The 2019 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is under way! Six tournaments began on the opening day, with guarantees comfortably obliterated, and the first two million dollar prize pools being contested.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
• First two events attracts 16,550 entries across three buy-ins
• Already total prize pools exceed $4 million
• First six champions to be decided today
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Although no tournaments played to a winner on WCOOP’s opening day, the tone has already been set for what promises to be a hectic few weeks. Both the medium and high buy-in versions of WCOOP-02-H — a no limit hold’em PKO — built prize pools of more than $1 million. Meanwhile there were more than 7,700 entries to the low buy-in event.
Pot Limit Omaha proved similarly popular, with nearly 6,000 entries to the $22 buy-in PLO 6-Max.
Rachid Ben “SkaiWalkurrr” Cherif leads an all star cast in the hunt for the biggest prize currently on offer. With $123,000 up top in the $10,300 buy-in WCOOP-02, Cherif finds himself alongside three Sunday Million winners at the top of the counts: “a.urli“, who won the 10th Anniversary special, Scott “Aggro Santos” Margereson and Joris “BillLewinsky” Ruijs. The last 13 also includes Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden, Niklas “lena900” Åstedt and Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger.
DAY 1 TOURNAMENT STATS
| Tournament | Entries | Prize pool | Places | Prize |
| WCOOP-02-L: $109 NLHE PKO | 7,703 | $770,300 | 1,279 | $54,330.13 |
| WCOOP-02-M: $1,050 NLHE PKO | 1,246 | $1,246,000 | 175 | $97,974.57 |
| WCOOP-02-H: $10,300 NLHE PKO | 107 | $1,070,000 | 13 | $123,282.73 |
| WCOOP-03-L: $22 PLO 6-Max | 5,829 | $116,580 | 947 | $16,573.44 |
| WCOOP-03-M: $215 PLO 6-Max | 1,367 | $273,400 | 191 | $42,341.38 |
| WCOOP-03-H: $2,100 PLO 6-Max | 298 | $596,000 | 35 | $113,762.51 |
Events play to a winner today
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF NOMINATIVE DETERMINISM
Finland’s “bustoville” was the first player out of WCOOP-03-H. Meanwhile, “onmybicycle” became the first player eliminated from WCOOP-2-L. They said it…
That said, there’s some quality on the early sidelines. Take a look at the first six out of the $10,300 event:
Jorryt “TheCleaner11” Van Hoof
Conor “1_conor_b_1” Beresford
Patrick “pads1161” Leonard
Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger
girafganger7
Luke “lb6161” Schwartz
STAT TRACKER
Events completed: 0
Entries so far: 16,550
Prize pool so far: $4,072,280
Tournaments starting today: 9
TOP TWEETS
One PokerStars ambassador is taking it easy:
Couldn’t have prepped better for today. Ready to be a world champion.https://t.co/BAfr4oIp8E pic.twitter.com/n3sszeXuuU
— Fintan Hand (@EasyWithAces) September 5, 2019
The mood is buoyant as players begin the long WCOOP grind:
Reasonable start to my WCOOP, just over $400 up tonight… looking forward to the weekend 😎
— FPL Beast (@FPL_Beast) September 5, 2019
And if you get knocked down, be prepared to get back up again:
Ok Good news and bad news #GoodNews I played a great day and learned a lot, My studies have really shown through today #BadNews I bubbled fu€king everything, The good play has outweighed the bad ROI which is a first #KeepStudying #KeepImproving WCOOP I will revisit you tomorrow pic.twitter.com/h1G42Kb36a
— IllBringTheGuns (@IllBringTheGuns) September 5, 2019
Also, it’s good to set goals. Good luck, Charlie!
#wcoop #pokerstars My aim is to top 30th place, get into the top 100 of one event and make enough money to take one shot at the $5000 main event. Would make me so happy XD 🥰😍
— Charlie Afford (@Charles_Afford) September 5, 2019
COMING UP
There’s a great test of your all-round poker skills today as the first HORSE tournaments get started. And for all you single table sit and go beasts, pull up a seat for the shootout. But don’t be late! There’s no late registration for this one.
WCOOP-04: No Limit Hold’em – Buy-ins $5.50, $55, $530
WCOOP-05: HORSE – Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050
WCOOP-06: No Limit Hold’em Shootout – Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050