GGPOKER’S CLUBGG AND WORLD COLLEGE POKER PARTNER UP TO HOST ONLINE EVENTS
Student-centered online poker competition platform WCP, switches main partners, leaving PokerStars for GGPoker’s subscription site ClubGG.
GGPoker’s subscription-based platform ClubGG has partnered with World College Poker (WCP) — a platform that hosts online poker competitions for college students, PRO can exclusively reveal.
As a part of this deal, ClubGG will be hosting the World College Poker Championship Main Event for students aged 18 and older in 2022 and replacing its previous sponsor PokerStars.net.
The college club registrations will open on February 1 and the competition is free to enter. However, to take part in the WCP tournaments, players must have a membership, which costs $2.99 per month.
“We are ecstatic about our partnership with ClubGG Poker,” WCOP Co-founder Craig Tapscott told PRO. “We’ve worked hard to create a platform for college and vocational students worldwide to learn and play poker in free events for all our members.”
“Our long-term deal with ClubGG will allow World College Poker to expand to new countries around the world, as well as every state in the US. This will allow us to offer more amazing prizes to the winners of our events as well as create a college club team championship with monthly events beginning in March,” Tapscott added.
The sudden changes come just seven months after WCP partnered up with PokerStars.net to bring its competition to a worldwide stage.
The WCP project came to life in 2020 and initially focused on growing the game of poker among students in the United States and Canada. It formed a partnership with the popular social poker app PokerBROS in 2020. A year later, it inked a deal with the world’s leading online poker site PokerStars , expanded to the global arena, and hosted the World College Poker Championship Main Event.
The competition consisted of three different stages and ultimately attracted a field of 1,430 college students for the first edition. According to a report from sponsoring site Card Player, South Korea’s Jeon 'JJackD’ Changhyun prevailed and notched up several prizes including a European Poker Tour (EPT) package worth approximately €8,000, courtesy of then partner and host PokerStars.
Another contest is already around the corner, according to the WCP website, which showcases the 2022 member event schedule. The registration for College Clubs opens on February 1. Only a few weeks later, on March 1, the monthly chase of points for the end-of-year championship battle will get underway.
The WCP hints at three major events throughout the year. First up, the Spring Break is scheduled for March 26, but no details for it have been announced yet. The second edition of the WCP Main Event will get underway on July 23 and then the Fall Brawl Classic will round up the year as of December 3.
Prizes for the 2021 Fall Brawl competition are still listed on the WCP website and include subscriptions to partner sites, poker coaching, a 2022 WCP Annual Membership ($350 value), and several other goodies. In total, the top 16 finishers in the last major competition received various prizes, and the last woman standing earned additional goodies on top. While no prizes for the upcoming events have been made public yet, it can be expected that they will follow the same path going forward.
WCP has a long list of sponsors. Corporate sponsors for the global student competition include Poker Powher, energy drink producer Breinfuel, book publishing portal D&B Poker, streaming platform PokerGO and card producer Faded Spade, among others. ClubGG becomes one of three current platinum-level sponsors, which also includes the training platform Solve for Why and Card Player.
The standalone ClubGG free-to-play platform was quietly introduced in early 2021 and allows players to set up their own poker clubs and compete against friends. Available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, it can be downloaded in most countries, including the US. The app was developed by NSUS Limited, the parent company of rising online poker operator GGPoker.
After a trial period, the subscription-based platform was utilized to qualify players for the 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas. Some of the ClubGG qualifiers turned their entry into five and six-figure paydays. Most notably, Vasu Amarapu parlayed his investment of $50 into an astonishing $470,000 after finishing in 13th place.
The platform expanded its offering at the end of 2021 and gave players the chance to qualify for various US live poker tour stops, including the popular Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT), RunGood Poker Series (RGPS), and Card Player Cruises (CPC). An expansion of the online qualifier schedule to send players to live poker events in Europe and all over the world} is also in the works according to GGPoker.
ClubWPT is the only other platform currently active that uses a similar subscription model and has been running successfully for several years.
As far as student competitions are concerned, other operators including PokerStars , Winamax , and 888poker have held promotions in the past to promote poker to university students. The UK’s Grosvenor casino brand hosted the UK Student Poker Championship (UKSPC) since 2004 while partypoker partnered up with the grassroots Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT) and hosted the 2021 World Championship of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) on its online poker platform.
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