The WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker)
The World Championship of Online Poker is a poker tournament held online at PokerStar's own website. The World Championship of Online Poker was created in 2002 as a way to compete with the ever-increasing popularity of the World Series of Poker held at Harrah's casinos.
The World Championship of Online Poker is the largest online poker tournament, and in 2005, over $12 million in prize money was produced. This was more than the biggest online poker tournament in history; it was the third biggest tournament of all in 2005 - online or otherwise. Among the variety of poker games are the standard Limit, Pot Limit, and No Limit versions of Texas hold'em, HORSE, Badugi, Five Card Draw, Seven Card Draw and more.
The World Championship of Online Poker is a tournament much like the World Series of Poker. There are several tournaments where the participants play various types of poker. As with the World Series of Poker, winners of the World Championship of Online Poker win a cash prize as well as a 14-karat gold bracelet. The first tournament was held in July of 2002 and over $65,000 was awarded to the Swedish winner. The pot grew significantly over the years, with the 2003 American winner taking home more than $222,000, and the 2004 Norwegian winner pocketing over $420,000.
In 2007, there were 23 events and the entire prize pool was over $24 million. The original winner of the main event, TheV0id, ended up disqualified for using several accounts in the tournament. Eventually a winner from America was declared, Kyle Schroeder, with winnings of more than $1.3 million. Almost 44,000 poker players from 140 countries played in the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker. The entire prize pool was more than $50 million and included 45 events. Running from September 3rd through September 20th, yet another American won, with a total of $1.7 million.
The 2010 World Championship of Online Poker included 62 separate events. With total prize money of $63 million and over 140,000 participants, this tournament marked the largest online poker tournament in history. The winner, American Tyson Marks, walked away with practically $2.3 million. Not a bad day's work considering the buy-in was only $5,200. Winners have come from almost 20 countries, with 103 American wins from 2002 to 2009. Sweden comes in a distant second with 14; Canada takes third with 11 wins, and France and Germany tie for fourth and fifth with five wins each.
As the world's premiere online poker tournament, the World Championship of Online Poker is registered in the Isle of Man. As the Isle of Man is a British Crown dependency, they are regulated by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, which is an independent body. Qualifying for the World Championship of Online Poker is easy. Members of PokersStars are eligible to win and all you have to do is download the free poker software. Play in online poker games to qualify for tournaments. You can practice free and then deposit money into your online game account to get started playing for real.