First 22 Events Have All Easily Surpassed Their Guarantees

Published on 2011-09-12 18:54:00

Week 1 of the 2011 WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) is now in the books.

The 2011 edition of the WCOOP continues to draw very well - of the 22 WCOOP events that are either done or close to being done, all 22 have easily surpassed their guarantees.

The total guaranteed prize money for the first 22 events was $10,675,000. Those 22 events ended up combining for a total prize pool of $17,531,650.

This year's WCOOP has a total guaranteed prize pool of $30 million. If the first week trend continues throughout the rest of the series, then the total prize pool for this year's WCOOP would end up near $50 million. That would be a ridiculously impressive total given that Pokerstars was forced to shut their doors to American players in mid-April.

A number of formerly locked-out American players resurfaced on Pokerstars (after having moved to other countries) just in time for the WCOOP, which has certainly helped to boost the overall numbers for the series. For instance, of the 200 players who participated in WCOOP #2 ($10k NLHE High Roller), nearly 50 listed Canada as their home country.

The WCOOP (and Pokerstars' business as a whole) has also been helped out tremendously by the site's efforts to diversify away from the US market over the past number of years.

Despite the events of the past five months, the WCOOP has barely missed a beat.

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Filed Under: Poker Room News