The online poker spotlight turns to PokerStars this weekend for the highly anticipated World Championship of Online Poker. The event is set to begin tomorrow, Friday September 4th, starting at 14:30 EST with a $215 buyin NL Hold’em 6-max tournament with a $1 million guarantee. The series features 33 events with a combined $30 million in guarantees, toto hk making this year’s toto hk the biggest online tournament series yet.
The schedule this year features several new games that were not found in last year’s lineup. These include a NL Hold’em 4-max event, a Mixed Hold’em 6-max tournament, a NL 2-7 Single Draw tournament, and an 8-game Mixed Event that should prove very interesting. There are also some high buy-in tournaments that should attract a good bit of attention. Two events with a $10,300 buy-in are offered this year — Event #5, a High Roller NL Hold’em tournament with a $2 million guaranteed, and Event #32, a HORSE tournament with a $1.6 million guarantee. The highest buy-in on the schedule is sure to be a fan favorite. Event #19 is a NL Hold’em Heads Up tourney sporting a hefty $25,500 buy-in and a $1.6 million guaranteed prize pool.
Sundays are highlighted by NL Hold’em tournaments with big guarantees. In a somewhat surprising move, PokerStars has made these tournaments into 2-day events, with play continuing into Mondays. This decision caused a bit of a stir in the online poker community, with many players voicing their opinion that the 2-day events should run Saturday/Sunday rather than Sunday/Monday.
Stars is also offering 2nd Chance tournaments for each event this year. These are tournaments that start a few hours after their corresponding event. They have a slightly smaller buy-in and offer you another shot at your chosen game if you happen to be among the unfortunates that bust out early in the WCOOP events.
WCOOP comes to a close with the Main Event on Sunday September 21st. This year’s ME is also a 2-day event, $5,300 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament with a record $10 million guaranteed prize pool. The payouts for winning the Main Event have been steadily increasing year to year with the increase in the prize pools. In 2006, pro player J.C. Tran took down the top spot for $650,000. Last year’s Main Event had 2,998 entries and a prize pool just shy of $7.5 million. The winner, “Ka$ino”, took away $1,378,330 for his efforts. The top prize for the winner this year may approach $2 million.
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