The 8th annual Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is set to start on Thursday, September 3rd. With an expanded schedule and over $40 million in guaranteed prize pools, the 2009 WCOOP is sure to be the most exciting ever.
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If you aren’t familiar with the WCOOP, this is an online tournament series similar to the World Series of Poker. 45 different events will be held over a period of 18 days, with guaranteed prize pools ranging from $50,000 to $10 million. Each event will be hosted by a Pokerstars Pro player such as Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Rousso, Joe Hachem, and others.
In total, there are 25 events with prize pools of $500,000 or more. Direct buy-ins to most events are in the $109 – $320 range, with others up to $25,500. Don’t worry, you don’t have to come up with that kind of cash. Satellite tournaments for the WCOOP start at just $.50 or 3 Frequent Player Points (FPP’s). No that’s not a typo, I said 3 FPP’s!
Satellite tournaments come in a variety of styles. Steps tournaments are available for as little as $7.50. Multi-table satellites can be played for as little as $.50 or 100 FPP’s. If you prefer to spend a little more money in exchange for a more realistic shot at winning a seat, Steps tournaments can be entered at any level. The higher level you enter, the easier it is to win a seat. The same goes for multi-table satellites where higher buy-ins translates into more available seats per entry.
Single and multi-table sit-n-go satellites can be played as well, with buy-ins starting at $3.30 in cash, or 600 FPP’s. Another interesting way to win a seat is by playing in the heads-up sit-n-go satellites. If you’re a good heads-up player, you can choose to play in 2, 4, 8, or 16 player heads-up tournaments. That’s pretty cool.
The 2009 WCOOP kicks off at 14:30 pm ET on Thursday, with a $1,250,000 guaranteed, short-handed, NL Hold’em tournament. This tournament has a $215 direct buy-in, and satellites are running now. Later on Thursday, a $200,000 Razz tournament with a $215 buy-in will be held.
Since NL Hold’em is still the most popular game, there are more of these events than any other. With that said, the schedule for the 2009 WCOOP has 12 more events than in 2008, allowing Pokerstars to open up the game choices. This year, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, 5 Card Draw and 8-Game have been added to the schedule. There are also plenty of Omaha and 7 Card Stud tournaments, along with two HORSE events.
The whole thing comes to a close on September 20th, when the 2-day Main Event begins. The Main Event has a direct buy-in of $5200, and a huge guaranteed prize pool of $10 million. This event is capped at 4000 players, meaning that the actual prize pool could be as high as $20 million. If things go as planned, this will be the largest online poker tournament of all time. What’s even better is that you can qualify for as little as $1, or 100 FPP’s.
To play in the 2009 Pokerstars WCOOP, you will need to enter marketing code PSP1686 during the registration process. When you make your first deposit, you will need to use bonus code Stars600. Used together, you can get the new Pokerstars sign up bonus of 100% up to $600.
