By Frank Op de Woerd
Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane, one of the legends of online poker, just took down the first of five WPT World Online Championships for over half a million. On the Player of the Championships leaderboard, he now sits in second place behind Kristen Bicknell.
The next Sexton Cup event is already looming. This weekend, the WPT World Championship 6-Max by partypoker gets underway with starting days on Saturday and Sunday at 7 pm (BST).
The event comes in three tiers again; $3,200 for the Main, $320 for the Mini, and $33 for the Micro edition. With guarantees of $3 million, $1 million, and $300K respectively, you don’t want to miss these events.
Buying in directly for these events, especially the $3,200 costing Main, is not for everyone. Luckily, there are a plethora of satellites available on partypoker to get in for cheap.
Rake Free Ticket Flips
You can play your heart out for a ticket, or you can flip for it. There’s no better lottery than when there’s no house edge, and such is the case in the Ticket Flip tournaments as they’re rake free.
When eight players join, the event starts with a single chip for all players. With blinds starting at 50 and a 100 and an ante of 10, everyone’s forced all in right away. A hand is dealt out, and the lucky winner wins it all. If there’s a split pot, the next hand is the same all over again. With blind levels taking 3 minutes, it’s unlikely a second level will be played. The one last night took just 15 seconds to complete.
A single winner emerges, taking down the unraked prize pool of eight times the buy-in: a ticket for the event. For the $320 Mini edition of the 6-max Championship, the buy-in for the Ticket Flip is $40.
Re-Buy Feeders, Turbo Re-Buy sats, Phased tournaments, and Mega Sats
If the lottery isn’t really your thing, and you have more faith in your poker skills, a traditional satellite might be more to your liking. Luckily, partypoker has a massive offering of qualifiers for their premier events.
Found under the Satellites category, there are dozens of ways to qualify for the 6-Max Championship each day.
The Re-Buy feeders are small-sized events guaranteeing seats into the Mega sat. You start with a limited number of big blinds and a fast-paced structure to get your blood flowing. It’s pedal to the metal from moment one, but there’s a lifeline if you fall early; the re-buy. And if you survive the re-buy period, an add-on is available, giving you twice the starting stack.
When you win a ticket in the Re-Buy feeder, you’re straight in the Mega Sat. Buying in directly for these is possible as well, it just costs you a bit more. The structure in these Mega Sats is better than your feeder. You start with 10,000 in chips and a first level of 50 and a 100. With 5 minutes levels you can experience a good structure without spending hours to lock your ticket. A re-entry option is available if you run out of chips early. Last night, Steven van Zadelhoff won a ticker for the $3,200 6-Max Championship, along with nine others.
Steven Van Zadelhoff
Like the Re-Buy feeders, the Turbo Re-Buy sats are fast-paced events not for the faint of heart. They come in different buy-in levels, but all are high-octane tournaments with some big prizes guaranteed. Contrary to the Re-Buy feeders, these are direct qualifiers where you get straight into the event you’re gunning for if you’re lucky and skilled enough to qualify. The $5.50 buy-in turbo sat has you playing for the $320 Mini 6-Max Championship with two tickets guaranteed. If you’re looking for a $3,200 ticket for the Main, a $55 buy-in Turbo Sat is what’s you’re looking for. Again, two tickets are guaranteed. There’s $6,400 to play for, even if fewer than 128 players sign up and re-buy.
To close out the different satellites, there are phased events available as well. Played throughout multiple “rounds,” you take your chips with you to the next installment when the predetermined number of levels are played. Just search for the word phase, and you’ll find numerous options available, from as low as $5.50 to $530.
Leaderboards
There’s a lot of money at stake in the WPT World Online Championships. There are lofty guarantees and massive first-place prizes. As you have come to expect from the World Poker Tour, there’s a little bit more for those putting in the effort. A little extra for those battling it out daily: $100,000 in leaderboard prizes awarding the best of the best.
Player of the Championship leaderboard
The Player of the Championship leaderboard has an extra $75,000 on offer, divided over the top ten best players of the series. For every event you cash in, you collect points toward the leaderboard with the eventual winner walking away with $50,000. The runner-up gets $10,000, third gets $5,000, fourth $3,000, fifth, $2,000, and there’s $1,000 for position six through ten.
You can check out the leaderboard here and see where you currently stand. Right now, Kristen Bicknell leads with almost 131 points. She’s going for it, as declared before the series even properly got underway. Gavin Cochrane is right on her heels, with nearly 128 points after winning the first Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup event of the series.
The number of points you collect for a cash depends on the buy-in of the event, the number of entries, and your final position. To calculate the number of points you get, you simply take the root of the number of entries and divide it by the root of your final positions. That times the root of the buy-in divided by 300, tells you the number of points you get. Or, you can just use the calculator on the leaderboard page, of course.
Rising Star leaderboard
The Player of the Championship leaderboard favors those playing big buy-in events. For the players of the smaller stakes events, there’s a special leaderboard with another $25,000 up for grabs. The Rising Star leaderboard has $10,000 set aside for its winner, with $6,000 for second, $3,500 for third, $2,000 for fourth, $1,000 for fifth, and $500 for positions six through ten. The big buy-in events don’t count for this leaderboard; just the events under $300 qualify.
Right now, Boris Angelov leads, having taken that position from Radjendernath Chigharoe. Angelov won Event #03: $33 Micro 8-Max Championship ($300K GTD) which gave him 134 points.
To calculate the number of points you get for a cash, you take the root of entries divided by the root of your final position, times the logarithm of the buy-in divided by 10, plus one. If that’s too much of a hassle, you can also use the calculator on the WPT leaderboard page.
Tonight’s schedule
