WCOOP Vs FTOPS: By the Numbers

In the world of online poker, online poker rooms are not satisfied with having just the highest and most lucrative daily and weekly online tournaments. The bragging rights stretch to their respective yearly online tournament series.

In September, PokerStars held their annual World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and then later in the year Full Tilt Poker staged their Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) in November.

This year both events sported some huge numbers as both series experienced year to year increases.

We took the time to crunch the numbers and we are leaving our readers to decide where to head next time these series are at a computer near you.

The WCOOP Tournament at PokerStars, now in its sixth year, guaranteed a combined prize pool of $15 million but the series eventually awarded $24.2 million. First place winners across the 23 events won $4.1 million.

The entire series managed to attract 40,280 players with the winner at the NL Hold’em Main Event receiving a staggering $1,378,330.50 cheque. The Main Event enticed 2,998 players willing to pay the $2,500+$100 buy-in fee.

The FTOPS Tournament at Full Tilt Poker guaranteed $9.1 million in prize money but that was easily surpassed as players ended up competing for $11.1 million in prize money. All the top finishers from the 16 events collected a combined $2.2 million.

The sixth edition of the FTOPS lured 27,511 participants with the Main Event, a $500+$35 NL Hold’em tournament, awarding the winner a huge $385,937.45 who outlasted a field of 4,371 players.These events are becoming so successful that other well established online poker rooms are following suit. What is more interesting is that all tournament series try to one-up themselves each year. It only remains to be seen which of these will avoid overlays and match their guarantees.