FINAL STANDINGS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3

The inaugural WCOOP League ended with an unsurprising victory for Team Peace&loove, led by captain Sebastian Huber. The PokerStars Ambassador not only picked up a title himself, but his first pick “FAL1st” clinched five trophies and topped the Overall Player of the Series. Moreover, his Boot Camp pick “king153246” won two titles and topped both the Medium and Low Leaderboards. Incredible.

A total of 27 titles were won by League players, including five by rival team captain Parker “Tonkaaa” Talbot. Fourteen of the 30 players picked up trophies this year, highlighting just how good these picks were.

Congratulations to Huber, FAL1st, Thiago “tgrigoletti” Grigoletti, Lasse “Wistern” Jagd Lauritsen, and “king153246” for a fantastic victory.

League players who won titles this year:

“FAL1st” (x5)
Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot (x5)
Niklas “Lena900” Astedt (x4)
“king153246” (x2)
Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi (x2)
Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber
“So00oSick”
Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski
Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky
Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov
Lex Veldhuis
Jerry “Perrymejsen” Odeen
Patrick “pads1161” Leonard
ShipItFTW911

Here’s a look at the final League table:

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

WCOOP 2024 is underway but there’s still time for you to get involved and back the team you think will win WCOOP League.

To take part you must place a minimum $/£/€5 bet in PokerStars Sports on the team you think is going to win.

If your chosen team wins you’ll not only win the bet but you’ll receive one free ticket into a freeroll on October 5 with some incredible prizes:

• 1st – Power Path Gold Pass ($10,300)
• 2nd – Power Path Silver Pass ($2,500)
• 3rd – NAPT Las Vegas satellite ticket ($530)
• 4th-9th – Power Path Bronze Pass ($109)
• 10th-18th – NAPT Las Vegas satellite ticket ($55)
• 19th-75th – Power Path Step 3 ticket ($11)
• 76th-125th – NAPT Las Vegas satellite ticket ($5.50)

You can bet multiple times (go ahead and bet on every team if you want to guarantee yourself a freeroll seat!), but only one ticket per person. Additional tickets, however, can be won via Sunday Million giveaways. 

WHAT IS A GOLD PASS?

A Gold Pass is a curated bundle that will be updated with new offers for upcoming events. They’re available to win through the PokerStars Power Path, but are also given away as prizes in special promotions.

For example, a $10,300 Gold Pass for EPT Barcelona might include:

• EPT Barcelona Main Event entry – €5,300
• EPT Barcelona side even entry – €1,100
• 8 nights at a hotel (€2,440)
• Expenses (€690)
• Exclusive merchandise
• Live event liaison support
• Free activities for player and guest

Sounds good, right? It’s a prize well worth winning.

The only question now is which team will boom and which will bust? Make your pick now.

HOW WCOOP LEAGUE WORKS

Welcome to WCOOP League 2024, a fantasy football-style draft of poker players who will compete against each other to earn the most points throughout the 25-day World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2024.

It’s going to be a battle to remember and you’re going to want to sweat every day of it, because if you back the winning team you could see yourself playing for a Gold Pass worth $10,300.

How it works, in a nutshell: Six Team Pro captains draft a five-player team. Each player earns points throughout the series based on how well they perform in each event, and those points are tallied to make a team total. The winning team has the most points at the end.

How you can get involved: Back your favourite team and if that team wins the league, you’ll play a freeroll awarding a Gold Pass worth $10,300 to the winner (find out how to back a team here).

THE WCOOP LEAGUE 2024 DRAFT

The WCOOP League draft took place during the EPT Barcelona festival. Following on from the success of the inaugural SCOOP League in May, team captains Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg, Fintan “easywithaces” Hand, Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot, and defending champion Lex Veldhuis were all back in the hot seat for another go.

Things are a little different this time around, though. For starters, we have two brand new team captains joining the fold: Andre Akkari and Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber, both hoping to put their stamp on the league format (and both did, drafting interesting teams).

The #WCOOPLeague is here.

Watch @LexVeldhuis @spraggy @tonkaaaap @EasyWithAces and the two new mystery captains draft their teams. 👇

Who do you think is going to win?#WCOOP pic.twitter.com/UVMDT8YpdF

— PokerStars Twitch (@PSTwitch) September 6, 2024

Each captain only got five team picks this year, compared with last year’s 10. Those picks had to include a PokerStars Team Pro (everyone picked themselves except for Akkari), three ‘regular’ players, and one of the six WCOOP Bootcamp Leaderboard winners.

Veldhuis won the first pick in a hand of Crazy Pineapple. It was a snake-style draft. Here’s how the WCOOP League 2024 draft went down, in pick order:

WCOOP LEAGUE 2024 PICKS

TEAM VELDHUIS

• Lex Veldhuis
• Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov (11 WCOOP titles)
• Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser (15 WCOOP titles)
• Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky (2 WCOOP titles)
• “Farrokh674”

WCOOP titles total: 28

The bookies are saying that defending league champ Lex Veldhuis has the best team. He agrees. “I think they all know I have the best team,” he says. “They’re very hesitant to side bet against me.”

With the first overall pick outside of Team Pros, Veldhuis selected Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov, the SCOOP 2024 Player of the Series. He’s already added four COOP titles to his tally in 2024 and is always a threat in every game. “I was really happy with Strebkov on my team last time,” says Veldhuis. “He’s also a really easy guy to root for. He was on my 2-7 table in a COOP event a couple of years ago and he came into my chat and explained some concepts. Stuff like that means a lot to me.”

Veldhuis also boasts the player with more COOP titles than any other, Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser. “He’s legacy grinding,” says Veldhuis. “That guarantees volume and there are always going to be points.”

Rounding his pro picks is Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky, who Veldhuis considers one of the most dangerous players in hold’em right now. “The guy is a beast, terrifying to play against,” he says.

“Everybody has a good team,” he adds. “it’s going to be closer this year for sure.”

TEAM TONKAAAA

• Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot (4 WCOOP titles)
• Niklas “Lena900” Astedt (7 WCOOP titles)
• Jerry “Perrymejsen” Odeen (6 WCOOP titles)
• “ShipitFTW911” (2 WCOOP titles)
• “Zidix”

WCOOP titles total: 19

Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot has seen the betting odds and he couldn’t disagree more. “I definitely have at least the second-best team,” he tells us. “Lex’s team is good and I think that’s all I’ve got to worry about. I think we have the top two teams.”

All three of Talbot’s picks are Swedish, super successful, and skilled in all poker variants. Niklas “Lena900” Astedt is arguably the greatest online tournament player ever, and Talbot, too, would likely have been picked by another captain had he not chosen himself as his Team Pro pick. He’ll be playing every day and streaming Day 2s and big events.

“I also think I got the best hold’em player out of the Boot Camp qualifiers,” he adds. “My team’s very solid and I’m feeling very confident. I’ve got some bets against the boys and I’m going to crush them.”

TEAM PEACE&LOOVE

• Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber (1 WCOOP title)
• “FAL1st” (3 WCOOP titles)
• Thiago “tgrigoletti” Grigoletti
• Lasse “Wistern” Jagd Lauritsen
• “King153246”

WCOOP titles total: 4

Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber came into the WCOOP League 2024 draft with a plan and he stuck to it. His first two picks went to two of the best leaderboard players – “Fal1st” and “tgrigoletti”. “They’re guaranteed points,” he says. “I really wanted to get Fal1st. He’s just insane. And Grigoletti performed really well during SCOOP.”

His next pick went to fellow Team Pro and streamer Lasse “Wistern” Jagd Lauritsen. “We want to show that we can do it together and compete with the big guns,” says Huber. “It’s going to be amazing. He’ll be playing more this year so I think it could get interesting.”

Naturally, the others had a few things to say about the friendly pick. “Wistern… it’s an erratic pick at best,” said Spraggy, forgetting that Lauritsen has a SCOOP title under his belt.

As a WCOOP champ himself, Huber is nonplussed. “If everyone performs as they should, I’m very confident with my team.”

TEAM AAKKARI

• Laurie “LaliTournier” Tournier (2 WCOOP titles)
• Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski (8 WCOOP titles)
• Felipe “lipe piv” Boianovski (1 WCOOP title)
• Pedro “PadiLhA SP” Padilha (3 WCOOP titles)
• “FollowTheBreath”

WCOOP titles total: 14

All of Andre Akkari’s non-Boot Camp picks went to Brazilian players – hardly surprising considering he inspired all of them to play in the first place. 

Unable to play a full schedule, Akkari picked the talented Laurie “LaliTournier” Tournier as his Team Pro, followed by three of the best players in a country full of talent. With Yuri “theNERDguy” Dzivielevski, he has a beast in every game. With Felipe “lipe piv” Boianovsky he has a former SCOOP Main Event champion. And with Pedro “PadiLhA SP” Padilha he has one of the top high-stakes regs playing today.

Fintan Hand says he had promised Akkari pre-draft that he wouldn’t pick any Brazilians, then picked Renan “Internett930” Bruschi immediately. “I don’t know if [Akkari] is still my friend,” he says.

TEAM FINTAN

• Fintan “easywithaces” Hand
• Patrick “Pads1161” Leonard (9 WCOOP titles)
• Renan “Internett930” Bruschi (4 WCOOP titles)
• Adrian “Amadi17” Mateos (4 WCOOP titles)
• “So00oSick”

WCOOP titles total: 17

The SCOOP League turned into a disaster for Fintan Hand. One of his picks couldn’t play due to newly introduced laws in Norway, another didn’t end up playing any events, and with his other picks, he tried to stay loyal to Irish players. “I was a laughing stock, apparently,” Hand says. “I tried to have a bit of fun and everyone else took it too seriously.”

“He couldn’t have done much worse,” says Spraggy on Hand’s SCOOP League team.

But Hand has a very strong team this time around. “I tried a little bit harder, got two players who are very likely to win the overall leaderboard [Patrick “Pads1161” Leonarda and Renan “Internett930” Bruschi], and I have who I believe is the best player in the world in Amadi [Adrian Mateos].”

TEAM SPRAGGY

• Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg (2 WCOOP titles)
• Kelvin “kelvin_fp:ar” Kerber (2 WCOOP titles)
• Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson (3 WCOOP titles)
• Daniel “SmilleThHero” Smiljkovic (1 WCOOP title)
• “Revenge4Dodo”

WCOOP titles total: 8

What does Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg make of his WCOOP League 2024 team? “Honestly? I like it,” he tells us. “But I’m aware that as we’re smaller teams, the team captains make a big difference. Do I trust myself? I don’t know.”

Spraggy has studied the teams and as much as he hates to admit it, he thinks Veldhuis got the best of it overall. “I like Lex’s chances because he’s going to fire all the high-stakes stuff and he’s historically outscored the other Team Pros,” he says. 

As for Team Tonkaaaa, Spraggy’s glad he managed to prevent Talbot from getting a Niklas Astedt (“Lena900”) and Simon Mattsson (“C. Darwin2”) pairing. 

“Back to the team captains, Parker having himself on his team? Huge detriment,” says Spraggy. “I don’t know what his plans are. A notoriously lazy individual.” (For the record, Talbot leads the captains with four WCOOP titles.)

In Spraggy’s opinion, it’s anyone’s game. “It will just come down to who can perform best when the lights shine brightest.”

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