The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) from PokerStars returns this Sunday August 30.
$80 million is guaranteed across the online tournament series spread across 75 events that all have low, medium and high stakes buy-ins bringing the total number of tournaments to 225.
“Though the team is extraordinarily busy putting the finishing touches on the tournaments themselves, we can’t wait to see what legendary moments WCOOP 2020 brings,” wrote Luke Staudenmaier, Head of PokerStars Poker Operations via a press release announcing the series.
“2020 has been a truly historic year in a lot of ways, but we hope WCOOP 2020 delivers the player experience we know you expect and deserve,” Staudenmaier went on to say.
It is the largest WCOOP to ever run on PokerStars, beating last year’s outing by $5 million.
Tournaments will be running every day of the week, except for Fridays when players can take a well deserved break. Buy-ins to WCOOP 2020 events start at a reasonable $2.20 before creeping up to an eye watering $25,000 for the Super High Roller Event.
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PokerStars is not one to rest on its laurels, and in addition to upping the guarantees this year, they have also added in loads of new perks for 2020. These included some great new ways to gain entry into WCOOP for less, as well as new coverage on Twitch and new Sunday tournaments.
WCOOP 2020: Whats New
- $1.5 million WCOOP Sweepstakes
- Sunday Slam tournaments
- Daily “cards-up” livestream coverage on Twitch
- Fast Track satellites
- New Medium Tier Main Event
- More Freezeout Tournaments Than Ever Before
Sunday Slam Tournaments
Keep an eye out for the new Sunday Slam Tournaments. In addition to cash prizes a 2021 Slam Package is awards to each winner, that includes full buy-ins for next year’s SCOOP, WCOOP and Stadium Series Main Events.
As WCOOP kicks off this Sunday, the Sunday Slam Tournaments are the first events of the series.
$1.5 Million WCOOP Sweepstakes
A new daily WCOOP Sweepstakes promotion is running giving away WCOOP Main Event seats worth $5,200 each. Players must opt-in to the promotion and play at least one WCOOP tournament to be eligible to win.
The bigger the buy-in of the WCOOP tournament, the more entries players will receive for that day’s sweepstakes draw.
Winners will be picked randomly and six players in total will also receive entry to the $25,000 buy-in Super High Roller.
So make sure you opt-in if you are planning to play WCOOP events, as this is a great shot at winning your way into the Main Event and Super High Roller.
WCOOP Main Event Now With Three Buy-in Tiers
For the first time, there will be three tiers of Main Event: as a Medium tier has been added to the High and Low events.
There is now a $530 buy-in, $2 million-guaranteed tournament that will run alongside the standard $5200 buy-in, $10 million guaranteed High-tier and the $55 buy-in, $1.25 million-guaranteed Low Main Event.
40% of Tournaments Are Freezeouts
78 WCOOP tournaments will be played out as Freezeouts this year. This represents nearly 40% of the schedule. This structure means that players will have just a single shot to cash.
Fast Track Step Satellites
As seen in Stadium Series, the Fast Track step satellites are back! These allow players to win their way into the WCOOP Main Event for as little as $1.
These Fast Track Step Satellites run every day until September 20.
Five Main Event seats are being awarded in total.
All About Twitch
All WCOOP coverage will be live-streamed daily on the PokerStars’ Twitch channel, with “cards up coverage” as first seen during the Stadium Series. Viewers will be able to see the hole cards of all players with a 30-minute delay.
For viewers of the Twitch streams, PokerStars will be giving away $100,000 in WCOOP tickets – so you might as well tune in!
You can find the entire WCOOP 2020 Schedule here.
For those wanting to get into the action on Sunday when the Series starts, here’s what PokerStars has lined up.
11 events are running on Sunday alone, with $7.7 million in guarantees up for grabs.
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Sunday August 30: WCOOP Events
| TIME | TOURNAMENT | GTE |
| 13:05 | $109 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] | $1.5M Gtd |
| 13:05 | $1,050 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] | $2M Gtd |
| 13:05 | $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Progressive KO, Sunday Slam] | $1.5M Gtd |
| 14:05 | $55 PLO [6-Max] | $125K Gtd |
| 14:05 | $530 PLO [6-Max] | $250K Gtd |
| 14:05 | $5,200 PLO [6-MaxHigh Roller] | $750K Gtd |
| 15:05 | $22 NLHE | $100K Gtd |
| 15:05 | $215 NLHE | $250K Gtd |
| 15:05 | $2,100 NLHE | $500K Gtd |
| 17:05 | $5.50 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO, Mini Sunday Cooldown SE] | $50K Gtd |
| 17:05 | $55 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO, Sunday Cooldown SE] | $250K Gtd |
| 17:05 | $530 NLHE [8-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO, Sunday Cooldown SE] | $500K Gtd |
WCOOP will run August 30 to September 23.
