WCOOP stats: Number crunching the 2024 series
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That’s it for the 2024 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), another terrific three weeks of action at the PokerStars tables. Here’s a look back on the series through the prism of stats!
STAT TRACKER
The 379 tournaments under the WCOOP banner this year brought more than 1 million entries and generated prize pools of just over $95 million. Winners earned $15 million, including bounties.
Despite facing stiff competition from across the poker landscape, both live and online, WCOOP continues to stand firm. These numbers were very similar to those recorded last year.
Tournaments completed: 379
Entries: 1,052,851 (inc. 286,874 re-entries)
Prize pools: $95,156,479
First-place prizes: $15,033,204 (inc. $3,043,865 in bounties)
BIGGEST TOURNAMENTS
The Main Events once again, and predictably, attracted the biggest prize pools of this year’s WCOOP, with the $10K high tournament squeaking past its guarantee and offering a pool of $5,020,000.
Both other price points eclipsed their guarantees too, with $3,856,000 in the $1K medium tournament and $2,507,500 in the low. In all, 12 tournaments had prize pools of more than $1 million.
Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden won the biggest prize of WCOOP this year
It was similarly predictable that the enormous “Phase” events would attract the most entries. These are the tournaments that play out throughout the series in multiple opening flights.
Here are some of the biggest numbers from the series:
Top five prize pools:
$5,020,000 – WCOOP 108-H: World Championship of NLHE: $10,300 Main Event
$3,856,000 – WCOOP 108-M: $1,050 NLHE [NLHE Main Event]
$2,507,500 – WCOOP 108-L: $109 NLHE [NLHE Main Event]
$1,446,975 – WCOOP 115-H: $25,000 NLHE [Super High Roller]
$1,368,000 – World Championship of Progressive KO NLHE: $1,050 NLHE
Top five biggest fields (by number of entries):
48,926 – WCOOP 01-L: $5.50 NLHE [Phase 2]
25,075 – WCOOP 108-L: $109 NLHE [NLHE Main Event]
24,793 – WCOOP 01-M: $22 NLHE [Phase 2]
15,673 – WCOOP 114-L: $11 NLHE [Progressive KO, Series Saver]
15,079 – WCOOP 03-L: $11 NLHE [Mystery Warm-Up], $100K Gtd
Twenty tournaments had more than 10,000 entries
The biggest number of unique players was in WCOOP 108-L: $109 NLHE [NLHE Main Event], which had 15,397 before re-entries.
The biggest freezeout, i.e., the biggest event with no re-entries, was WCOOP 37-L: $5.50 NLHE [Progressive KO, Sunday Warm-Up], which attracted 8,882 players.
Top five winner’s prizes:
$1,007,059 – Samual “€urop€an” Vousden – WCOOP 108-H: World Championship of NLHE: $10,300 Main Event
$449,610 – “DavyJones922” – WCOOP 115-H: $25,000 NLHE [Super High Roller]
$441,809 – “stek94” – WCOOP 108-M: $1,050 NLHE [NLHE Main Event]
$209,747 – “777ANTONY777” – WCOOP 108-L: $109 NLHE [NLHE Main Event]
$208,637 – “Leqenden” – WCOOP 38-H: $10,300 NLHE [Progressive KO, High Roller]
INDIVIDUAL BRILLIANCE
Although it’s statistically probable that we’ll have a number of multiple champions during WCOOP, it’s still always so impressive to watch some of the top stars take the series by the scruff of the neck.
There was no one who could quite match Benny Glaser’s haul of seven titles from last year, but both Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot, the PokerStars Ambassador from Canada, and the irrepressible “FAL1st“, the Thailand-based Russian, won five apiece.
Both these two lit up WCOOP with their skills this time around, Tonkaaaa single-handedly keeping his team in the fight for the WCOOP League, and far outstripping anyone else playing for the Red Spade.
It was a barnstorming series for Parker Talbot
As for FAL1st, his all-round dominance won him a deserved Player of the Series prize.
There was one four-time champion — Niklas “Lena900” Astedt — and nine three-time winners, including Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi, who won three for the second year in succession.
A further 19 players won two titles, with “king153246” of Albania and Gruffudd “d.apollo777” Jones from the UK winning both their titles on the same night.
FIVE TITLES
Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot (Canada) – PokerStars Ambassador
“FAL1st” (Thailand)
FOUR TITLES
Niklas “Lena900” Astedt (Sweden)
THREE TITLES
Felipe “ultraviol3nt” Olivieri (Argentina)
Joao “Naza114” Vieira (UK)
“Leqenden” (Belarus)
Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi (Brazil)
Voca94 (Ukraine)
Alex “I Attack95” Kulev
“PIPON777” (Estonia)
flerrehuve (Sweden)
Stevan “random_chu” Chew (Indonesia)
TWO TITLES
“CPUrul0r” (Austria), “Karllofff” (Moldova), Dennys “dennysramos2” Ramos (Brazil), Blaz “Scarmak3r” Zerjav (Slovenia), GodOf.com (Austria), “DingeBrinker” (Estonia), “Darapan” (Poland), Rochinha2011 (Brazil), kZhh (Hungary), “Sintoras” (Germany), ibotown (Austria), Juan “Malaka$tyle” Pardo (Andorra), king153246 (Albania), One Poor Bum (Dominican Republic), |gammi|€120 (Belarus), thimbex (Finland), DrawindDead (Poland), Gruffudd “d.apollo777” Jones (UK), Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden (Finland).
Blaz Zerjav was the first two-time champ of the year
THE BRIDESMAIDS
Plenty of our multiple champions also got to heads up on several other occasions, including the Boot Camp graduate “king153246“, who must have thought he would never win an event. He came second on four separate occasions, before his finally broke through at the fifth — and sixth! — attempt.
Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi, a former WCOOP Player of the Series, also couldn’t quite get over the line this time. He finished second on five occasions, from a flurry of final-table appearances. Both of our five-time winners, Talbot and FAL1st, also lost two heads-up battles. What might have been for them…
Meanwhile, having finished second four times last year, Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski was runner-up three times again this time around. It’s just lucky he also won another title this time.
Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi finished runner-up five times
FIVE RUNNER-UP FINISHES
Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi
FOUR RUNNER-UP FINISHES
“king153246”
THREE RUNNER-UP FINISHES
Ognjan “cocojamb0” Dimov, “rollingdrone”, Rodrigo “seijistar” Seiji, “Sintoras”, Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski
TWO RUNNER-UP FINISHES
Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov, Juanki ‘B4NKR0LL3R’ Vecino, “dtminator”, “FAL1st”, “floes”, “G1a1u1s1s”, “GodOf.com”. “huiiiiiiiiii”, Alex “I Attack95” Kulev, “IamMickeyBr”, Kelvin “Kelvin_FP:AR” Kerber, “kuhns89”, Niklas “Lena900” Astedt, “mc1dot”, Ivan “Negriin” Luca, Viktor “papan9_p$” Ustimov, “psyhoagromor”, Rodrigo “SELOUAN1991” Selouan, Pavel “silentm0de” Plesov, Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot, Terrance “Unassigned” Chan, “Zanos_Goda”.
NATIONAL SUCCESS
Brazil topped their own record tally from a “regular”-sized WCOOP series, landing 82 titles. They tied their previous best on the series’ penultimate night, with a final day double pushing them into new territory.
In all, 42 nations won titles this year, with Albania appearing for the first time. This was the first WCOOP without Norwegian players and it’s difficult to chart where they may have relocated (if anywhere). Estonia increased its tall from three last time to nine this year, but six of them went to long-established Estonian crushers PIPON777, Juanki “B4NKR0LL3R” Vecino and “DingeBrinker”.
Broadly speaking, the winner distribution was similar to what we have seen before.
Here’s the full list:
82 – Brazil
33 – UK
24 – Austria
18 – Sweden
16 – Canada
15 – Belarus, Bulgaria
14 – Argentina, Romania
13 – Poland
12 – Hungary
11 – Ukraine
10 – Finland
9 – Estonia, Malta
8 – Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Thailand
5 – Latvia, Lithuania
4 – Andorra, Slovenia
3 – Bosnia & Herzegovina, Greece, Indonesia, Ireland, Vietnam
2 – Albania, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Luxembourg, Moldova
1 – Belgium, Chile, Ecuador, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Slovakia, Uruguay, Uzbekistan.
OTHER WCOOP STATS TIDBITS
- 228 players won their first ever WCOOP title this year, including several of our multiple champions. None of Felipe “ultraviol3nt” Olivieri, “Karllofff”, “GodOf.com”, “Darapan”, “|gammi|€120”, “thimbex” or Gruffudd “d.apollo777” Jones had ever landed a title before this year.
- Lex Veldhuis, Aleks “APonakov” Ponakovs, Jamie “jamiedwan21” Dwan, “Stumpfed”, “Succeeed” and Vlad “dariepoker” Darie were among the high profile players to win their first ever WCOOP title.
- Alex Kulev, formerly “FutureOfMe” won three titles under his new screenname “”I Attack95”. In so doing he became the first player to win multiple titles under two names.
- This was the first year since 2017 that Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser did not win at least one WCOOP title. Glaser remains the most decorated WCOOP player of all time, with 15 titles, but could not extend his record this time.
- Despite not playing any events this year, Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes is still the closest challenger to Glaser, with 13 WCOOP titles. Joao “Naza114” Vieira and Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov have 12; Patrick “pads1161” Leonard and Niklas “Lena900” Astedt have 11.
No stopping Alex Kulev
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