FullTilt’s FTOPS vs PokerStars WCOOP

Full Tilt poker and PokerStars.com battle one another for online tournament players, and arguably these two sites put together the two most popular online poker tournament series during the year, the FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) and the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker). Let’s take a look at these two tournament series compared to one another.

The Full Tilt Poker FTOPS IX

Here are the lean mean details on the Full Tilt Poker FTOPS IX Series

• Starts August 6th
• 24 Events Total
• $15 Million in Prize Pools Guaranteed
• Largest Buy-ins = $2500
• Smallest Buy-In = $120+9 “Knock Out tourney at the end of the series, most events are $200
• Satellites start at $50+5 to events currently, more expected soon.
• Blind Times range from 10 minutes to 30 minute rounds.

Poker Stars WCOOP

Here are the lean mean details on the Poker Stars WCOOP, aka the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker.

• Starts September 5th
• 33 events total
• $30 Million in prize pools guaranteed
• Largest buy in = $25,000, this is a special high roller Heads up Poker tournament with 1.6 mill guaranteed!  Sick!
• Also a $10,300 NL hold em main event for the non heads up tourney.
• Smallest buy in = $215
• Satellites start at $2.20
• Satellites also from FPP’s.
• Steps satellite system, win a seat through a series of steps sattelites.
• Winners win a WCOOP Bracelet
• 30 minute blinds across the series

PokerStars WCOOP or FullTilt’s FTOPS?

The choice is really up to you, the debate rages constantly about which is the better place to play online poker, PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker, but in this comparison of the FTOPS vs WCOOP I’m going for PokerStars and the WCOOP. That is even with the recent criticism by online poker players about the new tournament payout structure that PokerStars implemented where they award more money to a larger portion of the field and not as top heavy as a typical poker tournament. Argue that as you may, the fact that I was quickly and easily able to find a ton of cheap PokerStars satellites into the WCOOP and the Full Tilt Poker satellites were $50 bucks, a fourth of the initial buy-in itself which doesn’t seem that great of a satellite to me. It is possible that they just do not yet have any satellites listed in the Full Tilt Poker lobby for the FTOPS series yet, but they should have.

This Comparison Winner goes to: PokerStars.com