(PRESS RELEASE) -- The 2015 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event will feature a $10 million guaranteed prize pool and will take place over two days, starting on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 2:30 p.m. EST,
PokerStars.com has announced.
The $5,200
buy-in World Championship tournament is the richest and most prestigious event of the online poker calendar, with previous events having exceeded the $10 million prize pool mark on four occasions.
In 2014, Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz was crowned World Champion, winning $1.3m from a total prize pool of $10.7m, but the record first prize still belongs to Tyson ‘POTTERPOKER’ Marks, the American player who won $2,278,097.50 in 2010.
SATELLITESThere are nearly four months to go until the $5,200 No Limit Hold’em Main Event takes place, but online satellites across a range of stakes have launched that give players of all
bankroll levels the chance to qualify for the year’s richest poker tournament for a fraction of the cost.
In addition, Mega Path satellites have also begun, which enable players to qualify from just 1 Frequent Player Point (FPP). Last year a total of 77 players qualified for the $5,200 Main Event through the Mega Path and
PokerStars hopes to see a significant increase on that figure in 2015. In 2012, Russian player ‘maratik’ qualified for just 40 FPP and went on to win the Main Event for $1 million.
Players can find the current crop of qualifiers by logging on to PokerStars and clicking ‘Online Events’ > ‘WCOOP’ > ‘All’. More will be added each week, including Sit & Go and Steps qualifiers.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORYThe World Championship of Online Poker, which began in 2002, is the longest-running and richest online poker championship series ever, with nearly $450 million in prize money awarded to date. Players and media regard it as the ‘must-play’ event of the year that pitches world-class poker pros against aspiring recreational players, all in pursuit of life-changing sums of money.
Other past champions include JC ‘area23JC’ Tran (2006), Yevgeniy ‘Jovial Gent’ Timoshenko (2009), and David ‘PlayinWasted’ Kaufmann (2013).