It's Official: PokerStars Michigan to Run $1 Million MICOOP Poker Tournament Series This Month It's Official: PokerStars Michigan to Run $1 Million MICOOP Poker Tournament Series This Month

The only regulated online poker room in Michigan, PokerStars MI, has announced the state’s first ever online poker tournament series: The Michigan Championship of Online Poker, or MICOOP.

For players in Michigan, you won’t have long to wait to get in on the action: MICOOP 2021 kicks off on February 20, just 11 days away. A cool $1 million is guaranteed across the series, with dozens of tournaments across a variety of formats on offer, with events to suit all bankrolls. The series runs for over two weeks.

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Not to toot our own horn, but pokerfuse predicted exactly this just last week. Still it is excellent to see the operator gearing up for such a huge series so quickly out of the gate.

It is right up there with the tournament series we’ve seen in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The last NJCOOP was a $1 million series. The first ever PACOOP also had $1 million guaranteed, though the latest one was bumped a bit higher.

And players watch out: When these series have been first introduced in other US regulated markets, there have been overlays. PokerStars has shown that it isn’t afraid to go big with first guarantees so they can promote big banner $1 million figures. In fact, just last Sunday we spotted a pretty valuable overlay for players.

So MTT players could well be in for some great value—both in promotions and big guarantees, and maybe even some spots of value in the ambitious schedule.

There are 60 events on the schedule, with buy-ins ranging from $10 up to $500.

The highlight is a $300 buy-in, $125,000 Main Event, but there is an excellent spread of other tournaments, with a total of 20 events with a guarantee of $20,000 or higher.

Other highlights include two Special Editions of the operator’s flagship weekend tournament, the Sunday Special. One has a $200 buy-in, the other $250, with guarantees of $40,000 and $50,000, respectively.

Top MICOOP 2021 Tournaments

  • Feb 21: $200 MICOOP-06 Sunday Special—$40,000 guaranteed
  • Feb 24: $500 MICOOP-17 High Roller—$35,000 guaranteed
  • Feb 28: $250 MICOOP-31 Sunday Special—$50,000 guaranteed
  • Mar 2: $250 MICOOP-36 Super Tuesday—$35,000 guaranteed
  • Mar 4: $250 MICOOP-44 PKO Thursday Thrill—$35,000 guaranteed
  • Mar 7: $300 MICOOP 55 Main Event—$125,000 guaranteed

Most tournaments are, naturally, NL Hold’em, but these run the gamut of PokerStars’ MTT variants: PKOs, Deepstacks, Big Ante, Rebuys, Freezeouts, Marathons, and Zoom MTTs, spread across slow, turbo and hyper speeds, are all on the docket.

But there is also a decent mix of less common variants, including five PLO events, plus one each of Omaha hi/lo, 5 Card Omaha, Limit Stud Hi/Lo, 5-Card Draw, HORSE and 8-Game.

First Promotion for Existing Players

Players yet to sign up take notice: This is going to be the only big MTT series available in a regulated online poker room for quite a few weeks. The operator has gone big on guarantees, so there will be some chance of overlays. Plus there are some pretty big promotions around it.

Firstly, all players that Deposit $30 or more with the code ‘MICOOP’ before 13:59 ET on March 7 get a free ticket to the $10,500 MICOOP Main Event Depositor Freeroll. This is the first promotion available to existing players who have already taken advantage of their welcome bonuses.

This freeroll guarantees 35 tickets to the Main Event, valued at $300. This event could only get low-hundreds of runners, so there’s a lot of value there for all players.

If you haven’t signed up to PokerStars MI, now is the perfect time. You can download the client with the button below and take advantage of their $30 free-play bonus by depositing $20 or more and using the bonus code FREE30, or you can do the 100% deposit match bonus with code STARS600.

Either way, after you’ve claimed your Welcome Bonus, you can do another to get a ticket into this freeroll. For more details on the PokerStars MI Welcome Bonus, check out our PokerStars Michigan FAQ, though there are full details on the PokerStars site.

If you don’t manage to win a ticket through this freeroll, there are other routes. A special $3 Spin and Go now in the client, awarding tickets to the Main Event. Most of the time, the prize will be cash—$6, $12 or $30—but 0.25% of the time, players will compete for a $300 Main Event ticket. It has a rake of 7%.

Prize Pool Multiplier Prize Frequency
100x $300 MICOOP Main Event ticket 2,500 in 1,000,000
10x $30 cash 10,000 in 1,000,000
4x $12 cash 232,500 in 1,000,000
2x $6 cash 755,000 in 1,000,000

PokerStars is also running its Second Chance All-in Shootout Freerolls that have proven popular in other markets. If you bust out of the money of any event, you win a ticket to an All-In Shootout. These are all-in tournaments—basically, a random lottery of prizes—that will award prizes to next MICOOP events.

In total, the operator has earmarked $20,000 in tickets to be distributed in these freerolls—a lot of value for players interesting in playing multiple MICOOP 2021 events.

This is an ambitious first outing for PokerStars. Perhaps not all too surprising giving the traffic numbers seen in just the first days of launch—it is currently the largest regulated online poker room anywhere in the United States—but it should be very welcome for players interesting in hitting the virtual tables.

PokerStars MICOOP Starts on February 20 and runs through to March 8. All players can gain entry to the freeroll from today with a deposit of $30 or more with the bonus code MICOOP. This freeroll runs on March 7.