Georgina ‘GJ Reggie’ James is a former PokerStars Team Pro from the UK with a passion for mixed-games. This month, Georgina shares her experiences chasing points and prizes in the WCOOP Bootcamp online series leaderboard…
Whenever there’s a big online tournament series, such as next month’s World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) at PokerStars, there are those of us who check the schedule for their favorite games, those who plan out which days to grind, some who look to see where they might take a shot at higher stakes, and others who brace themselves for a ‘leaderboard grind’.
Series leaderboards often offer rewards of cash or tickets, as well as the metagame of competing across a larger chunk of tournaments for pride, for the love of the game, and the thrill of competition.
I am hardly what you’d call a high stakes player, and in this situation I usually focus my schedule around the mixed games and the low and medium buy-ins, not putting in a great amount of volume but just playing the games I enjoy.
However, I had just come home from a long spell away from the online felt and really felt the itch to play some cards. PokerStars’ WCOOP Bootcamp had come around at just the right time: I decided to make that series my grind, and if I were to somehow start troubling the leaderboard, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
The $10K ticket at the end of the rainbow
The WCOOP Bootcamp leaderboard offered $109 Bronze Passes (top 100) $2.5K Silver Passes (top 8) and $10K Gold Passes (top 4).
The contest only took into account events with buy-ins of $215 or under, which made it reasonably approachable, and had a schedule that somewhat mimicked WCOOP with the aim to prepare players for the big series ahead. This meant it included a good amount of the mixed games I most enjoy.
I had absolutely no expectation to actually play for these top prizes; I have never been even remotely close to the top of any series leaderboard and quite frankly I didn't accept myself as good enough to play for top 8.
So I made my plans and aimed to play the tournaments I felt most comfortable with, capping myself at $109s or less, mostly playing all the mixed buy-ins and the NLHEs at $22 and under.
Climbing the ladder
I had a good first few days, and when I somehow found myself in the top 100 of the leaderboard, I decided to do my best to stay there. If nothing else, I liked the idea of having a goal to aim for.
I didn’t change my schedule in terms of what I played, just tried to play as best I could and kept an eye on every points ladder if I made the money. In that first week I managed to score points every single day, averaging about 15 points a day: good enough to keep climbing up the leaderboard ladder, slowly and steadily.
I stayed consistent, and with just a few days of the series remaining I had likely secured a spot in the top 100.
Starting to believe
I am very lucky that throughout my poker playing life I've always had an amazing community and friends supporting me the whole way.
Despite my lack of streaming these days, I still have a very active Discord community with a few people who play regularly and were also in the hunt for leaderboard points. That’s how I became aware I was closing in on a top 8 spot — a friend pointed out that I could have a decent chance. I didn’t let it cloud my judgment too much, but part of me did begin to believe.
I continued on with cashes here and there, and kept climbing the ranks as the week went on. I made it to top 20... then top 15... and then all of a sudden it started to look almost possible to make the top 8.
I knew top 4 was simply impossible — the difference in points between 4th and 5th was too significant, and even 5th and 6th had substantially more than the rest of the field — however, 7th and 8th spot felt within reach.
But did I really want to go out of my way to fight for it?
I had been enjoying playing poker, was doing okay, getting some small runs and was really just having fun sweating the points without putting too much pressure on myself to aim for the top. I know it might seem silly to not fight for a potential $2.5K prize, but I really didn’t want to ruin my enjoyment of just getting online and playing the games I wanted to.
I didn’t want to force myself to play any higher, or jump into something I wasn’t that comfortable with, so in the end it came down to sticking to my plan, trying to do my best and doing as well as I could.
Then, with one day left, I had my best day yet with a run in the Main Event and two other decent cashes.
At the start of the final day I was sat in 12th with 285 points. 7th place was 25 ahead with 310 points, but I had 10 points waiting for me upon completion of the Main, with three tournaments I planned to play. 8th was within reach; I would try but I wasn’t going to register any of the other eligible tournaments out of my comfort zone to get there.
I fired 3 bullets in the $22 NLHE, cashed the NLO8 for 5 points and then eventually bust the NLHE for 10 points. That put me on equal footing with the current 7th place, but that was assuming no one else got points or jumped ahead, which seemed an unlikely possibility.
Always read the small print
I posted in my Discord community that my chase was over and that I was out of the running. Then I noticed something in the leaderboard fine print…
‘Players in Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Germany and Belgium are ineligible for leaderboard prizes due to regional regulations’.
Maybe I had a chance after all? I shared my news and the Discord erupted into a frenzy.
There were three players ahead of me that were from ineligible countries, including the player currently in 7th. One member of my Discord did some research on the eligible contenders in the field that had the highest chances of leapfrogging me in points. 5th and 6th were a lock, so there were two spots left for Silver Passes.
We confirmed quite quickly that one player had earned a lot of points on this last day and that they would undoubtedly jump me in points. But the rest? They either didn’t cash anything or didn’t play.
It was looking increasingly likely that I could sneak into 8th place.
The final ‘antisweat’
Then we found one player. running deep in the $55 Bounty Builder, who we concluded was the biggest threat to my 8th place standing. This player needed 7th or better to earn more points than me and push me out of a Silver Pass.
And so, as you do, we began to collectively ‘antisweat’ this total stranger.
The tourney progressed, player numbers dwindled, they eventually ended up short stacked, and finally bust out in 12th.
It was over. I scarcely believed it myself. With the series over and all events completed, I was sat firmly in 8th place on the leaderboard: $2.5K Silver Pass secured.
This is the best I’ve ever done on a leaderboard. I needed a little bit of luck to get there, but I had so much fun following it all with the community, this was just the icing on the cake.
Running the numbers, I played 50 of the 110 events eligible for leaderboard points, cashed 19 and lost $50 in the process. I couldn’t be happier. Now I just have to decide how to spend my pass!
You can follow GJ Reggie on Instagram and X, watch her streams on Twitch and more video content on her YouTube channel.
