Daniel Kelly walked into the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure as one of the hottest kids on the circuit. The 2009 double WCOOP bracelet winner was the hottest new thing in poker. The young man once known only as djk123 was now a celebrity in his own right.

"More people I didn't know before knew me," Kelly said. ""It's kind of cool."

After winning the WCOOP Razz event, Kelly went on to win the $10K HORSE event and final table the $5K WCOOP main event.

"I was running pretty well the whole series," he said during an interview at the PCA as tournament guru Bryan Slick handed over the two WCOOP bracelets.

Kelly may have been the king of the understatement. Not only did he win two bracelets and final table the biggest WCOOP main event in history, he also amassed enough WCOOP points to win Player of the Series. As if that wasn't enough, Kelly went on to get a live tourney sponsorship and win a WSOP bracelet in 2010.

Kelly may have come out on top in 2009, but the Player of the Series leaderboard was full of big names, including Team PokerStars Pros ElkY and George Danzer.

2009 WCOOP Player of the Series
1. djk123 (United States)
2. ElkY (United Kingdom)
3. g0lfa (United States)
4 - 6. Believer82 (United States)
4 - 6. GeorgeDanzer (Germany)
4 - 6. MUSTAFABET (United Kingdom)
7. iacog4 (United States)
8. 2FLY2TILT (Spain)
9. drkamikaze1 (United States)
10. plattsburgh (United States)

Now we're just a few days away from the beginning of the 2010 World Championship of Online Poker, and it's anybody's guess who will be fighting for the top spot again. Eighth place finisher 2FLY2TILT started a Supernova Elite campaign in April and has some catching up to do, but just can't stay away from WCOOP.

"I have no sure plans for the WCOOP yet but will be making the VPP points during September so no doubt will find some interesting events along the way," he said.

One of the three people who tied for fourth place in 2009, MUSTAFABET, has made his plans, and they begin with making a run for it as long as he can.

"If I start very well i might make another attempt to win Player of the Series," he said.

Meanwhile, Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem (who has played in WCOOP since it began nine years ago) is looking to make a splash of his own.

"Coming into the 2010 WCOOP still has the same excitement and anticipation for me," Hachem said, "except now the WCOOP has become an such an established and well-reputed series on the poker tournament calender that no serious player or amateur alike can afford to miss it."

It will be another month before we know who will take top billing in 2010. In the meantime, PokerStars will be awarding millions of dollars over dozens of events. It all kicks off Sunday, so start stocking up on Five-Hour Energy shots, because we're about to get this thing underway.

See you Sunday!

by Darus Suharto
It is every poker player's dream to play in the World Series of Poker event and win a WSOP bracelet. The WCOOP, while an online event, carries a number of similarities to the WSOP. PokerStars WCOOP offers a variety of mixed games with millions of dollars prizes guaranteed and bracelets as well. It not only attracts recreational and professional online grinders, but also caters for live professional poker players.

This year WCOOP will span over three weeks with some fierce poker tournaments between September 5th to 26th and some 62 events with over $50 million in prize money. Without a doubt, this is the biggest online poker event you can get!

With a large selection of events and big money at stake, a careful plan in approaching the WCOOP might go a long way for your bankroll. To play every 2010 WCOOP event would easily require an investment of over $75,000. Therefore, game selection and bankroll management are important while other factors are also critical. Plan to play events that you can expect to have a positive EV and stick with tournaments that fit within your bankroll in case things go sour.

On game day, have someone at home who can help you stay focused and of course be available to serve you with food and drink. Clear your schedule on the game day and be physically prepared to play for long hours, since some of the events can easily take over 20 hours of play. And lastly, get plenty of sleep in advance of the tournament so that you can be fresh and alert.

While I have had some deep runs in a number of WCOOP events in previous years, I have not yet had the privilege of winning one. The competition at many of WCOOP events is probably as tough as, if not tougher than those of the WSOP. Winning a $215 WCOOP event might be just as hard as winning a $1k WSOP event. Sooner or later winning a WCOOP bracelet will be in every poker player's dream just as much as securing a WSOP bracelet.

See you at the cyber felt at Pokerstars.com and good luck in chasing the WCOOP dream!

by Marcello Del Grosso
After a long, hot summer at the WSOP, it is nice to come home and take it easy with my wife in the City of Angels. With the WCOOP around the corner, preparations are under way, and I am looking forward to a great tournament series.

For the past few weeks, my focus has been on getting ready for the games. The PokerStars WCOOP is a great series of tournaments to play in because it offers every different discipline. You'll have the ability to play all variations of poker during the three weeks. If no limit is not your game, don't stress, stud might be.

Over the past couple of days, I have been playing more mixed games to sharpen my skills and enhance my play. I will be playing in a bunch of events in the WCOOP. My strategy is to get as many mixed games under my belt before September 5th. PokerStars.com spreads an eight game mix and is a great place to go to get in some practice.

In addition to playing online I am updating my poker station to include two monitors and a new chair. Having a functional and comfortable station is really important for the WCOOP
because some of the tournaments will have extended blind structures and larger fields which could have you playing for up to 24 hours straight!

If you plan on winning, like I do, start banking some sleep hours, and try to prepare some healthy meals ahead of time. I use a meal delivery service in Los Angeles called NUTRIFIT to keep me playing strong. They offer a variety of pre-made healthy meals that are delivered right to your front door. While playing tournaments, you will want to avoid things like: caffeine, alcohol and refined sugars that will cause you to crash and burn.

Even if you are not able to find a meal service plan, it's always a great idea to have some healthy foods on hand. Snacking is a great way to keep your energy level up. Another important thing to do is to include protein in all of your meals because it takes more time to digest and will keep you feeling full longer. Some of my favorites snack options are nuts and fruits, celery and peanut butter, hummus and veggies, and oatmeal with shaved
almonds and bananas.

Keep your brain sharp by staying hydrated and take full advantage of the five-minute breaks unless you have a laptop!

One last (but definitely not least) tip for all you players out there is to have patience, and enjoy the extended structure and increased game play.

Check out the official WCOOP site to plan your assault on the series. See you online!

by Jason Mercier
I just recently glanced over the PokerStars WCOOP schedule and it got me pretty excited. With just a few weeks before WCOOP starts, I will need to figure out which events I will be playing. I will be trying to balance playing WCOOPs along with playing live, while possibly being in Europe for the entire duration of WCOOP. This will make it more difficult with the time difference, but I'm up for the challenge.

I plan on playing all the biggest buy-in WCOOPs, possible, even trying my hand at the $25k heads-up for the first time. I'm very excited for the last few days of events when there is a $2k PLO 6 max, $2k horse, $10k 8 game and the $5k Championship event!

Not only have I never won a WCOOP event, I have never even final tabled one. I think that this is going to be my year. I'm feeling and hoping for a strong showing in this year's WCOOP.

The structures are so great and the variety of tournaments is so amazing, it's such an awesome experience just playing in the WCOOP on Pokerstars.

But this year... I WANT TO WIN!

Visit the official WCOOP site to see how you can take part.

by Jude Ainsworth
With Vegas fading to a distant memory, it's nice to look forward to one of the world's biggest poker festivals without having to worry about hotels or flights.

Last year's PokerStars WCOOP consisted of 45 tournaments which ran over 18 days and
paid out over $51 million. When I think of last year's series three names come to mind: Jovial Gent (Yevgeniy Timoshenko), ElkY (Bertrand Grospellier) and djk123 (Daniel Kelly). Jovial took down the main event and the $1.7m that came with it. ElkY won two bracelets in quick succession and djk123 made 11 cashes, three final tables and won two bracelets, earning him just under $1m.

This year's WCOOP has 62 events to choose from, so there is something for everyone. With such good structures and most events having large numbers of satellite qualifiers, how could one resist? I was just looking through the schedule and there are 29 tourneys which I hope to play, I probably won't get to play all of them but anything above 20 would be fine. As always they will be NLHE. I do plan to learn some of the other games but for the moment I'm sticking with NLHE.

I haven't had any success in previous WCOOP's but plan to make amends this year. I wonder who's names will come to mind after this series?

Check the WCOOP site to see how you can qualify for any of the events.

by Jude Ainsworth
With Vegas fading to a distant memory, it's nice to look forward to one of the world's biggest poker festivals without having to worry about hotels or flights.

Last year's PokerStars WCOOP consisted of 45 tournaments which ran over 18 days and
paid out over $51 million. When I think of last year's series three names come to mind: Jovial Gent (Yevgeniy Timoshenko), ElkY (Bertrand Grospellier) and djk123 (Daniel Kelly). Jovial took down the main event and the $1.7m that came with it. ElkY won two bracelets in quick succession and djk123 made 11 cashes, three final tables and won two bracelets, earning him just under $1m.

This year's WCOOP has 62 events to choose from, so there is something for everyone. With such good structures and most events having large numbers of satellite qualifiers, how could one resist? I was just looking through the schedule and there are 29 tourneys which I hope to play, I probably won't get to play all of them but anything above 20 would be fine. As always they will be NLHE. I do plan to learn some of the other games but for the moment I'm sticking with NLHE.

I haven't had any success in previous WCOOP's but plan to make amends this year. I wonder who's names will come to mind after this series?

Check the WCOOP site to see how you can qualify for any of the events.

by Julian Thew
It doesn't seem that long ago that the SCOOP festival finally wrapped up and now, out there on the horizon, the PokerStars WCOOP is looming large. I think I played about fifteen SCOOP events and whilst all I had to show for it was a scattering of min cashes I'm sure the experience will serve me well... hopefully during the WCOOP series.

But I'm a patient chap and if I have to wait a little longer, well I can live with that.

I've been grinding the cash tables for the past few months so it will make a nice change to get back into the tournament groove. September 5th isn't that far away and I'll probably
introduce a few evening tournaments to my schedule over the next few weeks to sharpen up in time.

The full WCOOP schedule has been released and I'm really looking forward it; the SCOOP series had buy-ins to suit every pocket and user-friendly start times to suit every location and WCOOP has not disappointed.

That's leaves a few weeks to grind out some entry fees and hopefully a nice boost to the bankroll awaits! You can see how you can qualify over on the WCOOP site.

Good luck during WCOOP!

by Joe Cada
You know that old phrase about how you can look at the glass like it's half empty, or you can look at it like it's half full? Let's just say that 'my glass is half full' way of looking at the 2010 World Series of Poker is: "I'm still batting .500 in Main Event wins."

Not only did I not win the Main Event again, not only did I not cash in the Main Event, but I didn't cash in a single event at the entire 2010 World Series of Poker. I put the "brick" in "brick and mortar casino"!

But I'm going to beat you to the punch when I say: "Boo-freaking-hoo, Cada!" I may have bricked the entire Series, I may have bricked 90% of the tournaments I've played since last year's Main Event - but I am still 100% grateful. In 2009 I was able to accomplish something that millions of people dream of; I'm not about to forget that just because I'm going through a bit of a rough patch.

Besides, the summer wasn't a total waste, as me and a bunch of guys rented a house in Vegas. PokerStars offered to get me a room at the Palms, and while that place is off the chain, I couldn't pass up the chance to share a sick house in Vegas with some of the best poker players in the world, who also happen to be great friends.

Dean Hamrick was one of those friends. He won a bracelet. Congrats, Dean! It didn't change him a bit. Two nights later he fell asleep on the couch watching Mr. Deeds. The house was pretty cool, but without the pool, hot tub, billiard and air hockey tables, the place probably would have been pretty boring. That's why I went out and bought an Xbox for the place.

Sure, I will be dethroned this year as Main Event champion, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone mess with my Master Chief!

Recently I went to the PokerStars Latin America Poker Tour stop in Brazil. I didn't really want to go at first, but the country was beautiful and I was determined to learn a bit of Portugeuse so I could chat with the Brazilians.

Speaking of which - LAPT Brazil marked the first stop of my re-dedication to poker. I took some time off, mentally at least, for the victory lap, but you can expect to see me grinding it pretty hard in the coming months - especially at the upcoming WCOOP.

The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker continues to be the pinnacle in online tournaments. It's basically the World Series of the online world, and I know me and all of my friends are getting all our laptop batteries charged for this one. Hope to see you guys there.

You can visit the official WCOOP site to see how you can qualify for any of the 62 events.

Hanamichi23 is perfect.

Or, better put, he is as perfect as he needs to be to win a $5,200 seat to the WCOOP Main Event.

Hanamichi23 was the first person to correctly answer all 101 exceedingly hard questions in the WCOOP Poker Quiz we told you about last week. That gets the man a seat in the Main Event gratis.

Fear not, though. You can still get a Main Event seat. In fact, now you don't even have to worry about being perfect. You only have to answer 90% or more of the questions correctly to get a seat in a freeroll with nine different WCOOP seats up for grabs.

All the people who get 90% or more of the questions correct will be entered into a WCOOP freeroll on September 18th. It's not a bad little deal. Here are the prizes:

1. WCOOP Main Event seat worth $5,200
2. WCOOP seat worth $2,100
3. WCOOP seat worth $1,050
4. WCOOP seat worth $1,050
5. WCOOP seat worth $1,050
6. WCOOP seat worth $1,050
7. WCOOP seat worth $530
8. WCOOP seat worth $320
9. WCOOP seat worth $215

So, get back to work. The grand prize is gone, but there are still a bunch of prizes to be won. Ready? go here: TAKE THE WCOOP POKER QUIZ.

Oh, and when we introduced this quiz last week, we asked if you knew where this photo was taken. We thought we'd might as well tell you now, it came from LAPT Florianopolis in Brazil. That's Andre Akkari and Christian de Leon (and some lady we don't think has been signed to Team Pro...yet).