2011 PokerStars WCOOP Main Event Kicks Off

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The PokerStars’ WCOOP is not only one of the largest online poker tournaments on PokerStars, but also in the online poker world in general.  The WCOOP Main Event recently saw an increased buy-in of $5,200 back in 2008, and has had over 2,000 players enter it consecutively since then.  While they were not expecting nearly as many players for this years event after Black Friday, the event still drew an impressive 1,627 entrants.  This number can be compared to the highest of all time, which came last year when 2,443 players entered.

When you check out the WCOOP event you’ll see multiple big name players on the entrant list, and you’ll also find that this event is so popular that some of the big named poker pros in the United States actually moved out of the country to compete in the PokerStars WCOOP.  The event featured an incredible prize pool of $8,135,000, and it will payout a total of 189 players.  Both first and second place for this even will earn over $1 million, with first place taking home $1.4 million, and second place getting just over $1 million.

You’ll find that online poker tournaments run a bit differently than live tournaments do, and that they will typically get into the cash within one day; just as the 2011 WCOOP Main Event did.  When the day ended, there were 176 players remaining out of the starting field.

When the day came to an end there were some big named players still in the hunt, with players like Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Johnny Lodden, Mathias de Muelder, Luke Schwartz, Niki Jedlicka, Jared Bleznick, David Bach, Steve Gross, Tom Marchese, Mmickey Petersen, Mike Leah, and many more.  As far as the top ten goes heading into the final day, we have “NUTZBOT” holding down the top spot with 649, 769 chips, and is followed by “dan82mur” with 600,527 chips.  There is one other player with over 500k in chips, as “zivziv” has 587,440 and is in third place.  The remainder of the top ten comes in between 400,000 and 500,000 chips.

The 2011 PokerStars WCOOP Main Event should be a very interesting finish, and will pay out its final table some very nice pay days.