Save the Dates: 2022 WCOOP on PokerStars Announced (September 4 – 28)
The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP for short) will be held on PokerStars for the 21st time this year. The poker giant has now announced the dates for its most important online tournament series of the year. From September 4 to 28, around 300 tournaments will be held over a period of 25 days.
The exact schedule is yet to be announced, but it is expected that the tournament series will have a similar program as in previous years. Last year, PokerStars guaranteed a total of $100 million in prize money for the 20th anniversary of the WCOOP. That guarantee was easily surpassed with a total of $122 million in prize money played out. This year, it seems likely that the entire tournament series will be a little bit smaller. PokerStars has temporarily pulled out of several major markets, including Russia and the Netherlands, for legal reasons. Nonetheless, the WCOOP will continue to be one of the biggest tournament series of the year in 2022, offering many tournaments with million-dollar guarantees.
While the WCOOP will be a series with high buy-ins and expensive tournaments, PokerStars is currently running a tournament series that is far more affordable. Running until July 31, the MicroMillions guarantees a total of $4 million in prize money.
WCOOP by the Numbers
The WCOOP has been held annually on PokerStars since 2002. The Main Event of the series has been the biggest and most important PokerStars tournament every year since 2004.
Initially, the buy-in for the Main Event was $1,050. In 2004, it was raised to $2,600 and in 2008, the price was doubled to $5,200. Since then, the WCOOP Main Event has always had the same buy-in.
The player numbers for the WCOOP Main Event have always been at the same level since 2008, at around 2,000 entries. In the last two years, the target of 2,000 entries was not quite reached and the tournament had a small overlay as PokerStars continued to guarantee $10,000,000 in prize money.
This is how the player numbers and prize pool of the WCOOP Main Event have developed since 2002:
All WCOOP Main Events
| Year | Entries | Prize Money | Winner | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 238 | $238,000 | MultiMarine | Sweden |
| 2003 | 891 | $891,000 | Joseph "DeOhGee" Cordi | United States |
| 2004 | 843 | $2,104,500 | Edgar "Ragde" Skjervold | Norway |
| 2005 | 1,494 | $3,735,000 | Jordan "Panella86" Berkowitz | United States |
| 2006 | 2,510 | $6,275,000 | J.-C. "area23JC" Tran | United States |
| 2007 | 2,998 | $7,495,000 | Kyle "ka$ino1" Schroeder | United States |
| 2008 | 2,185 | $10,925,000 | Carter "ckingusc" King | United States |
| 2009 | 2,144 | $10,720,000 | Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko | United States |
| 2010 | 2,443 | $12,215,000 | Tyson "POTTERPOKER" Marks | United States |
| 2011 | 1,627 | $8,135,000 | Thomas "Kallllle" Pedersen | Denmark |
| 2012 | 1,825 | $9,125,000 | Marat "maratik" Sharafutdinov | Russia |
| 2013 | 2,133 | $10,665,000 | David "PlayinWasted" Kaufmann | Germany |
| 2014 | 2,142 | $10,710,000 | Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz | Germany |
| 2015 | 1,995 | $10,000,000 | Kristof "Coenaldinho7" Coenen | Belgium |
| 2016 | 2,091 | $10,052,880 | Jonas "llJaYJaYll" Lauck | Germany |
| 2017 | 2,183 | $10,915,000 | Steven "SvZff" van Zadelhoff | Netherlands |
| 2018 | 2,044 | $10,220,000 | Ezequiel "eze88888" Waigel | Argentina |
| 2019 | 2,236 | $11,180,000 | Charles "BigBlindBets" Russell | United Kingdom |
| 2020 | 1,977 | $10,000,000 | Andre "PTFisherman23" Marques | Portugal |
| 2021 | 1,965 | $10,000,000 | Sergey "CrazyLissy" Denisov | Russia |
Where do the WCOOP Winners Come From?
Although PokerStars has not operated in the US since Black Friday in 2011, most WCOOP Main Event winners come from the United States. From 2003 to 2010, seven out of eight tournaments were won by an American player.
In subsequent years, the winners came from a wide variety of countries, with only Germany (three winners) and Russia (two winners) recording multiple winners so far.
| Country | WCOOP Main Event Winners |
|---|---|
| United States | 7 |
| Germany | 3 |
| Russia | 2 |
| Sweden | 1 |
| Norway | 1 |
| Denmark | 1 |
| Belgium | 1 |
| Netherlands | 1 |
| Argentina | 1 |
| United Kingdom | 1 |
| Portugal | 1 |
The Most Famous WCOOP Winners
Only a few players who won the WCOOP Main Event were unknowns in the scene or were not able to celebrate further success in the live and online scene later on.
The most famous winners are Fedor Holz from Germany, who won over $30 million in live tournaments during his career, J.C. Tran, who won several major titles during his career and finished 5th in the WSOP Main Event in 2013, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko who had several WSOP deep runs and won one WPT title.
The craziest story of a winner certainly goes to Russian player Marat "maratik" Sharafutdinov. By profession, Sharafutdinov was a cab driver at the time and he played only tournaments with a buy-in of $4 or less until his phenomenal WCOOP run. He qualified for the WCOOP Main Event via satellite and when it came to negotiating a deal at the final table, he succinctly demanded, "I wont million" (sic!). He won, got his million and the next day he was back at the PokerStars tables - continuing to play the $4 tournaments.
These are the live winnings (via Hendon Mob database) and big live titles of all WCOOP Main Event winners:
| Player | Country | Live Winnings | Big Titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joseph Cordi | United States | $722,176 | |
| Edgar Skjervold | Norway | $300,784 | |
| Jordan Berkowitz | United States | $17,200 | |
| J.-C. Tran | United States | $13,306,386 | 2 Bracelets, 2 WPT Titles, WSOP Main (5th place in 2013) |
| Kyle Schroeder | United States | $6,223 | |
| Carter King | United States | $432,453 | |
| Yevgeniy Timoshenko | United States | $7,826,896 | 1 WPT Title |
| Tyson Marks | United States | $358,682 | |
| Thomas Pedersen | Denmark | $672,770 | |
| Marat Sharafutdinov | Russia | $0 | |
| David Kaufmann | Germany | $36,501 | |
| Fedor Holz | Germany | $33,655,809 | 2 Bracelets |
| Kristof Coenen | Belgium | $19,168 | |
| Jonas Lauck | Germany | N/A | 1 Bracelet |
| Steven van Zadelhoff | Netherlands | $2,519,800 | |
| Ezequiel Waigel | Argentina | $1,434,752 | |
| Charles Russell | United Kingdom | $7,477 | |
| Andre Marques | Portugal | $282,908 | |
| Sergey Denisov | Russia | $0 |
There are still about two and a half months until the start of the 2022 WCOOP. The exact schedule will be announced soon and there will be numerous affordable satellites for the tournaments. Until then, numerous other tournaments are running on PokerStars, such as the MicroMillions now and the Sunday Million (now a permanent Knock-Out-Tourney) every Sunday.
*Any mention of a bonus or discussion of such terms is not in relation to the province of Ontario.
