2008 World Championship of Online Poker

With a combined guaranteed prizepool more than $30,000,000 awarded over 33 events, the 2008 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) was the biggest online poker tournament series ever!

The 33 events covered a huge range of different poker games, including Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Razz, HORSE, 2-7 Draw and more. Also on offer were new games to WCOOP, such as Mixed Hold’em and Mixed Omaha, 4-max Hold’em, and an 8-game Mixed Event.

There were two new High-Roller events this year which attracted the cream of the world’s online players. The first was Event 5, the $10,300 No Limit Hold’em which was won by dorinvandy who scooped $617,925 for first place. The second High-Roller event was Event 19, the $25,500 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em, which attracted 64 players and was won by stevesbets who took home $560,000.

Event 15, the $320 Heads-up No Limit tournament attracted a huge field of 2,084 which created a total prizepool of $614,400. With 256 places paid, Huxfluxen triumphed winning a first place prize of $89,744.

After 16 days of fierce action it all came down to the $10,000,000 guaranteed Main Event, held September 21-22. The big one was won by ckingusc from the United States, who beat 2,184 other players to take down the coveted bracelet, as well as $1,265,432.23 in first place prize money.

Team PokerStars Pro had a strong WCOOP, winning a combined total of $1,543,286. Chris Moneymaker made two final tables, in the High-Roller No Limit Hold’em and the PL Omaha [1R1A], while ElkY came second in the High Roller No Limit Hold’em, with Gavin Griffin fourth and Vanessa Rousso fifth in the same event.

Elky continued his fine form with further cashes in the No Limit Hold’em Triple Shootout and 6-max Rebuy events. He also went deep in the Main Event, coming 21st for $22,942 which all added up to a $407,285 WCOOP payday for the Frenchman. Also of note was Andre Akkari’s second place finish in the $10,300 HORSE Event which netted him $200,000.

A total of 22,873 unique players representing 119 countries contested the 33 events, and PokerStars awarded a grand total of $39,958,000 in prize money. UK player liberace was the biggest winner, with $1,377,179 banked across all events, while thedonator from the USA was top of the cashes ladder with 10 in total.

For statistics on each individual tourney, click the event name in the table below. Also see the PokerStars Blog for full reports from each event. Watch the video below to see highlights from the WCOOP Main Event.

Watch WCOOP Highlights: $5,200 Main Event on PokerStars.tv

History of the WCOOP Main Event

The first WCOOP was contested in 2002 with MultiMarine of Sweden winning $65,450 in the main championship event.. The following year DeOhGee won $222,750 in the same tournament, and in 2004 Ragde won $424,945 for making the top spot. In 2005, Panella86 won the main event and took home $577,342, while in 2006, top pro player J.C. Tran won the WCOOP Main Event, pocketed more than $600,000 for his victory. Last year the main event was won by Ka$ino and featured the biggest first place prize ever, totaling $1,378,330.50.

WCOOP 2008 Results

See the WCOOP stats page for facts and figures from WCOOP 2008 events.

EVENT No	EVENT	TOTAL ENTRIES	TOTAL PRIZE POOL	CHAMPION	1st PLACE

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