The Main Event of the Ladbrokes European Online Championship of Poker IV (or LEOCOP IV as it’s commonly referred to) begins today, serving as the culmination of one of the most successful tournament series ever held on the online poker room. Similar to the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and Full Tilt Poker Online Poker Series (FTOPS), the LEOCOP attracts some of the top poker pros from around the world to the virtual felts of the site for a multi-week tournament series.
The Main Event of the LEOCOP is a $250,000 added tournament. Instead of a guaranteed prize pool like the ones you’d find in other tournament series, Ladbrokes adds money to its events. The starting stack for each player will be 10,000 chips and blinds begin at 10-20. The blind levels will run 30 minutes each and every person has a 120 second time bank to use if needed. It’s one of the richest tournaments ever to be held on Ladbrokes and boasts a healthy $1,100 buy-in. All eyes of the online poker world will be focused squarely on Sunday’s Main Event, which will occur at nearly the same time as the major tournaments on online poker rooms like Bodog, Ultimate Bet, and PokerStars.
The $550 buy-in short-handed championship took place on Friday and had $15,000 added to its prize pool. A beneficiary of the added money was ThomasToget, who took down the tournament and pocketed $32,700 for his efforts. Finishing in second place was empty-house, who cashed for $21,800. Other top finishers in the short-handed championship were FlushyP4C (third place for $13,080), slim_boy (fourth place for $7,848), BustOrRobust (fifth place for $5,450), BallybayKid9 (sixth place for $3,270), Moerchovich (seventh place for $1,853), Obbe (eighth place for $1,853), Terminator (ninth place for $1,853), and 3oo3er (tenth place for $1,853). There were 180 entrants and the top 24 finished in the money.
As is the case in other tournament series, a wide variety of poker games are held. One of the most exciting tournaments held so far as part of LEOCOP IV was the $10,000 added Pot Limit Hold’em championship, which attracted 150 players. Emerging victorious from the pack was GamblingPays, who pocketed $19,470. The runner up was Ladbrokes player Jysky123, who took home $12,655 for his efforts. Other players who finished near the top of the leader board included jack0 (third place for $7,788), Icepack (fourth place for $5,192), Jampe78 (fifth place for $4,218), RED-DOG (sixth place for $3,245), rugster (seventh place for $2,271), Reraise (eighth place for $1,622), hotrod7 (ninth place for $1,135), and Decision (tenth place for $811).
The LEOCOP has been running since October 26th. On November 22nd, the site will play host to the LEOCOP IV Masters event, an invitation-only tournament with $120,000 in the prize pool. The winner will also pocket a Poker Million VII Semi-Final Seat, which is worth $120,000 according to the poker room’s website. The Poker Million guarantees a $1 million first place prize and has $500,000 added to the prize pool. The Poker Million VII is currently airing on the Sky Sports television network and runs on Tuesday nights. The upcoming November 11th episode features Thomas Tyszkiewicz, Roy Brindley, Mike McDonald, Juha Helppi, Ian Frazer, and Tony Bloom.
Ladbrokes also allows its players to have an opportunity win their way into the Irish Festival, World Series of Poker, and the European Ladies Championship.