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 the Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano who finsihed third, and the New Zealanders led by Lee Nelson in second to win the fifth renewal 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 New Zealand'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. Teams came to the final with chip stacks determined by the performance of all their players in five single-table tournaments, and Great Britain, led by the Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren, held the lead at the end of the preliminary rounds.

Their final table journey was full of swings. They were hit by ill fortune and then able to mount comebacks, albeit with an even bigger slice of luck. Eventually Team GB finished fifth. It was a similar story for Team USA, aside from their slightly better fourth place finish.

The defending champions, whose line up featured two of last year's victorious outfit - team captain Greg Raymer and internet tournament grandee Shaun Deeb - were frequently pegged back by bad beats when it seemed as though the momentum was flowing in their favour. This roller-coaster kept the packed bleachers in the Bahamas gripped throughout the hours, and they were joined by a worldwide audience watching on EPTLive's unparalleled internet coverage, featuring 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 admitted she would have moved all in behind had it been her money alone.

"It's unnatural to be concerned for other people's welfare," she said. But she was 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 events to play and watch, underpinned by a camaraderie that kept all the participants glued to the action until 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 - New Zealand - $70,000
Lee Nelson (Captain), Nicholas Webb, Richard Grace, Wayne Lo, Jordan Bryant.

3rd - Italy - $50,000
Luca Pagano (Captain), Michele Migliore, Pennisi Omar, Valeriano Bilancetti, Fabrizio Villa.

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.