WCOOP 2011: Ten days to go

Brad Willis | @BradWillis | August 25, 2011 7:21 AM In WCOOP

If you log on to the WCOOP website, you will see a little countdown box that--in my rarely humble opinion--can be a bit deceiving. For instance, if you were to look at it right now, you'd see that the first part of clock reads, "9 days." It's only when you look at it a little bit closer that you see it's nine days and 23 some hours. It's not bait-and-switch. It's not false advertising. It's simply too much for an anticipating poker heart to see without getting a little apoplectic.

So, I call on you, fair WCOOP player to stick with us right here at the PokerStars Blog for the real deal. We know in our hearts that--no matter what that countdown clock may want us to believe--there are still ten days left before the first event of the world's biggest online poker series. We still must wait ten days until the start of the three-week, $30 million in guaranteed prize money festval of fun.

If it needs further reinforcing, we've brought in the reinforcements. Somewhere near the Irish Sea is a bunker where the WCOOP team is drinking instant coffee through a straw so their fingers can remain on the keyboards. These are busy times.

Inside that bunker is a man we'll just call "Bob." Bob is a numbers guy. He plans to name his first child "Excel." He was once arrested for indecent exposure to a calculator (that last one isn't true, except in a really funny scene I just created in my head). Bob likes numbers, and he likes WCOOP.

During a caffeine binge yesterday, Bob started babbling about how there were ten days left, and ten is such an interesting number, and have you seen how the number ten and WCOOP correlate? Have you?

We couldn't help but agree, Bob was on to something with his ranting. See a few of the things he said below.

WCOOP '10 was the biggest series to date. It featured 141,126 buy-ins and total prize money of $63,157,150. The Main Event was won by Tyson 'POTTERPOKER' Marks, who took $2.28M for first place.

10th place in the Main Event is the player eliminated on the final table bubble. In 2010, the unfortunate player was 'm8675309a' from the Turks and Caicos Islands - the prize was over $85,000.

During the '10 series, three countries cashed 10 times - India, Luxembourg and Malaysia.

Many notable players have exactly 10 lifetime WCOOP cashes to their name, including Team PokerStars Pros Martin Hruby and Chad Brown. Two of Chad's cashes have been 10th place finishes.

Only four countries have won more than $10M in WCOOP history, that's the USA, Canada, the UK and Sweden. In addition, Canada has produced 10 WCOOP bracelet winners.

In WCOOP history there have only been 10 entries from Nigeria and El Salvador.

The biggest prize awarded in any WCOOP Event 10 was $611,455 in 2009. It was the $10K No Limit Hold'em high roller event won by 'Sumpas' from Sweden.

This year, Event 10 is a $265 PLO Knockout tournament with a guarantee of $225K.

WCOOP 2011 will be the 10th annual running of the World Championship of Online Poker!

That's Bob's exclamation point there on the end. He's very excited.

So, ten days out. That gives you enough time to lay in stores of Red Bull, Sanka, and Sudafed. It makes sure you have time to win a few satellites (always running on PokerStars).

Now, get to work. We have to get Bob fitted for a new calculator. Don't ask what happened to the old one.