Michigan Online Poker: An Early Look at how PokerStars’ MISCOOP is Performing

The Michigan Spring Championship of Online Poker (MISCOOP) is underway and the early numbers indicate a decent start into the festival for PokerStars MI. It remains on track to be one of the largest online tournament series in the regulated US markets and has already paid out more than $737k in prize money.

So far, 36 tournaments of the 120-entry strong series have wrapped up. The guaranteed prize pools set by the state’s leading operator have been surpassed by more than 16% so far.

However, there were some small bumps on the road early on. More than $8,400 in overlays gave the players further value for their money.

The largest festival in Michigan online poker’s short history guarantees more than $2 million in prize money. This essentially equals the equivalent PASCOOP in Pennsylvania, which just concluded after paying out more than $2.6 million in total prizes.

The first edition of MISCOOP in Michigan follows in the footsteps of a very successful MICOOP, which took place from late February into early March. After multiple extensions to the schedule, the first-ever regulated online poker series in Michigan paid out $2.2 million in prize money.

Based on the early numbers with more than 25% of the tournaments completed, the MISCOOP 2021 is slated to raise that bar even higher.

The MISCOOP 2021 Schedule in a Nutshell

The full schedule has been deployed in the PokerStars MI client and showcases the usual three-tier system, which PokerStars has been using across all markets. There are 40 events listed and each of them is available in low, medium, and high buy-ins.

The low tier comes with entry fees between $5 and $20; the medium tier features a range of $30 to $50; whereas high tier events cost $100 and more to enter.

All eyes will be set on the $200,000 Main Event which will play out over two days on May 23 and May 24. The buy-in for the flagship tournament is $300, which mirrors the equivalent tournament in the PASCOOP series on PokerStars PA.

The schedule contains the usual spread of No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments but other variants such as Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Win the Button, HORSE and 8-Game have also been added to the mix. Various progressive knockout tournaments have been implemented and there are regular speed, turbo, and hyper formats available.

MISCOOP 2021: Key facts

• Runs From May 8 to May 24.
• Total guarantees of $2 million.
• $200,000-guaranteed, 2-Day Main Event with a $300 buy-in on May 23 and May 24.
• 120 tournaments – split into 40 events with three different buy-in tiers.

A Look at the Early Numbers

The MISCOOP 2021 kicked off on May 8 and all but one tournament on the opening day hit the guarantee: Event 1-L: $10 NLHE came up short of its goal with 803 entries.

On the first Super Sunday of the Series on May 9, the Special Editions of the Sunday Special, Warm-Up, and Storm all just missed guarantees. The $100 High Tier attracted a field of 831 entries and caused an overlay of $3,714.20, the biggest overlay of the series so far. In the $30 Medium Tier, 725 entries came with an overlay of $207.50, whereas 961 in the Low Tier resulted in an overlay of $1254.90 (12.5%).

So far, as the Low tier results have seen the most overlays. But the margins here are very small—with $1550 in total, it amounts to just 2% of total prize money guaranteed in these tournaments. The Medium and Highs have done even better.

In fact, the overlays on the first two days account for more than 50% of the total overlays so far. Two other events, in particular, stand out in terms of added value for their participants.

Event 5-M with a price tag of $15 was a PLO 6-Max PKO and attracted 187 entries in total. With a guaranteed prize pool of $3,500, the event came up short by $947.45 (27.07%). Furthermore, Event 7-H: $50 was played as traditional NL with a hyper format and reeled in 134 entries, causing an overlay of $1,202 (16.03%).

From May 10 to May 12, none of the tournaments resulted in an overlay. That included the most expensive event of the entire festival. Event 11-H: $2,000 High Roller came with a guarantee of $80,000 and 55 entries boosted the prize pool to $104,500. The $500 Medium Tier easily surpassed the $50,000 guarantee thanks to 144 entries and the $200 Low Tier gathered 204 entries to distribute $37,944 in prize money.

Highlights of the Remaining Schedule

All eyes will certainly be set on the $300 Main Event with its large guarantee of $200,000. So far, 58 players are already registered and satellites are available with buy-ins between $20 and $50. There are even two restricted satellites without any buy-in listed as well on May 16 and May 23.

Mixed game aficionados can showcase their skills in the 8-Game and HORSE tournaments on May 19 and May 21 respectively. The second most expensive tournament of the series is scheduled for Wednesday, May 19 with Event 27-H: $1,000 6-Max High Roller, which boasts a $50,000 guarantee. The Medium tier comes with a $250 buy-in whereas the Low Tier costs $100 to enter.

While most remaining events feature 6-max, 8-max, or 9-max action, May 22 promises plenty of action at the MISCOOP tables. Event 34 will feature a 4-Max Progressive Knockout across its three tiers and players can re-enter between three and five times.

So far, the first 12 out of 40 events accumulated more than $737,600 in prize money. That surpasses the guarantees set by PokerStars MI by more than 16% and puts the festival on track to become the largest series in the short history of regulated online poker in Michigan.

The first MISCOOP will conclude on May 24.