The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is currently underway, but that does little good for players in the United States, who cannot play on the dot com version of the poker room. Good news, though, as Stars just announced that its sites in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey will all have “COOPs” of their own, all running at the same time, September 10 through September 27.
Total guaranteed prize pools across all three states will be $4.5 million. The Pennsylvania Championship of Online Poker (PACOOP) is set to be the biggest of the three with $2 million in guarantees across 69 events. The Michigan Championship of Online Poker (MICOOP) will have $1.5 million in guaranteed prize pools and 68 events, while the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOOP) will have a $1 million guarantee and 60 events.
The guarantees for PACOOP and MICOOP are the largest for any COOP in their states. At the same time, it wasn’t the highest bar to clear, as this is only the third PACOOP and second MICOOP. NJCOOP has existed since 2016.
The Main Events will all have buy-ins of $300 and will run for two days starting September 26. As you may have guessed, the guarantees vary for each: $200,000 for PACOOP, $150,000 for MICOOP, and $100,000 for NJCOOP.
Each of the Main Event winners will also receive a trophy. On top of that, six more winners of selected COOP events in each state will nab trophies, as well.
Most of the events are fairly affordable, with buy-ins ranging from $10 to $1,000. Most tournaments, however, are $100 and below.
As always, PokerStars is hosting several promotions to help players get into the tournaments on the cheap. Through September 26, the site will host special $3 Spin & Go’s with $300 COOP Main Event tickets as possible prizes.
Then, as is often the case, Stars is running Depositor Freerolls. It appears that anyone who deposits at least $30 into their account using a specific deposit code (check the PokerStars site for details) will get a ticket into the Depositor Freeroll to compete for one of 50 Main Event seats. I say “appears that anyone who deposits” because these things are often just for people making their first deposit, but in both an e-mail from Stars and a blog post, I see nothing that specifies that it must be an initial deposit.
Then, anyone who gets knocked out of a COOP tournament before the money gains entry into a Second Chance Freeroll scheduled for the next day. The Second Chance Freerolls will each award $5,000 in COOP tickets.
