WCOOP week 1 round-up

Sadly, the Olympic summer has come to an end but it’s not all bad we still have 2 more weeks of the WCOOP to look forward to. One week down and 21 WCOOP bracelet winners later, this year’s series is already gearing up to be a classic.

It’s been a great start for the Brits to this year’s WCOOP with UK player ‘beardo1981‘, collecting $262,936.70 for his win in event 8, the $1,050 NL Hold’em. Currently the sum is the biggest prize won by any single player at this years series.

The other player deservedly grabbing the headlines is PokerStars Team Pro, Eugene Katchalov. The Ukrainian is currently sitting at the top of this year’s Player of the Series table with 6 cashes already, including a bracelet in event 14, the $215 Stud H/L. The win was worth $24,588.70 bringing his total earnings for the series to $28,287.25.

What makes Katchalov’s hot start even better are the bets he made with fellow pro, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier before the series begun. Live on radio the pair agreed that on three seperate challenges with different forefits for the loser in each one.

The categories are:
 

* Player of the Series: Lowest-placed person on the Leaderboard has until PCA at the Bahamas to learn the other person’s language and give a short interview to a TV/web broadcast. If ElkY loses he will have to do it in Russian, while Eugene would have to do it in French. If viewers can’t understand it, the loser will have three months to prepare and run a full marathon.

* WCOOP winnings: Whichever player posts smallest amount of winnings at end of the series must cycle from Cannes to EPT Sanremo (about 130km)

* Total number of cashes: The player with least cashes must perform 1000 push-ups in 12 hours

With ElkY currently sitting on only $1,991.64 he will need to start doing something, anything if he hopes to win even one of the challenges. 

Elsewhere on the tables, yesterday saw the richest days play with the three events attracting more than $6.7 million in total prize money. All three are currently still running with Isacc ‘westmenloAA’ Baron leading the $700 event, closely followed by Daniel Negreanu and Vicky Coren. While in event 22, the $10,300 NL Hold’em, just 31 players remain with ‘darrenelias’ ahead of Jonathan ‘MONSTER_DONG’ Karamalikis in second. Other notable players still fighting for the title and first prize of $574,695, include Chris ‘ImDaNuts’ Oliver, Matt ‘ch0ppy’ Kay, Johan ‘busto_soon’ van Til, Marc ‘dean23price’ Wright, Faraz ‘The-Toilet 0’ Jaka and Steve ‘gboro780’ Gross. 

There’s still plenty more to come including the big one at the end and there’s plenty of time to qualify too.

How is your WCOOP coming on this year, have you managed to put any of our strategy and tips to good use? Let us know via Facebook and Twitter!