PokerStars to Offer $75 Million in Prizes for Richest-Ever WCOOP

The richest online poker tournament series ever will take place this fall with a whopping $75 million up for grabs in PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker.

The 2019 WCOOP will run September 5-25 with 73 events. Every event will have a low, medium and high buy-in variant, meaning there will be a total of 219 tournaments on tap. Buy-ins for this year’s WCOOP will range from $2.20 all the way up to $25,000 for the high roller.

In addition, the series will end with its signature $5,200 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Main Event with a stunning $10-million guaranteed prize pool.

Last year Dutch online player “wann2play” outlasted 2,044 entries in the WCOOP Main Event to earn $1.3 million. This year’s first-place prize could be even bigger.

Four UFC-Branded Tournaments

The 2019 WCOOP will feature UFC-branded tournaments for the first time ever.

PokerStars announced its ongoing partnership with UFC last winter and has already rolled out a number of UFC-branded daily tournaments like UFC Spin & Go’s where winners get a shot at scoring UFC tickets.

The UFC-branded Event 41 will be an 8-Max Progressive Knockout tournament on September 15. The event will feature four different buy-ins, including:

Earlier this year PokerStars announced that three UFC personalities would act as ambassadors to bridge the gap between MMA and the poker world. That includes the voice of the UFC Bruce Buffer (who is a longtime poker player), heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier and up-and-coming light heavyweight Johnny Walker.

The deal with the UFC marks a dramatic change in how PokerStars handles its sports-based marketing efforts. Previously, PokerStars signed deals with the athletes instead of the organizations.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Nadal, Mats Sundin and Neymar Jr. are some of the most famous athletes who have donned the PokerStars patch over the years.

6+ Hold’em to Make WCOOP Debut

As usual, the 2019 WCOOP will offer a wealth of different poker games that don’t see a lot of play outside the WSOP.

The vast majority of the series will be No-Limit Hold’em but there will also be plenty of Pot-Limit Omaha events. There will also be HORSE, Omaha-8, Razz, 8-Game, Heads-Up, Seven-Card Stud and Badugi for anyone really looking to switch it up.

PokerStars will also be offering red-hot poker variant 6+ Hold’em for the first time ever. 6+ Hold’em (also known as Short-Deck Hold’em) gets rid of any card below a six, which makes for more action-packed matchups as players hit hands like pocket aces and pocket kings much more often.

The $75-million prize pool guarantee is the most that has ever been offered in an online poker series. Partypoker has been pushing its Powerfest online poker series hard over the last couple of years and turning it into a legitimate competitor to WCOOP.

Last year partypoker offered a $60-million guaranteed Powerfest, which was the biggest one ever for the company. PokerStars has been pushing back with its enormous guarantees on WCOOP but there’s one record that partypoker will apparently be able to keep for the time being. Last winter partypoker hosted the biggest online poker tournament ever. The partypoker MILLIONS online featured a $5,300 buy-in but it ended up attracting 4,367 entries to create a record-setting $21.3-million prize pool.

It remains to be seen if PokerStars will offer a similar tournament in the future. For the time being, here’s the complete 2019 WCOOP schedule: