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Big Names Grab WCOOP Titles in First Third of Series

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

About 10 days ago, PokerStars kicked off its 2020 World Championship of Online Poker, better known as WCOOP. Action started on Sunday, August 30 with four events, and approximately one-third of the schedule is already complete.

The series – PokerStars’ signature online poker series and the one that laid the groundwork for all other sites to follow since WCOOP began 19 years ago – offers a total of 75 events, but most have three levels of buy-ins attached.

Did we mention that PokerStars is guaranteeing more than $81 million across all of its prize pools?

It’s kind of a big deal.

First Days of WCOOP

The very first day of WCOOP on August 30 delivered a win to a well-known PokerStars name. Ambassador Ben “Spraggy” Spragg finished ninth at the final table of Event 5-H for $5,222.98 and then final tabled Event 5-L. And he kept going, eventually livestreaming his victory. He won $4,349.41 for outlasting 12,191 competitors.

All in all, Spraggy captured a WCOOP title and more than $9,500 for the day.

Day 2 brought a number of players back for the final day of Event 2-H, the $10K NLHE 8-Max PKO Sunday Slam. Dimitar “KuuL” Danchev not only took his chip lead from the previous day to the winner’s circle, he collected $400,494.59 for the victory. In addition, he collected nearly $250K in bounties.

Poker pro Ankush “pistons87” Mandavia grabbed a third career WCOOP title on Day 3 when he won Event 12-H, a $530 NLHE Heads-Up Turbo PKO Zoom event. Out of 526 players, Mandavia was the last one standing for the $40,792.90 first-place prize.

More Big Names Win in Week 1

By the fourth day of the series, players found their groove. Ludovic “ludovi333” Geilich won his second career WCOOP in the $10K NLHE High Roller, which was Event 10-H, a two-day event on the schedule. His online poker account grew by $238,966.30 for that win.

Also on Day 4, Chris “ImDaNuts” Oliver won Event 10-M for $149,968.28 and his own second career WCOOP victory. And longtime Dutch pro Noah “Exclusive” Boeken took down his third WCOOP by winning Event 11-H, the FLHE 6-Max event worth $20,312.17.

Day 5 was another for big poker names. Andras “probirs” Nemeth won Event 15-H, a $530 NLHE 8-Max event with rebuys. Out of the 294 entries, Nemeth stuck around to claim $79,655.48 for the win and his first WCOOP title.

Day 6 was a day of rest for most players, courtesy of PokerStars’ scheduling gurus.

This past weekend played numerous events. Two of the most well-known winners were Sylvain “calculer_” Loosli and Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane. Loosli took down Event 27-H for $78,182.44, and Cochrane won Event 26-H (5-Card PLO 6-Max) for $63,236.85.

Double Champs

In an extensive series like WCOOP, there can be players who capture more than one title in that single series. Two players already did it.

Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins of Brazil emerged victorious in Event 20-H, a $1,050 HORSE tournament. He won $31,115 in cash. That paired well with his win days earlier in Event 9-H. That $1,050 NL 2-7 Single Draw win brought in $21,937.50.

This past weekend saw Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos win Event 28-H – an 8-Max Turbo OKO Freezeout, also known as the Sunday Cooldown Special Edition – for $80,211.93 and his third career WCOOP title. But he wasn’t done. The very next day, Mateos took on the $25K buy-in Super High Roller Sunday Slam. He ended up heads-up with Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz, and Mateos won it for $543,685.63 and his fourth career title.

Stats So Far

According to the PokerStars blog, the numbers are rather astounding thus far.

–Events completed: 79

–Entries: 335,746

–Prize pools: $31,045,829

–First prizes: $4,789,406.08

The WCOOP leaderboards are already becoming quite competitive. Keep in mind that the winner of the overall leaderboard wins a trophy and $25K in cash. Each category also awards a trophy, but the low winner also gets $5K, medium gets $8,500, and high gets $12,500.

At this point, the overall leaderboard shows the top three as:

-1. Zapahzamazki of Russia = 530 points

-2. theNERDguy of Brazil = 510 points

-3. aleksandrs10 of Latvia = 495 points

Aleksandrs10 also leads the low leaderboard, Kaggis of Norway and Muka82 of Brazil tie for the medium, and Naza114 leads the high, though theNERDguy isn’t far behind in the high category.

 

 

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