WCOOP Main Event Kicks Off Sunday: Get in on the Action!
The long-awaited World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) $5,200 Main Event at PokerStars begins on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET with an impressive guaranteed prize pool of $10,000,000 and at least $1.5 million going to the eventual winner. The event is only two days away, but there is still time to get in on the action, both as a participant and as a railbird!
Qualify for the WCOOP Main Event
Special WCOOP Spin & Go's are still running on PokerStars. For just $27, play these 3-max Hyper-Turbo Sit & Go tournaments for a chance to get an entry into the $5,200 Main Event on the cheap. For Spin & Go winners who are not fortunate enough to get the main event entry, they will receive tournament tickets worth $530, $215, $109, or $55.
Another way players can win entry is through the Stars Rewards pirate chests promotion. Players collect points by playing real money games on PokerStars and are awarded chests, some of which contain tournament tickets of varying amounts, including $5,200 tickets to the Main Event!
Daily $55 satellites with a $5,200 seat added continue to run on PokerStars and players can get into those via $3.30 buy-in qualifiers. You can also play $215 MTT satellites to try to get in for less.
On Saturday, there will be a Mega satellite for the main at 3:30 p.m. ET with 10 seats guaranteed.
More than 300 players have already won seats into the Main Event through these channels, and that number will continue to grow as the event draws closer.
WCOOP Main Event History
The fifteen-year WCOOP history is a rich one. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been awarded through the most prestigious online series to date, and fifteen players have made their mark by winning the cornerstone WCOOP Main Event. While the event used to have a smaller buy-in of $2,600 – and $1,050 for the first two years – since 2008 the buy-in has been $5,200.
Last year’s WCOOP broke the record for total prize money awarded at a whopping sum of $73,504,875. German pro Jonas "llJaYJaYll" Lauck bested a field of more than 2,000 to take down the over $1.5 million top prize and become the 15th WCOOP Main Event Champion.
While last year broke the total prize money record, the largest Main Event win to date still belongs to Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks for shipping the 2010 Main Event for a payday of $2.278 million. Amazingly that year, the second and third place finishers “joeysweet” and “Russian_nuts” also cashed for over a million dollars each.
Other notable Main Event winners from year’s past include J.C. “area23JC” Tran, who won the 2006 $2,600 Main Event for more than $670,000, 2009 winner Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko who won $1.715 million, and more recently, Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz, who won the event in 2014 for $1.3 million.
Bet on the Outcome
In addition to offering plenty of opportunities to qualify to play in the Main Event, PokerStars and BetStars are inviting players to get involved in another way. Seven Team PokerStars Pros will be competing in the $5,200 buy-in event and now you can bet on your favorites!
BetStars is offering odds of 28/1 for predicting the finishing order of the top three out of seven sponsored pros. It will be no easy decision as the seven to choose from are all extremely accomplished top tournament poker players, but that also means there are no bad picks!
About the promotion, Director of Sportsbook Zeno Ossko said, “It is rare that we get such a field of Team Pokerstars Pros going head to head and thought we would run a market with a little twist.”
The Runners
The seven sponsored players taking part include Daniel Negreanu, Igor Kurganov, Jeff Gross, Andre Akkari, Felipe Ramos, Aditya Agarwal and Jake Cody.
The challenge has sparked some friendly competition among the seven, all of them feeling confident in their game. And for good reason.
Akkari took a little jab at Negreanu, saying, “I’ve been in top form so far in this year’s WCOOP. I have cashed several tournaments so far, which I’m really proud of! If Daniel Negreanu thinks he can take on the Main Event and beat me after all the warming up that I’ve done, he’s got another thing coming!”
Gross will be playing his first WCOOP as a team pro. He’s been off to a good start so far in the series with a sixth-place finish in WCOOP- 37-H: $215 No Limit Hold’em [6 Max Zoom] for more than $13,000 and sits at the top of the Team PokerStars Pro leaderboard.
Negreanu applauds the recent success of both Akkari and Gross. "It’s awesome to see Jeff and Andre running so hot this WCOOP.”
And although Negreanu is only playing the Main Event this year and no other WCOOP events, he is looking to add another WCOOP title to the WCOOP-71: $2,100 HORSE event he won last year.
“I will be focused and ready for the main event! It's a prestigious event and I'd definitely like to add that feather to my cap.”
As for Triple Crown champ Cody, he has had some deep runs in the series so far and feels prepared, ready to take down Akkari and the others.
“WCOOP is the time of year for online poker! I’m super excited for the Main Event on Sunday.
“I went deep in a few events so hopefully I'm coming into form. Andre played the $1,050 Sunday Million too and didn’t cash so that’s boosted my confidence that I’ll beat him on Sunday once again!”
Get Involved
To participate, just go to BetStars and make your picks for your chance at a 28/1 payout! Plus, it will make for a fun sweat during the exciting WCOOP Main Event.
You can't win if you don't play! Head over to PokerStars to create an account if you haven't already, and qualify for remaining WCOOP events today.
