"Why we created the $51k WCOOP High Roller"
We talk to Matthew Hilger, one of the people behind this year's WCOOP schedule, about the recently announced $51,000 High Roller event.
The way in which the pros travel and organise their schedule around WCOOP reminds me of a live event like the EPT. Do you think of it in those terms when you create these online festivals?
Matthew Hilger: Absolutely. Part of this job is looking at the schedules that all the professional poker players want to play and this is a big part of the year. Whether they are a live player or online, everyone wants to play in WCOOP and SCOOP. Obviously we have a lot of players in the States who have to make travel plans and I know some people who travel just to get to a time zone that’s better suited to the tournaments.
In many ways SCOOP is the warm-up to the WSOP and WCOOP is the online version of the WSOP. Does the WSOP schedule influence the WCOOP schedule at all?
Matthew Hilger: It’s hard for us to know what’s been successful for the WSOP in our planning as we’ve planned most of WCOOP while the WSOP was still running. Everything that goes on in the poker world influences WCOOP. It is the most prestigious online poker series in the world every year, so we look at trends to keep WCOOP current. This year with the 51k event the influence of the Super High Rollers over the last couple of years brought this to fruition, we saw there was actual demand for this event.
WCOOP is always a varied schedule with every format catered for. How do you balance variety and giving the masses what they want (ie. No Limit)?
Matthew Hilger: SCOOP has been so popular just by the nature of the three buy-in levels, it’s our biggest event of the year in terms of participants and prize pool. SCOOP is the biggest but WCOOP is the most prestigious, so there are differences there. Looking at the WCOOP schedule we try to ensure that we maintain the prestige of the series, which sometimes means choosing events that are not the most popular events for the masses. Turbo events and KO events are a big part of the normal tournament schedule but are not a primary focus in WCOOP. We still include events like those, but WCOOP is focused more on champions and prestige.
"This is new territory"
The Super High Roller scene is thriving, but the $1 million guarantee for the $51,000 High Roller event seems conservative. Is it nearly impossible to predict how big the field for this event will be?
Matthew Hilger: We still don’t know what kind of demand to expect. We’ve reached out to a lot of players on our site who might be interested and the feedback was very positive. This is really going into completely new territory. We have run some 25k heads-up events in the past but a 51k tournament is unchartered waters for us. I’m not sure where we’ll end up and if you ask everyone in the office you’ll get a lot of different predictions.
People usually play lower stakes online than they do live. This event almost seems like a live event, do you think the players will throw all usual bankroll management rules out of the window for it?
Matthew Hilger: It’s a once in a lifetime event. People may say today they won’t participate but when it gets close they might not want to miss it. We debated going higher than 51k, but lets see how that goes first and see what happens in the future. It’s worth noting that we are planning a 25,000 FPP VIP Club Bash with first place earning a seat into the main event, with of course plenty of FPP satellites. So if bankroll is an issue, there is a vehicle for getting into the event.
"This event will be huge on Twitch"
The Super High Rollers have been popular for a while, why did you choose to do this now instead of a few years ago?
Matthew Hilger: Participation won’t be super high but what makes this worth doing is the event itself. Some of the technologies available today help facilitate an event like this. With the advent of Twitch, watching online events is so much better now than it was even just a year or two ago. Hopefully everyone in the poker community will be able to participate in this event whether they are railing the table, watching a stream, or participating.
Twitch really has given online events like WCOOP potential as a spectator sport.
Matthew Hilger: If you look at the schedule we have three three-day events, which will allow us to have a pretty fixed time on the final table, which will allow people to plan their day if they want to watch it. In the past the WCOOP Main Event could be running at six in the morning and nobody is up to watch that, so part of the changes in the schedule was giving players better viewing times.
Speaking of which, the new regular two-day Weekender tournament looks interesting. Did you create that to make online MTT grinders' schedules easier?
Matthew Hilger: It’s an exciting addition to the main schedule. We really want to make Saturdays a bit more prominent in the online poker players’ calendar and this is one step in that direction. It’s hard to make a tournament that suits everyone, I know when I used to play I didn’t want to play for hours and hours. Now we have the technology for these types of tournaments we want to use it. Event one of WCOOP is a phased tournament. The better we can fit around people’s schedules the better it is for everybody.
Thanks Matthew, good luck with WCOOP.
How many players will the $51,000 event get? Do you plan to rail it? Let us know in the comments.
