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It was time for yet another running of one of bwin's biggest tournament offerings -- the ChampionChip, with the latest edition kicking off on Sunday, January 11th. 1,427 runners showed up to take their shot at a whopping $500,000 in guaranteed prize money, with the winner slated to end the day $112,500 richer than when they woke up on Sunday morning.

With the ChampionChip typically taking 8-9 hours to play down to a winner, there would be many twists and turns before the finish, with names rising to the top of the leaderboard then crashing back down. Some of the early leaders included asbwin, Raudupiete, toomik, rollette, gddom22, and basturk.

There were plenty of former bwin Team members in the field as well, with a handful making deep runs and cashing including AKauffeldt73 ($2,250), joker400 ($1,750), whassup x ($1,100), BEATME x ($700), and dj_stiff ($650). In an interesting twist, four of those players (AKauffeldt73, joker400, BEATME x, and dj_stiff) are currently representing the bwin Team at the 2009 Aussie Millions, so be sure to follow along on the blog for that event to see if how they fare down under.

After a long, grueling day of play, the final table was finally set:

Seat 1: I_Play_Lotto ($301,428 in chips)
Seat 2: Big Al ($246,124 in chips)
Seat 3: floydiano ($134,576 in chips)
Seat 4: baddyrock ($1,259,586 in chips)
Seat 5: basturk ($294,764 in chips)
Seat 6: deevke ($221,362 in chips)
Seat 7: Indice68 ($810,484 in chips)
Seat 8: klimassvd ($210,116 in chips)
Seat 9: EnTapie ($710,054 in chips)
Seat 10: gnugni1 ($92,506 in chips)

Players would inevitably fall by the wayside, with the following finishing 10th-6th:

10th: basturk ($5,500)
9th: gnugni1 ($7,000)
8th: floydiano ($8,500)
7th: Big Al ($10,0000
6th: klimassvd ($15,000)

With just five players remaining, here's where they stood:

Seat 1: I_Play_Lotto ($242,856 in chips)
Seat 4: baddyrock ($1,241,680 in chips)
Seat 6: deevke ($427,840 in chips)
Seat 7: Indice68 ($1,762,490 in chips)
Seat 9: EnTapie ($606,134 in chips)

deevke would finally exit in 5th ($20,000) when his A♥ J♦ couldn't outrun baddyrock's 9♦ 9♥.

Those same pocket nines would be the undoing of baddyrock, though, when he suffered a rough beat to finish 4th ($30,000). He was holding pocket nines and way ahead of EnTapie's pocket sevens when all of the money went in pre-flop, but a flop of T♦ Q♣ 7♦ left baddyrock praying for a miracle two-outer that never came.

I_Play_Lotto would finish in 3rd ($40,000), with EnTapie once again delivering a bad beat. The players were all-in pre-flop and I_Play_Lotto was well ahead with K♣ K♦ versus EnTapie's Q♠ T♠, but a board of 2♠ 4♦ 6♦ 3♠ 6♠ ended I_Play_Lotto's day in 3rd.

Here's how they stacked up when heads-up play began:

Seat 7: Indice68 ($683,516 in chips)
Seat 9: EnTapie ($3,597,484 in chips)

It took just five hands to end matters, with all the chips going in pre-flop and EnTapie in the lead with A♥ 6♥ to Indice68's 4♥ 9♥. For once the better hand held up, giving EnTapie the victory and 1st place prize money of $112,500, with Indice68 collecting a very nice payday of $62,000 for his runner-up finish.