A Record-breaking WCOOP

The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) has come to a close and made a lot of people a whole lot richer. The total prize pool was a staggering $90.6 million spread out over 82 events. That’s the second biggest prize pool in the history of online poker; just a million and a half shy of the largest ever. Needless to say, the championship had some pretty spectacular results all around with 26 events paying out six-figure sums and the $5,200 Main Event making two millionaires.

 

The tone for the championship of big wins was successfully set by carpediem200 when he won the $215 No Limit Hold ‘em Kick-off event and walked away with $115,000 dollars from a prize pool of over $800,000. Once the championship was in full swing, there was no end to the huge payouts. Even the smallest event, the $1,050 Fixed Limit Badugi, had $75,000 up for grabs; over $20,000 of which went to Norwegian paaskebaesen after two days of play. The quickest six-figure win went to British player SkaiWalkurrr who won $116,000 in the five hours that the $1,050 No Limit Texas Hold ‘em (6-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO) event was running.

 

The event that all players had come for, though, was the $5,200 No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Main Event, and over 2,000 players (1,084 unique and 379 reentries) played their way through various games to have the opportunity of winning a share of the $10.9 million prize pool.

 

By the end of the first day, the number of players had decreased dramatically to just 281, and then quickly dwindling to nine by the end of the second day. The winner, Steven van Zadelhoff from the Netherlands who plays under the moniker SvZff, managed to increase his chip advantage from 3:1 to 7:1 over the course of the final day and finally walked away with the top prize of $1,624,502.27. This made him shoot up in the world poker rankings from 31st all the way to second due to winning over $7 million in online cash. The second place in the Main Event went to Joshua Herman, joshuah333, who walked away with a staggering $1,173,713. The other remaining nine players all walked away with six-figure sums and a further 269 received at least the minimum payout of nearly $9,000.

 

Even the wrap-up events gave players a reason to smile as FeriBo, Leqenden and prepstyle71 all won six figures in the $215 No Limit Hold ‘em, $530 No Limit Hold ‘em and $10,300 High Roller events, respectively.

 

You’d think that after so many huge payouts, it would be difficult for next year’s event to top it. But it likely will. Every year since the championship started in 2002, the number of participants and the size of prize pools have increased, so don’t be surprised if the total up for grabs next year increases by a similar amount to this year; that’s a rather incredible 16.5%. Online poker is getting bigger and bigger, and the plus side for players so far are the tournament payouts.