wcoop

The most popular and respected onilne tournament series is by far WCOOP, World Championship of Online Poker hosted by Pokerstars. Huge prizepools and the best online poker grinders get together to play for days in a poker series that can truly change an online poker player’s life. 2016 brings more than $50 million in guaranteed prizes making September a mad month for online poker.

WCOOP Summary

The first WCOOP championship took place in 2002.  Pokerstars was attempting to create an equivalent of the WSOP for the online poker community and they achieved it quite well. The events in 2002 altogether didn’t reach $1 million in guaranteed prizes.  The 2005 WCOOP became the first series to guarantee over $10 million dollars and was the year that consolidated the event as the best and most respected online poker tournament series around the globe until today.

All major poker games have events in the WCOOP including, Limit , Pot Limit and No Limit Texas Hold’em, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo,Razz, Pot Limit Omaha, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, HORSE, 5 card draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, Mixed Limit games and Badugui

The biggest prizepool at a WCOOP event, prior 2016, took place at the 2010 WCOOP Main Event. 2443 players bought in for $5200.  The total prizpool reached $12,215,000. Tyson “PotterPoker” Marks conquered the event and took home $2,278,097, one of the biggest prizes ever awarded at an online poker tournament. At the final tables, online poker pros such as Darren “darrenelias” Elias and Grayson “gray31” Ramage finished in 6th and 8th place respectively.

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WCOOP Best Performers

Dan Kelly

Dan Kelly

In regards to most events won, Dan “djk123” Kelly tops the leaderboard.  Kelly has won a total of 5 and his biggest cash winning 1st place in a WCOOP event took place in 2009 at the $10,300 HORSE event taking home $252,350.   Incredibly, his biggest cash at a WCOOP event was for $643,200 at the 2009 WCOOP Event, this same year he won the WCOOP Player of the Year Award.  In WCOOP 2016 Kelly won his 5th event putting him on top of the most events won leaderboard.  He won WCOOP 49 $700 NL Hold’em Mix-Max 4max for $88,102.  Dan Kelly is a 2 time WSOP Bracelet winner who has cashed for more than $3.1 million in live poker tournaments.

Shaun Deeb comes in 2nd place with the most WCOOP events won with 4.  His highest WCOOP cash took place in 2010 at a $1050 No Limit Hold’em event taking home $243,610.

Players who have achieved 3 WCOOP titles include Anders Berg, Ryan D’Angelo, Mikal Blomlie and Gleb Tremizin.

Jovial Gent

Notable players who have won WCOOP Main Events are: J.C Tran who won the Main Event at WCOOP 2006 for $670,194.  Yevgeniy Timoshenko, known online as Jovial Gent and one of the most respected high stakes online poker tournament players won the WCOOP 2009 Main Event for $1,715,200; at the time the biggest prize at WCOOP Event.  Timoshenko’s prize was surpassed the next year by Tyson “PotterPoker” Marks who won $2,278,097 which has been the WCOOP Main Event biggest prize to date.  Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz became the champion on 2014 and most recently Jonas Lauck won the WCOOP 2016 Main Event Bracelet for $1,517,541.

WCOOP 2016

2016 was a huge year for WCOOP.  A total of 82 events took place and more than $50 million dollars were awarded in tournament prizes.

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Connor Drinan

Connor “blanconegro” Drinan was the first major online pro to take home a WCOOP 2016 bracelet at Event 5, $320 NL Omaha Hi-Lo 6 max. He came in 2nd place at the WCOOP 2016 leaderboard. Combining online and live poker tournament, Connor Drinan has cashed over $14 million dollars.  He currently stands in 3rd place at the Card Player Player of the Year leaderboard. Recently he won the $10,300 No-Limit Hold’em EPT XIII Barcelona event.

Christian “eisenhower1” Jeppson, won event 6 for $215+r NL Hold’em 6 max for $72,339.  Jeppsson is a highly respected online poker pro who has won over $8 million in online poker tournaments and has been ranked 1st several times at the Pocketfives .com worldwide leaderboard.

Shaun Deeb proved his poker skills at Event 12, $1050 NL 5-Card Draw Championship for $22,186. This became Deeb’s 4th WCOOP title.  2016 has been a great year for Shaun Deeb.  He won his 2nd bracelet at the WSOP and also recently became a dad.  Deeb continues to amaze the poker community and with only 30 years old there is much more to be seen from him in the following years.

Fabrizio “SixthSense19” Gonzalez, an amazing poker phenom from Uruguay took hom Event 43, $1050 Triple Draw 2-7 Championship for $30,981.  His first WCOOP title took place in 2010 for $100,00 at the $530 Heads UP No Limit Hold’em.  With more than $4 million in online tournament winnings, Fabrizio is currently ranked 2 in Pocketfives.com’s worldwide leaderboard and took home the title of WCOOP 2016 Player of the Year.

Daniel Negreanu, 6 time WSOP bracelet winner and member of team Pokerstars won the $2100 HORSE Championship for $61,865.

The WCOOP 2016 Main Event was won by Jonas “IIJayJayII” Lauck from Germany.  The prize of $1,517,541 was awarded after 3 days of pure adrenaline.  2090 players paid $5200 for an attempt to take home the main event’s bracelet.

WCOOP has become the best tournament series in the online poker industry. Pokerstars competitors are launching creative and lucrative tournament series but it will be hard for them to improve the quality and prizes that Pokerstars has created throughout the years.  WCOOP most likely will dominate as the most attractive, lucrative and professional online poker tournament series for long.