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Asian Countries and World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP)

The World Championship of Online Poker is the most famous poker tournament series online. Each year, thousands of players compete for massive prizepools and a chance to win a WCOOP Bracelet. The 2015 edition of the Series will start in 6 days (Schedule). We have been digging into PokerStars database to find out about the previous results of Asian nations in the Series.  

Entrants: China 3600, Thailand 3300, Japan 2000

Let's take a look at performance figures compared to entrant numbers for the most successful Asian nations. The number of individual entries into WCOOP events from the Asian continent are difficult to gauge for many countries because they don't appear on the top 50 list, but that doesn't mean we don't have interesting info available. China has the most entrants of any Asian country, occupying 35th place on the list with over 3,600. Thailand is in 38th with over 3,300 and Japan is 45th with over 2,000.

Cashes: Thailand 458, China 456, Japan 275

When we compare this to cashes, Japan holds steady at 45th place with 275, Thailand moves up a place to 37th with 458 cashes, while interestingly, China falls back a few spots, just behind Thailand. They are currently 38th with 456 cashes. In a further interesting twist, South Korea and India who do not even feature in the top 50 countries for WCOOP entrants, appear on the leaderboard for cashes, in 49th and 48th places respectively, with 184 and 195 cashes.

Final Tables: Thailand 15, Philippines 13,  Japan & China 8

When we narrow our search to look at final tables made, it's important to remember that with smaller numbers involved, variance may hold a stronger sway over the figures, but there are still some remarkable numbers which are noteworthy. In the category of final tables, South Korea is in 45th spot with 7 and is just behind Japan and China, who each have 8. Interestingly, Thailand is well ahead of these other Asian nations with 15 final tables, and the Philippines (who don't even appear on the top 50 list of entrants or cashes) come straight in at 39th place with 13 final tables.

dennis_waterman_wcoop_bracelet

A cool thing to wear:  a WCOOP bracelet (Photo PokerStars Blog)

Events Won: Taiwan 3, China 1, Japan 1

When it comes to winners, a surprise Asian nation has the most WCOOP winners – Taiwan. They have had 3 WCOOP winners despite not appearing on the top 50 list for cashes or even final tables. China and japan have one title 

Overall, the results would suggest that over a larger sample size of figures such as cashes made, China falls behind where you would expect it's average to be based on entrants. Perhaps the strict nature of the Chinese government when it comes to poker is preventing players from reaching their full potential. Thailand is doing very well considering their number of entrants, performing highly with cashes and topping the Asian countries on final tables made. This can be easily explained by the number of Online Grinders living in the country.

It will be interesting to see how these numbers shape up once WCOOP 2015 which is just around the corner, reaches it's conclusion.

 


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Louis Hartwell

Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.

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