Plan to Win: Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier on Preparing a Successful WCOOP Strategy
The 2017 World Championship of Online Poker is well underway on PokerStars, but there remains a lot of opportunities on the three-week, 82-event schedule for players of all skill levels and bankrolls.
Some may not be aware that this year PokerStars is delivering two side-by-side variations of the WCOOP, with "high" and a "low" versions of the series. The "high" events feature the larger buy-ins ranging from $215 on up to a couple of $25,000 high rollers, while the corresponding "low" events start at $11 with the majority costing $109 or less to play.
Both WCOOP tiers feature a wide variety of game types, with no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha most prominent and many other mixed-game variants making up the schedule.
Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier has been playing the WCOOP for years, and he has a few tips to share with players who might be new to online poker's most popular tournament series.
In the video below, Grospellier shares some of his favorite attributes of the series, including the variety of events and how such a full schedule enables tournament players to put in more volume and thus reduce variance.
He also offers more specific advice to those planning a WCOOP schedule, including for players eventually looking to move from the "low" to the "high" tiers of events.
Being prepared for long days is key, ElkY points out. Don't just enter an event without being ready to go deep and put in a long day (or two). After all, these WCOOP events invariably feature huge fields (and thus big prize pools), meaning they take some time to complete, with many set up as multiple-day events.
Grospellier talks as well about his sick run back in 2009 — "so sick," he'd say — when he won two WCOOP events within just a couple of days. After topping a field of 1,169 to take down a $530 rebuy event for a $232K first prize, ElkY turned around and won a 9,220-entry Sunday Million Special Edition event for $263K. Take a look:
The WCOOP home page has all the needed info regarding the remaining schedule of events. Find information there about registering for events, and learn as well about how PokerStars is giving away over $700,000 worth of WCOOP tickets via Stars Rewards chests across the series, too.
Speaking of winning your way into WCOOP events, there are special edition Spin & Go's running at PokerStars as well, with $27 Spin & Go's giving away tickets to the $5,200 Main Event, and $109 Spin & Go's giving away tickets to the $25,000 High Roller on September 21. You can find more information about the special Spin & Go's here.
