MPN Launches Universal Championship of Poker (UCOP)

The online poker industry has grown considerably over the last decade and thousands of online poker players from around the world now look at online poker as a full time career. The majority of these online poker players prefer not to attend live poker tournaments and are happy to play online poker from the comfort of their own home.

Poker players who attend live poker tournaments tend to get a lot more recognition as they are in the spotlight and physically get to interact with the poker community. Whereas online poker players are usually known by their ‘online handle’ and very rarely is their identity revealed.

As a result, there are many anonymous online poker players who have done rather well and won millions online but have not really received the recognition they deserve.

The Microgaming Poker Network (MPN) wants to change this aspect of the online poker game and bring more attention to these high profile online poker players. MPN recently announced launched a new tournament series with the objective of finding the greater poker player in the universe. MPN launched the Universal Championship of Poker (UCOP) on the 6th of September and the series will comprise of a total of 12 exciting events. There will be a guaranteed total of €200,000 in prize money and will end with the main-event that has a €250 buy-in and starts on the 13th of September.

In a statement, Alex Scott, Microgaming Head of Poker said

The Universal Championship of Poker is our take on the poker tournament series, with a wide variety of fun events with juicy prize pools. Not only that, but in typically ambitious MPN style, we’re giving players the chance to become the ‘Greatest Poker Player in the Universe.’ Who wouldn’t want to have that trophy on their mantelpiece?

Online poker websites are always looking to come up with innovative strategies and promotions to attract more online traffic and build their brand. This new tournament series by MPN appears to be one such promotion as the guaranteed prize money on offer is a lot lower than the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) which also started on the 6th of September and is scheduled to be completed by the 27th of September.

The WCOOP which is being run by PokerStars will definitely a higher number of online poker players as the guaranteed prize money is around $45 million and as a result could overshadow MPN’s Universal Championship of Poker.