POKERSTARS CELEBRATES RICHEST WCOOP EVER WITH MORE THAN $66 MILLION IN PRIZE MONEY
Day 2 of $10m GTD Main Event continues today with 246 players remaining
ONCHAN, Isle of Man – September 28, 2015 – The 2015 World Championship of Online Poker saw the final events get under way last night, which helped push the total prize pool up to $66,245,305 across its 70 events and make it the richest World Championship in its 14-year history on PokerStars, an Amaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AYA; TSX: AYA) brand. It surpassed the previous record of $63,157,150 (WCOOP 2010) by more than $3 million.
It has been a World Championship of significant milestones with WCOOP 2015 pushing the total number of events since the first WCOOP past the 500-event mark (557 in total now), the all-time WCOOP prize money breaching $500 million to finish on $513,596,638 ahead of next year’s Championship, and more than 1,000,000 all-time WCOOP entries. The number of tournament entries for WCOOP 2015 alone surpassed 100,000 (109,904) with 26,594 unique players from 122 different countries participating.
$10 MILLION MAIN EVENT
The $5,200 Main Event – the most prestigious and highly sought after online poker title of the year – began yesterday with $10 million to be won. A total of 1,995 players registered and when day 2 of the three-day tournament restarts at 14.30 ET today, there will be 246 players back in contention. It’s a crucial time, too, as 243 places are paid, so it’s practically bubble time.
Norwegian player ‘EspenasApart’ is current chip leader with more than 1.4m, with other high-profile players like former Sunday Million winner Jason ‘TeamWispy’ Helder, two-time WCOOP winner Jonathan ‘Iftarii’ Jaffe, and Aaron ‘aejones’ Jones, all among the top 10 players in chips. Two Team PokerStars Pros are also still battling away – Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara (89th), an Online pro from Japan, and Aditya ‘Adi Agarwal’ Agarwal (168th) from India – with a goal of making the day 3 final table on Tuesday.
To follow the action, log in to PokerStars and go to Online Events > WCOOP > Main Events, and check out the PokerStars Blog for updates.
In addition, the $215 NL Hold’em Sunday Warm-Up Special Edition and the $10,300 8-Game Championship are set to be decided later today. Two Team PokerStars Pros – Jason ‘JasonMercier’ Mercier and George ‘Jorj95’ Lind – are in the money and gunning for the first prize of $247,975 in the 8-Game when that resumes at 12.30 ET, while Asian Team PokerStars Pro Kosei ‘K. Ichinose’ Ichinose is 11th of 112 in the Sunday Warm-Up SE; he’ll be back in action from 11.00 ET.
RECORD BREAKERS
Earlier this WCOOP, the $51k Super High Roller – the biggest buy-in online poker tournament ever – was won by Ben ‘Ben86’ Tollerene for $616,518.34. There were also notable victories for Shaun ‘shaundeeb’ Deeb and Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson, who both moved on to joint most all-time ‘COOP (WCOOP, SCOOP, TCOOP) victories with eight each, after taking down events 44 and 62 respectively.
It’s also been an incredible ride for Team PokerStars Pro Jason ‘jcarverpoker’ Somerville, who reached a peak audience of 37,434 viewers on Twitch for his ‘Run it UP!’ poker show on September 7 as he came sixth in event 7 for $38,339. Somerville has managed to make three final tables this WCOOP, and enjoyed eight cashes. Despite no Team PokerStars Pros winning an event this year, several went close, including George Danzer (3rd in WCOOP-66 for $32,160), Eugene ‘E. Katchalov’ Katchalov (2nd in WCOOP-37 for $22,386), Johnny Lodden (5th in WCOOP-34 for $23,708.16), Jason Mercier (5th in WCOOP-33 for $4,884.42), and Somerville (3rd in WCOOP-18 for $22,200).
Finally, a new WCOOP Mega Path record was set this year, with the Frequent Player Point satellite route resulting in 99 players qualifying for the $5,200 Main Event. That improves on 2014’s 77 players by 22. The fewest FPP that a player used to qualify with this year was just 12!
For more information and stats about WCOOP 2015, go to http://psta.rs/1JK20DG or email press@pokerstars.com.
About PokerStars
PokerStars operates the world’s most popular online poker sites, serving the global poker community. Since it launched in 2001, PokerStars has become the first choice of players all over the world, with more daily tournaments than anywhere else and with the best security online. More than 130 billion hands have been dealt on PokerStars, which is more than any other site.
PokerStars.com and PokerStars.eu operate globally under licenses from the Isle of Man and Malta governments, respectively. PokerStars also holds separate government licenses in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
PokerStars is the key brand of Rational Group, which operates gaming-related businesses and brands, including PokerStars, Full Tilt and the European Poker Tour. In 2012, 2013 and 2014, Rational Group companies in the UK and Isle of Man won recognition as one of the best workplaces in the UK being awarded a top 25 position by the Great Place to Work Institute’s Best Workplaces – Large category rankings. Rational Group entities in Costa Rica and Dublin also achieved the same accolade in their respective local rankings in 2014. PokerStars is owned by Amaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AYA; TSX: AYA).