Think fast!
PokerStars has announced the schedule for the newest iteration of the Turbo Series, the fast-paced tournament series where no event will go past a single day. Running February 21 to March 7, the Turbo Series features 134 tournaments with more than $25 million in guaranteed prize pools.
The Turbo Series is not one of those PokerStars tournament festivals with multiple buy-in tiers for each event, but the Main Event does have two buy-in levels. The $1,050 “high” buy-in Main Event has a $2 million guarantee, while the $55 “low” buy-in Main Event has a $1 million guarantee.
Overall buy-ins range from $11 to $5,200. Half the events have a buy-in of $55 or lower. 72% are no more than $109. The complete breakdown of tournament buy-ins is as follows (courtesy the PokerStars blog):
$11 (15 events)
$22 (25 events)
$55 (28 events)
$109 (28 events)
$215 (18 events)
$530 (12 events)
$1,050 (6 events)
$5,200 (2 events)
There is one other $1 million guaranteed event on the schedule: Event #64, $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max Progressive Knockout. The two $5,200 tournaments both have $750,000 guarantees.
As one would expect, the vast majority of the events are of the No-Limit Hold’em variety. There are just 15 tournaments of other flavors, including Pot-Limit Omaha, No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, 8-Game, 5-Card Pot-Limit Omaha, Fixed-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, HORSE, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, and the good, old Fixed-Limit Hold’em.
Michigan gets its own signature series
It’s been a busy week of tournament series announcements for PokerStars. Also on Tuesday, PokerStars revealed the inaugural Michigan Championship of Online Poker (MICOOP). Obviously just for players in Michigan (or not obviously, I don’t know you), MICOOP runs February 20 to March 8, guaranteeing $1 million in prize pools.
Perhaps surprisingly for such an infant of an online poker room, MICOOP consists of 60 events, more than both Pennsylvania’s PACOOP (50) and New Jersey’s NJCOOP (54). The Main Event costs $300 and has a $125,000 guarantee.
PokerStars became the first online poker room to go live in Michigan when it made the unexpected launch on Friday, January 29. Internet gambling, in general, only just began in Michigan a week earlier when about a dozen gaming sites began accepting customers.
Many, including me, did not expect to see online poker this soon, as the focus in Michigan seemed to be on internet casino and sports betting. Thing look like they are off to a good start in the Wolverine State. According to PokerScout, PokerStars Michigan is already in a tie for the 16th largest poker room/network in the world in terms of cash game traffic. It has a seven-day average of 450 cash game players, 50 ahead of PokerStars Pennsylvania. It peaked at more than 1,000 players in the past 24 hours (posting this Wednesday night). And remember, only people located within Michigan’s borders can play.