World Championship of Online Poker

Taking place through the internet, the WCOOP is a series of poker tournaments hosted by the popular online poker room ‘PokerStars’. Players from across the globe gather to compete for millions in cash prizes that are awarded through the myriad tournaments in the WCOOP.

 
 

WCOOP history

Debuting in 2002, there were only 9 events that players could enter and entry numbers for each event stayed in the hundreds. This has grown considerably as the decade has got on with the 2008 WCOOP featuring 33 events as a testament to its continued growth. In its inaugural season the main event winner of the WCOOP won$65,450 whilst the 2009 winner walked away with a staggering $1.7Million which is more than double what was initially earned by the inaugural tournament winner.

WCOOP 2009
The main event of the 2009 WCOOP and the one that stood out was a 2-day event of online poker full of fantastic action. Only the top 306 players at the tournament were in the money, a tremendous payout awaiting the top two who would end up instant millionaires. Bertrand ‘Elk Y’ Grospellier, Daniel ‘djk 123’ Kelly and Ryan ‘golfa’ D’Angelo who doubled up to form Team PokerStars Pro won 2 bracelets each. Djk123 came top of the player series Leader board. He also won the WCOOP player of the series trophy and total winnings of $956,956. Yevgeny ‘Jovial Gent’ Timoshenko outclassed all before him to claim the WCOOP title and $1,715,200 in first place followed by ‘udon wannit’ who also raked in an incredible $1,286,400 in prize money. The total prize pool for the 2-day event was a staggering $10,720,000. The 2009 WCOOP had 45 events with a wide range of buy-ins and poker game types. Buy-ins ranged from as little as $109 to $25,500. The 25K tourney has 64 seats. There is also the $10 $3K No Limit Hold’em tourney and the $10 $3K H.O.R.S.E tournament. Games as rare as 8-game, fixed limit badugi, five card draw and fixed limit triple draw two to seven are also included. The 2010 WCOOP will be held in September.

Entering the WCOOP

With forty five new World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP )competitions honored and a prize pool totaling about $51,600,800, WCOOP of the year 2009 proved the biggest ever tournament for online poker in history. Running for about eighteen days it provided the ultimate online poker action of all time. 2010 promises yet more explosive action.

To enter the WCOOP all you need is an account with PokerStars. If you don’t have one, it’s easy to download the software and sign up. The other option is directly buying it or getting in the game for free through Frequent Player Point satellites or winning a satellite. An incentive given to all the loyal players to be in the poker game is by PokerStars dishing out $1.5m in entries for free to the frequent players. Players can then buy into the satellite or the events themselves with cash or T$ (see PokerStars). In a scenario in which one unregisters from an event that they have already won a seat, equal to the buy in an account will be created plus that event’s fee. From the tournaments lobby, the availability of all this will be availed 10 minutes before commencement of every event. The above detailed only applies to seats won through the satellite and they are the only ones that are transferable. On winning an event promotion ticket, one may continue to gamble with cash or Frequent Player Point satellites and incase you mange to come through, you are awarded the value of the seat which is T$. For any poker tournament you can use T$. VIPs can also use them to buy directly into live events.