The September 16 starting date for the fifth annual World Championship
of Online Poker (WCOOP) is just around the corner, and Pokerstars
organizers will be burning the midnight oil getting ready to host
players from more than 80 countries competing in 18 tournaments for
a guaranteed prize pool of $10 million.
The WCOOP will run over the course of 16 days, starting with the $200
buy-in Razz (Seven-Card Stud Low) tournament, and ending on October
1st with the $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament, offering
cash prizes of $3 million. One of the highlights of this year’s
tournament is set to be the online tournament debut of H.O.R.S.E.,
a rotation of five varieties of poker which is expected to draw some
of the sport’s top names.
Team PokerStars spokesperson Barry Greenstein says, “Prestigious
tournaments such as the PokerStars.com WCOOP are the ultimate way
to improve your game and experience the excitement of big tournament
play. The WCOOP is a popular event with the established stars of online
poker, and the H.O.R.S.E. tournament is bound to attract the elite.”
The 2005 WCOOP tournament series attracted 19 727 players and generated
$12 783 900 in prize money making it the third largest online and
terrestrial poker spectacle in the world. But watch this space - the
2006 event has already attracted a huge amount of attention and looks
set to break previous records.