The August online poker calendar opens with two festivals on the same day. GGPoker's PLO Series and the PokerStars WCOOP Boot Camp both run from 2 to 17 August.
The WSOP Online 2026 dates are now confirmed. The WSOP Online Bracelet Series returns to GGPoker on 16 August and runs to 29 September, with 33 gold bracelets awarded along the way. It opens eleven days after the delayed Main Event final table closes out the 100-bracelet Las Vegas summer.
PokerStars follows in September. WCOOP 2026 runs from 6 to 30 September, the 25th edition of the series. Neither operator has published a full event schedule yet.
| Series | Room | Dates | Headline number |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLO Series | GGPoker | 2 to 17 August | $20M GTD |
| WCOOP Boot Camp | PokerStars | 2 to 17 August | $6.5M GTD |
| WSOP Online Bracelet Series | GGPoker | 16 August to 29 September | 33 bracelets |
| WCOOP 2026 | PokerStars | 6 to 30 September | 25th edition |
WSOP Online 2026 Dates and What GGPoker Has Confirmed
The confirmation arrived in an unusual place. GGPoker set out the WSOP Online 2026 dates in the terms of its August promotional campaign rather than on a series page, and its own WSOP Online landing page still displays last year's edition.
What is settled is the shape of the festival. Thirty-three bracelet events run across roughly six weeks, making this the seventh edition of the international series since it launched in 2020. A further $5 million in promotional money sits on top of the tournament prize pools.
| Promotion | Value | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Continental Flipouts | $3M | Winner's continent plays a Flipout worth up to $250,000 |
| Super Pass Bonus | $1M | Every bracelet winner receives a $30,000 Super Pass to WSOP Paradise |
| Country Competition | $1M | Top 10 countries in the bracelet rankings unlock freerolls |
The four continental groups are Americas, Europe, Eurasia and Asia Pacific. That $5 million sits inside a wider $18 million giveaway GGPoker is running across the whole of August.
Last year the full schedule landed shortly before the series began. The same rollout looks likely again, which leaves buy-ins, guarantees and the Main Event date still to come.
How Players Get Into the Bracelet Events
GGPoker lists three routes into the bracelet events, and all three feed the same tournaments:
- Satellites: direct qualifiers into individual bracelet events.
- Steps: laddered qualifiers where winning at one level buys entry to the next.
- Flash Satellites: short-format qualifiers that run close to event start times.
All three count for promotional eligibility, so players who enter a bracelet event through a satellite are still registered for the Continental Flipouts and the Country Competition. Anyone unfamiliar with the format can read up on the way satellite tournaments work before the series opens.
WSOP Express is a separate system, and it is aimed at live events rather than online bracelets. It runs as a four-step ladder from a $0.50 All-In or Fold sit-and-go through to a $150 tournament.
Three passes sit at the top of it: a $5,000 Ring Pass, a $10,000 Bracelet Pass and a $30,000 Super Pass. A free Step 0 ticket is available daily to anyone logging in.
The two systems meet at one point. The $30,000 Super Pass is both the top prize on the WSOP Express step ladder and the package handed to each of the 33 online bracelet winners.
The PLO Series Replaces Omaholic
The Omaholic Series name is gone. GGPoker has rebranded its Pot-Limit Omaha festival to the plainer PLO Series, running 2 to 17 August with $20,000,000 guaranteed.
The schedule itself is familiar. Buy-ins run from $15 to $10,000, a $200,000 leaderboard runs alongside, and the format spread covers PLO, PLO-5, bounty, mystery bounty and hyper-turbo variants.
- $215 PLO Mystery Bounty Main Event: 10 August, $1M guaranteed, $100,000 top bounty.
- $25 PLO Mystery Bounty Mini Main: $500,000 guaranteed, final stage 3 August.
- $2,100 PLO Bounty High Roller: $1M guaranteed, final day 17 August.
- $54 The Weekender PLO Bounty: $125,000 guaranteed, every Sunday.
At $20 million across two weeks it ranks among the largest Omaha-only online festivals ever scheduled. Players moving across from Hold'em will find a primer on Pot-Limit Omaha useful before firing the cheaper events.
WCOOP 2026 and the Boot Camp Warm-Up
PokerStars is in the same position on detail. WCOOP 2026 runs 6 to 30 September, marking the 25th running of the series, with the guarantee still unannounced.
The warm-up comes first. The WCOOP Boot Camp runs 2 to 17 August with 65 events offered at Low and High buy-in levels, more than $6.5 million guaranteed, and buy-ins from $2.20 to $1,050.
Formats include No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, HORSE, 8-Game, No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw, mystery bounty and progressive knockout.
One number is down sharply on last year. The 2025 Boot Camp carried a $9 million guarantee against $6.5 million this year, a cut of roughly 28% for a series of broadly similar size.
Two Main Events close the Boot Camp on 16 August: a $109 No-Limit Hold'em event with $500,000 guaranteed, and a $1,050 edition guaranteeing $300,000. PokerStars is again running free coaching sessions with BBZ Poker on Discord in the build-up.
US Players Already Had Their Bracelet Series
Neither September festival is open to players in the United States, but the American bracelet series is not missing. It ran earlier in the summer, alongside the live World Series in Las Vegas.
- International leg: GGPoker, open across most of the world, closed to US players.
- US leg: WSOP.com, restricted to Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania, already finished.
- Ontario leg: GGPoker Ontario, a parallel bracelet series for Ontario residents.
That US series ran 30 May to 14 July with 30 bracelet events and $7 million in guarantees, plus a $50,000 leaderboard. PokerStars operates on a similar split, with its dot-com platform unavailable to American players.
September Pits WSOP Online Against WCOOP
WSOP Online and WCOOP have shared most of September for years. The overlap splits the same pool of serious tournament players across two clients for three or four weeks.
For grinders it forces a choice about where to put volume. For the operators it means two of the biggest guarantees of the year are competing for attention as online traffic picks up after the summer live season.
A third festival is already running. WPT Global's Summer Overdrive festival runs a 43-day schedule that continues to 30 August, covering the gap before the September rush begins.
Full schedules for both WSOP Online and WCOOP are still to be published. We will cover each one as it lands.
