is our apparent Day 1B chip leader Chris Fernandez, a 25-year-old from Toronto. The internet marketing company owner is here with his brother Chad and father Carlton, both of whom showed up late as to not jinx their kin. Fernandez ends the day on 280,000.

Other big stacks include the likes of Brad Henry, Alex Longobardi, Scott Bateson, Eric Lui, Brian England, and Chris Underwood.

While that list does not contain the names of the much-storied Team PokerStars Pros, there are more than a few who will be joining us on Day 2. Katja Thater, Humberto Brenes, Alex Gomes, and Andre Akkari are all coming back with a bag of chips.

With only a couple of months in his datebook since winning the World Series Main Event, PokerStars Million Dollar Man Peter Eastgate came here today looking for another title. His quest is not over. He will also be coming back looking for more millions. He holds in the neighborhood of 70,000.

Noah Boeken was celebrating his 28th birthday today. The party ended early as he and a handful of other Team PokerStars Pros found the rail. Among the departed Team Pros: Dario Minieri, defending PCA champion Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Isabelle Mercier, Chris Moneymaker, and Hevad Khan. Similarly situated are PokerStars Passport holder Dustin Mele, tennis star Boris Becker, PokerStars Six member Ivan Demidov, and 2006 EPT Grand Final winner Jeff Williams.

With the two flights of Day 1 now behind us, we can look forward to Wednesday's Day 2. Though we never make guarantees, it looks all but certain that we will hit the money (199 players) before the end of play. Of course, we will be here from the first flop to the last river.

For a complete look back at our coverage from Day 1B, see any of the links below. You can also see full coverage from Day 1A HERE.

Once more with feeling
Profile of Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo
Random? Rigged, more like
FPP value: Brandon Schaefer and Bernard Lee
Poker camp
Early musings
Thomas Kremser: Post useless without photos
Akkari's $1m year
$36 buys a good story
The post-modern American dream revisited
The Ballad of Apestyles and Maridu
Monique
The defending champ speaks
Railbirds flock to Dario
Champ down
Nice guys finish...
Post-dinner Team PokerStars Pro Update
BREAKING--$3 million first prize
It's that time again
Five from six
Late night musings
Moving pictures
Second
After midnight on Day 1B

The latest approximate chip counts are on the chip counts page. When the full official counts are released, we will post them in the same place. To see how the World Cup of Poker turns out, see the World Cup coverage on the PokerStars Blog. In fact, it's still going on live over at PokerStars.tv.

You can always look back at all the video blog coverage on PokerStars.tv or check out any of our foreign language live reporting at these sites: German, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian and Polish.

To properly bookend this day end report, we suggest you go over and check out the 2009 PCA prizes page.

Three million bucks to first place.

That's something we can all dream about tonight.

See you back here at 12 noon for the kick off of the main event's Day 3 and the start of the $25,000 High Roller event.

All photos Joe Giron IMPDI and Neil Stoddart

Welcome to the after Midnight edition of Day 1B at the PCA. We're currently on Level 8 with approximately 230 players remaining.

Victor Ramdin found himself involved in a massive pot. He opened with a min-raise. His opponent (who was drinking a can of Sands beer) popped him with a min-re-raise to 11,000. Ramdin raised to 23,000. His opponent shoved for 55,000 more. Ramdin headed into the tank for several minutes as he pondered a call. A curious crowd quickly encircled the table. Bored players from adjacent tables stood up and wandered over along with different members of the media. A camera crew shot footage as a couple of photographers (including our own Joe Giron) jostled for position.

"Double up or go home," mumbled Ramdin. "I don't think I can call."

He shook his head back and forth before he reluctantly folded his hand. Ramdin was left with 45,000 as his opponent raked in the pot.

And here's some other random tid bits...

- Brandon Schaefer wasn't thrilled after his elimination. "At least I don't have to fold anymore," he sarcastically quipped. Schaefer had been card dead for the majority of Day 1B. He headed to the rail and commiserated with his good friend and EPT London Champion Michael Martin.

- Young gun Vivek 'Psyduck' Rajkumar was moved to Carlos Mortensen's table.

- Mark Seif's table broke and he was moved to Capt. Tom Franklin's table. Seif pushed his stack over the 110,000 mark, but took a huge hit and he slipped to 25,000. "It can't get any worse," he mentioned.

- I witnessed a crazy hand. All in pre-flop. Jacks versus Aces versus Big Slick. Carl Beyl from Germany flopped a set of Jacks to bust the player with A-K and he doubled through the last year's runner-up Hafiz Khan's Aces.

- Louie Cohen from Denver, CO has over 90,000. He busted two big names today... Josh Arieh and Orel Hershiser.

- Some big stacks are forming. Shane "Shaniac" Schleger is up to 150,000 after he cracked pocket sevens with pocket treys. And the current chipleader might be Chris Fernandez. He is one of the first players to surpass the 200,000 chip mark.

- Chris Moneymaker was crippled when his top pair was crushed by pocket Aces. Moneymaker had turned a gutshot but missed his outs. He was left with next to nothing in chips.

Play has entered the final level of day 1B; indeed it's the final level of two day ones during which two thirds of the 1,347 starters have departed into the Bahamian night.

Around this time yesterday, Felipe Ramos started his incredible charge to the chip lead. The PokerStars player from Brazil bagged up something like 360,000 in chips and he was comfortably out ahead.

The news from today is that no one has caught Ramos. In fact, no one has got anywhere near him. Today's field has its chip-leaders and its short-stacks, but the largest is probably either Chris Underwood's or Eric Liu's, both of whom have round about the 150,000 mark, less than half Ramos's total from yesterday.

We still have more than an hour to play and that can change very swiftly. And no one is making any grand declarations just yet.

While we wait for the final judgment on the day, here's a brief chat with Peter Eastgate on how he deals with playing poor players. Or "fish" to use the poker term.

Watch PCA 09: Eastgate's tips on playing with fish on PokerStars.tv

The PokerStars video blog team get to know the major players on the tour better than most. You should see them in action, lining up the prime contenders ahead of time to assess their expectations for the day ahead, hanging around the tables trying to get interesting mid-play tid-bits, then even chasing competitors out the door to record bust out interviews.

As ever, all their work is available on the peerless - and totally FREE! - PokerStars.tv, where you can also watch a massive archive of televised poker from all five seasons of the EPT, the World Cup of Poker, and much, much more.

Today, the crew have been catching up with the Team PokerStars Pro members out in the Bahamas, including Katja Thater, who is describes how her 2008 wasn't quite what she had hoped.

Watch PCA 09: Katja Thater on PokerStars.tv

Thater is still in this tournament, however, grinding away with a short stack but still afloat and well-equipped to move forward through the rest of the day. Chad Brown, unfortunately, is not. He departed yesterday and the title of his video blog: "Chad Brown on bad beats" might tell us all we need to know.

Watch PCA 09: Chad Brown on resolve after a beat on PokerStars.tv

So these are but two examples of all that video action. Be sure to check in to PokerStars.tv whenever you want.

Tables are breaking at a rapid pace as a flurry of bustouts have been increasing over Level 7. There are around 270 players remaining with 30 minutes to go in this level.

- A couple of Team Poker Stars Pros are no longer with us. Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier are both out. PokerStars sponsored player Maria "Maridu" Mayrinck also joined them on the rail.

- Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo took a couple of hits and slipped to 37,000 before he busted a player and increased his stack to 60,000. His table broke and he was moved to the same table as Greg "FBT" Muller and PokerStars qualifier Javier "Anguila" Etayo. Within a couple of orbits, he jumped up to 100,000 when he knocked out former hockey pro Greg Mueller. Puleo's Aces held up against Mueller's Kings.

- There are two world champions sitting with ten feet of each other; Chris Moneymaker (2003 WSOP Main Event) and Spain's Carlos Mortensen (2001 WSOP Main Event). Chris Moneymaker is looking extremely relaxed. He kicked off his sneakers and seems content with a 50,000 or so stack. Mortsensen is sitting at an adjacent table and has over 69,000 which he obsessively and compulsively arranged where all the markings on the sides of the chips are perfectly aligned.

- Brandon Schaefer is down to 20,300. "After 11 hours of play, I have a 300 chip profit," joked Schaefer. Our conversation quickly changed to traveling since that's all Schaefer does these days. Usually our banter begins with, "Where are you going next?" In case you were wondering, Schaefer is headed Los Angeles when the PCA is over.

- Phil Ivey left in quite a huff after his elimination.

- Victor Ramdin lost some of his stack and the Bronx, NY native slipped to 40,000.

- Humberto Brenes and Jan Von Halle tussled in a pot together. Brenes opened for a raise and Von Halle three-bet the unusually quiet Costa Rican. Brenes tanked for a couple of minutes before he flashed a used car salesman smile and folded. Von Halle showed Brenes pocket Kings.

The sixth level of the day comes immediately after dinner (tuna melt and Jamba Juice, for us). For those who didn't have time for dessert, here's some after-dinner treats. We offer them in the form of a few quotes from around the room.

1) "I don't see flops."

Normally when someone says that, they're talking about not wanting to play hands with people. In Chris Moneymaker's case, he literally doesn't want to look at the flop. Shortly after the dinner break, Moneymaker got all-in pre-flop with AK versus pocket queens. Instead of waiting to see if he hit, he walked away. He didn't see he picked up his ace on the flop and scored his double up. When he came back he stacked the chips--over the 60,000 mark.

2) "She needs to double up again."

Those words came from Isabelle Mercier's manager. He's been faithfully standing behind her and tracking every move of her stack, her hands, and her number of chips minute-to-minute. He managed to see Mercier's double up immediately after dinner with tens versus sevens. With around 20,000, Mercier was looking for another opportunity. It didn't happen. She's now gone.

3) "This dealer is the nuts!"

Nick "FU_15" Maimone came back from dinner with a eye on building one of his signature ridiculous stacks, Within 30 minutes after his repast, he picked up aces against an underpair, played them to perfection, and busted victim #1. Just a few hands later, he flopped a set of aces against top pair top kicker and there went victim #2. He was at around 95,000 at the end of level 6.

4) "I can't take this anymore."

Gus Hansen at one point had 40,000 chips. By the time he came in for an early position raise with Ad-Td, he was just sick of it all. When the small blind jammed for 15,000 more, Hansen seemed resigned to the fact this was not his day. He called to see pocket aces. He never caught up. With less than 3,000 left, he was out on the next hand.

5)"..."

That is silence from Jeff Williams as he saw he was way behind with Kd-Qd on a two diamond baby board. His problem was his opponent's set of threes. Williams mumbled several things before walking off in ultimate silence.

Earlier today, my colleague Paul McGuire noticed a hand involving the new World Champion Peter Eastgate where an unknown player showed a huge bluff after Eastgate folded on the end. "That's what's gonna happen to you now," said Jean-Robert Bellande, also on the table. "Everyone's gonna be gunning for you."

Eastgate probably knew that's how his immediate future would pan out as the nine million dollar man. But he might have expected some impartiality on the part of the tournament officials. They didn't have to stack his table with all the stars of the game, at least not all the time.

But returning from the dinner break this evening, Eastgate was on a table with the former Wall Street trader turned bracelet winner Johnny Bax, the British internet sensation Lukas Schwartz, the heavily chipped Alex Longobardi (somewhere near the chip lead at about 120,000), the EPT tournament director turned player Thomas Kremser, and the Aussie Millions champion from 2008 Alexander Kostritsyn.

Immediately I arrived to the table, my radar twitched. "This would be a perfect table to focus on for the patented* PokerStars blog classic 'A round with...' post."

* Not actually patented.

And so here it is, the latest of an occasional series: A round with...Peter Eastgate.

Table line-up (with approximate counts):
Seat 1- Johnny Bax, 50,000
Seat 2 - Peter Eastgate, 65,000
Seat 3 - Joe McGowan, 11,000
Seat 4 - Lukas Schwartz, 35,000
Seat 5 - Jean-Robert Bellande, 12,000
Seat 6 - Unknown player, 30,000
Seat 7 - Alex Longobardi, 120,000
Seat 8 - Thomas Kremser, 32,000
Seat 9 - Alexander Kostritsyn, 55,000

Level six, blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Hand one, Eastgate in small blind
As the dealer shuffles, Bellande is talking to his friend on the rail. "I was up to 28,000. Down to 12,000 now. He [pointing at Lukas Schwartz] got me to fold ace-king. I've never folded ace-king in my life." "I had ace-jack," boasted Schwartz, with no small dollop of pride. Schwartz was first to enter the pot once the cards were out and he limped from under-the-gun. Eastgate, silently, raised it to 3,100 from the small blind and everyone else got out the way. A small pick up from the world champion.

Hand two, Eastgate on the button
It's folded to the Dane on the button and he needs no further invitation to raise, making it 2,200 to go. Joe McGowan in the small blind moves all in for his last 11,000 and Eastgate insta-calls. McGowan shows two red tens and they're way ahead of Eastgate's two black sixes. The better hand holds up and McGowan survives.

Hand three, Eastgate in the cut-off
Jean-Robert Bellande makes it 2,200 from early position and Alex Longobardi calls two places along. Lukas Schwartz also calls from the small blind and they see a flop of As-9h-4h. Bellande and Longobardi then get them all in - Bellande's final 8,000 or so - and it's A-9 for Bellande (top two) versus Qh-8h for Longobard (flush draw). The turn is a heart and that's that for Bellande as the draw gets there.

Hand four, Eastgate in hijack
Thomas Kremser, playing now without his hood but deep in conversation with his wife Marina, makes it 2,000 from early position. Everyone folds and Kremser continues to earn a lot of respect.

Hand five, Eastgate mid-position
It's folded to Eastgate, who makes it 2,200 to play. Longobardi is the only caller and they see a flop of 9s-7d-Js. After he hears his favourite word, "Check", Eastgate fires 3,000 at it, and that's good enough for another pick up.

Hand six, Eastgate mid-position
The new player to arrive in the seat vacated by Bellande is Shane "Shaniac" Schelger, who is carrying close to 70,000 in chips. Schleger is on the button and is involved straight away, calling Eastgate's now-standard bet of 2,200. The flop comes 3c-7h-2c and Eastgate bets 2,700, which Schleger calls. The turn is the Qh and Eastgate fires again, this time 4,200. Schleger calls. The river is 9h and Eastgate has another stab, this time two blue chips and one black, worth 11,100. Schelger looks as though he might fold, but then starts counting out the call and slides it in. As he does, Eastgate insta-mucks. Schleger does the same and a couple of players question whether he's allowed to do that. "Don't you have to show to win?" asks McGowan. The dealer says, "No," Schleger starts stacking the chips and tournament director extraordinaire Thomas Kremser, who will definitely know to the letter of the law what is the correct ruling, keeps schtum. He's on vacation.

Hand seven, Eastgate early position
Lukas Schwartz raises to 2,500 and everyone folds.

Hand eight, Eastgate early position
Eastgate raises to 2,200 - no surprise - and Joe McGowan makes it 5,000, which is enough to thin the field to nobody. He flips pocket queens and picks up the chips.

Hand nine, Eastgate in the big blind
It's fair to say that Eastgate has been busy in the round, as he has for most of the tournament, so when the unknown player in seat six enters the pot for the first time, raising to 2,000, Eastgate must fancy he's behind. He lets his big blind go.

And that's the round. There's was a good deal of stealing, an elimination, and then a hit to the world champion's stack courtesy of Shane Schleger. Players have now gone on the break at the end of level six.

This is one of those posts that doesn't require fancy prose, five-dollar words, and a picture of something pretty. The numbers speak for themselves and do it in a kick-your-face kind of way.

You ready?

Total prize pool for the 2009 PCA Main Event: $12,674,000

First prize for the 2009 PCA Main Event: $3 million.

That's right. Three million bucks for the winner.

We're collectively going to snort some smelling salts while you look at the whole list of payouts.

1. $3,000,000
2. $1,700,000
3. $1,100,000
4. $750,000
5. $550,000
6. $400,000
7. $300,000
8. $214,000
9. $175,000
10. $150,000
11. $135,000
12. $120,000
13. $105,000
14. $95,000
15. $85,000
16. $75,000
17-18. $65,000
19-20. $60,000
21-22. $55,000
23-24. $50,000
25-32. $40,000
33-40. $35,000
41-48. $30,000
49-56. $27,500
57-64 $25,000
65-72. $22,500
73-80. $20,000
81-99. $17,500
100-130. $15,000
131-199 $12,500

Victor Ramdin seems to be doing the best out of all of the Team PokerStars Pros playing on Day 1B. Ramdin is closing in on 100,000.

The Brazilians are lurking near the top of the pack. Andre Akkari and Aelxandre Gomes have over 60,000

Katja Thater has been below average for most of the day. She's hanging on with 18,000. He husband Jan Von Halle is sitting at the same table as Humberto Brenes and Joao Barbosa from Portugal. Brenes chipped up to 35,000 but the shark has been relatively quiet all evening. But if sharks stop moving forward, they will die.

Hevad Khan slipped to under 10,000. He drew a brutal starting table that included Gus Hansen, Layne Flack and Orel Hershiser. Since then, Khan been moved a couple of times. He survived his starting table but needs some help if he expects to advance to Day 2.

Chris Moneymaker has moved tables again. The former champ has a stack worth around 30,000.

Today's action began ten-handed. Shortly after the dinner break, the tables will be reduced to nine players.

Update: Brandon Schaefer's table broke and he was moved to Seat 1 at Chris Moneymaker's table. Schaefer has around 16,000 or so.