PokerStars Wraps MicroMillions and Announces WCOOP
The poker tournament series on PokerStars are always in play or in the planning stages. This time of the year is no different, as MicroMillions just wrapped and the first announcements for WCOOP begin.
The MicroMillions was the first tournament of its kind to offer a lengthy series of online tournaments for micro-stakes players with the offer of big guarantees. And it has grown to encompass well over 100 events and award millions of dollars.
And WCOOP remains the signature online poker series of the year. Other sites try to compete with their own large series, but the World Championship of Online Poker has been and continues to be the premier series, last year guaranteeing $70 million in prize pool guarantees.
With the MicroMillions just wrapping its 15th iteration,
MicroMillions 15 Awards More Than $5M
The micro-stakes online series ran from July 14-28 with more than 140 tournaments ranging from $1.10 buy-ins to $5.50 buy-ins for the majority of the events.
When it was complete, PokerStars recorded more than 200,000 players that had participated in the 141 tournaments, and the total amount awarded was $5,069,941. That number included 164,893 payouts to 75,383 players.
When the dot-com series was combined with MicroMillions offerings for Southern Europe and Italy, the grand total rose to $10,995,729.
The dot-com Main Event was a $22 NLHE event with a $1 million guarantee, which attracted 58,126 entries. The winner was Lxxz, who won $100,058 for the championship event. (The winner of the 2018 MicroMillions Main Event won nearly $121K.)
A day before the #MicroMillions Main Event, Lxxz turned a $2.85 satellite entry into a $22 Main Event seat. The Brazilian player did not stop there, as he spun that into a six-figure payday, defeating a field of 58,126 entries to take the title. 🇧🇷🏅🤑 pic.twitter.com/LBKKTxKjSh
— PokerStars (@PokerStars) July 30, 2019
As for the €50 buy-in Main Event offered to players in France, Spain, and Portugal, there were 6,804 entries. The winner was 29Pakito of France, who claimed more than €43K.
And the Italian Main Event offered its own Main Event with 3,975 entries, and Mr.bustos28 won more than €24K for first place.
WCOOP 2019 Announced
The start of the World Championship of Online Poker is more than one month away, but the dates have been confirmed.
The 2019 WCOOP will play out from September 5-25, though qualifying satellites will begin on August 19.
All that is known thus far about the vents is that there will be three weeks of tournaments, including a Main Event with low and high tier buy-ins. There will be “huge prize pools and plenty of tournament variations to meet everyone’s tastes.”
Save the date: World Championship of Online Poker 2019 confirmed.#WCOOPhttps://t.co/SuUV9SYU7E pic.twitter.com/sHQRx2c31c
— PokerStars Blog (@PokerStarsBlog) July 25, 2019
Last year, the WCOOP ran from September 2-17 with 186 tournaments with buy-ins from $2.20 to $25K, with most events offering a low, medium, and high version with different buy-ins. A total of $116 million guaranteed in all. There were about 12-15 events on the schedule daily, culminating in two Main Events.
The low-tier $55 buy-in NLHE Main Event had a $1 million guarantee but drew 39,817 players to push the actual prize pool up to $1,990,850. Player “wellingtowap” of Brazil won the tournament for more than $192K in prize money.
The high-tier $5,200 buy-in NLHE Main Event drew 2,044 entries, allowing the prize pool of $10.22 million to surpass the $10 million guarantee. In the end, it was “wann2play” of the Netherlands who won the top prize of nearly $1.353 million.
