On Sunday evening no-one had heard of the name 'maratik', let alone Marat Sharafutdinov. By Tuesday afternoon poker blogs, forums and news outlets were awash with the story of Maratik, the man who had turned 40 frequent player points into a million dollars. His deal negotiations have already become legendary,...more

The 2012 World Championship of Online Poker has come to an end after 22 days, 65 tournaments and a guarantee-smashing $55,522,590 in prizes. Millionaires have been made, bubbles have been burst and a new set of heroes have stepped into the limelight. If there was any doubt that this year's...more

After several levels of FPP qualifiers, 25 hours of deep stacked, high velocity play and close to 60 minutes of six-handed deal negotiations, a low stakes Russian grinder has won the WCOOP Main Event pocketing a life-changing $1,000,907.26. There's the money, yes, but there's so much more for our new...more

The chip lead guarantees nothing. Niccc looked to have the tournament in the bag with a sizeable final table lead that he took all the way to three-handed play. But then he lost it, and jakz101 took over. Niccc had previous PokerStars titles, but jakz101 had the heart and drive...more

Jason Mercier doesn't just win. He mashes. It's his own colloquialism with it's own Twitter hashtag, and somehow it suits him perfectly. Mercier mashes the $400/$800 ring games on a regular basis. He mashes EPTs. He makes perfectly fluffy mashed potatoes with WSOP pot-limit Omaha fields, earning two bracelets in...more

It's here! The day online poker players look forward to all year! The 2012 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event! With a $5,200 buy-in and eye-popping $5 million guarantee, the WCOOP Main Event bracelet has become one of the most coveted in all of poker. And with that huge...more

Four cards. Two players. Nine rounds of heads-up poker. Such was the equation offered players in Event #60, a two-day heads-up pot-limit Omaha tournament helping to round out the final weekend of events for the 2012 World Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars. Once registration closed and play began on...more

Over 16 hours into a tournament and down seven to one in chips, it's all too easy to simply throw up your hands and give in to fatigue. The hole seems too deep, the gymnastics required to climb out of it too strenuous for a mind that's been racing all...more

Mixed games are considered a true test of a poker player's ability. To excel in not just one, but five different poker variants, and survive a long and gruelling battle against the best in the world, is one of the most respected achievements in the poker world. Tonight it is...more

Beckersen81 has an avatar that's hard to forget. A close-up shot of a white tiger stares back at his opponents, and I knew I'd seen it before. Ten weeks ago, the white tiger got heads-up with didumiss' yellow-eyed bobcat in Event #6 of the MicroMillions II. Beckersen81 emerged the victor...more

There are no absolutes in poker. Just because you begin a final table with the big stack doesn't not mean you're going to have a cake-walk to the championship. Conversely, just because you start the final table with a short-stack, it doesn't mean you're going to be the first...more

If people were looking to view a game that would produce a fast final table, most players would not name Limit Hold Em' as their first choice, especially with the deep blinds and stacks of a WCOOP event. Tonight's $150,000 guaranteed Event #58 LHE's final table would be reached...more

The World Championship of Online Poker is the greatest online poker festival in the world. This is no throwaway rinse-and-repeat marketing line. It is fact. Dispute it. Go on. Try it. You can't. It has the largest prize pools, the best structures and puts the best players in the world...more

Nine events remain in the 2012 World Championship of Online Poker. That's nine chances for Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer to catch Norway's mikal12345 who's pulling away in the top spot of the WCOOP leader board and is just a few days away from claiming the Player of the Series...more

Pot Limit Omaha is often looked upon as an action game. It's a game of aggression, equity and pushing thin edges. For most of us at the low limits, that usually means finding a big combo hand full of suited connectors, announcing "pot" over and over, and then hanging on...more

At 11:00 ET this morning, several hundred players were dealt in to the first hand of Event #55. They'd all put in $530 for the privilege, but several of them were about to put in a lot more since the tournament featured unlimited re-buys for the first 90 minutes....more

Ned_bg was not the chip leader going into the final table, but close. Every time a player would take over first place, Ned_bg wasn't far behind. It wasn't until the table thinned to the last few players that Ned_bg was seen as a true contender, and despite going into heads-up...more

It's rare that a player has a lead going into the second day of play and actually wins, but jobetzu beat the odds and did just that. The Finn headed to the final table behind Timex, but a steady stream of aggressive moves took jobetzu to heads-up. Again, not the...more

Two members of Team PokerStars Online have posted in their WCOOP videos to us today. Randy 'nanonoko' Lew last night went deep in WCOOP-52 ($215 NL Hold'em Big Antes) and recorded a video talking through some of his hands as he did so. Despite his one-table focus, a far cry...more

Mike 'Timex' McDonald, Tom 'hitthehole' Middleton and Mike 'pipedream17' Dietrich are among the final 16 players battling for a bracelet and $69,248 in WCOOP-52 ($215 NL Hold'em, Big Antes). Finnish player jobetzu holds a significant lead of 1,924,438, some way ahead of Middleton in second who stacked up 1,210,959 at...more