PokerStars release the finer details of the 2019 World Championship of Online Poker, and it promises to be another record-breaker with $75m in guaranteed prize money, UFC branded events, and more.
It’s not only Earth, Wind and Fire that love the month of September. PokerStars has a penchant for the ninth month of the year.
Between September 5 and 25, the world’s largest online poker room plans to host the most magnificent World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) in the tour’s 17-year history. Players from around the world will feast like flies on the corpses of rail-ridden rainbow trout.
Professional and amateur players alike will suck up the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), as the dream of winning titles, and copious amounts of cash turn them agoraphobic.
Seventy-three events, spread over three- tiers (Low, Medium, High) creates 219 opportunities to become a WCOOP Champion. PokerStars is guaranteeing $75m in prize money, $5m more than last year’s record bounty.
The only event that doesn’t follow the strict three-tier structure is the Main Event with a $55 buy-in, $1.25m GTD Main Event, and a $5200 buy-in, $10m GTD. There are also three Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) Main Events featuring $109, $1,050 and $10,300 price points.
On the newer side of things, WCOOP embraces philanthropy for the first time. PokerStars promise to hand the $5 registration fee from the $55 buy-in, $400k GTD Mini Sunday Million Edition to their charitable arm: Right to Play.
There is also a place in WCOOP for the UFC, with four UFC branded events in the lineup. The winners earn two tickets for UFC244 in New York. There are also 6+Hold’em events (Short-Deck) at the $11, $109, and $1050 price points. Three Phased games at buy-ins of $2 ($250k GTD), $22 ($1m GTD), and $215 ($2m GTD) round off the excitement and innovation.
If you like to play for big bucks, WCOOP has your back with a $25,000 buy-in, $2m GTD No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
Last year, ‘Wann2play’ beat ‘ez8888’ to win the 2,044-entrant $5,200 WCOOP Main Event. ‘Wann2Play’ earned $1,352,967, and ‘ez888’ collected $1,257,203. Linus ‘LLinusLLove’ Loeliger finished third, and Michael ‘mczhang’ Zhang was fifth.
Loeliger also won the 104-entrant $25,000 High Roller for $587,747, beating Henrik “hhecklen” Hecklen heads-up. Zhang also finished fourth in that one.
The undoubted star of the show was Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov, winning five events, and Player of the Series honours. Strebkov’s nine WCOOP titles is a record. Shaun Deeb has six, and Dan Kelly has five.
WCOOP began in 2002, and previous Main Event winners include Steven van Zadelhoff (2017), Jonas Lauck (2016), Fedor Holz (2014), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (2009), and JC Tran (2006). Previous Player of the Series winners includes James Obst (2010), Shaun Deeb (2015), and Fabrizio Gonzalez (2016).
Here is the schedule in full.
And some excellent resources to maintain your lux exposure while you lock yourself in your cave.
