The Turbo Series, formally TCOOP, is back on the calendar this month starting on February 18 and running for 16 days. Along with the surprising name change, the series is a notable departure from its usual late January slot.
A total of $15 million in guaranteed prizes is up for grabs over 74 events, a slight increase on last year’s 66, with a mix of mostly mid-stakes turbo and hyper-turbo structures.
There will also be three Platinum Passes up for grabs. Winners of the two main events will win a Platinum Pass, and every player who enters at least one event will gain entry into the PokerStars Players Championship All-In Shootout, where a third pass will be given to one lucky winner.
“The Turbo Series is a great opportunity for players of all levels to play in a fun and fast-paced series that is guaranteed to be one of the most enjoyable events of the year,” said Severin Rasset, PokerStars Director of Poker Innovation and Operations.
The series starts with a big $109-buy-in no limit hold’em event with a $500,000 guarantee, and the series culminates in two Main Events—the “Twin Turbos”—a $1,050 buy-in tournament with $2.5 million guaranteed, and a $55 with $1 million guaranteed.
Along with the regular Hold’em and PLO events, the schedule will include a variety of niche events, including pot limit Hold’em, HORSE, Badugi and others. There’s also a full mix of novelties on offer, including escalating blinds tournaments, “5-stack” and “Splash” events, Bubble Rush and progressive knockouts, among others.
Why the Rebrand?
The move to rebrand TCOOP to the Turbo Series comes as a bit of a surprise. PokerStars has worked to resuscitate various much-loved brands over the last year, including the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) and European Poker Tour (EPT). These tours were scrapped at the end of 2016, but following an outcry from players, PokerStars has brought them all back.
“These are brands that all our players loved,” said David Carrion when asked about why the company was reverting back to the old brands in December 2017. “They have a historical legacy behind them of how poker throughout the world grew, how the game developed around them and how we all started a journey where poker became a big part of our lives.”
The TCOOP (Turbo Championship of Online Poker) moniker was in use for six years and was a firm favorite among players since its inception in 2012 making its decision to kill off another much-loved series an intriguing one.
When it first started, TCOOP had 50 events and a total guaranteed prize pool of $10 million scheduled over ten days in late January. It soon became a staple on the online poker calendar—completing the trifecta of the COOP series along with SCOOP and WCOOP.
For the last three years, TCOOP has offered the same $15 million in guaranteed prizes and was always hosted at the end of January. Its move to February makes it stand out from its previous incarnations.
Tournaments in February
Prior to the Turbo Series, PokerStars launched the new online “Winter Series” that ran in late December and into January, where the total series guarantees of more than $25 million were easily surpassed with $7 million paid out on the final day of the tournament alone. The move to rebrand to the Turbo Series may fit inline with a new online strategy.
For those looking for more choice, other tournament series running this month include MPN’s The Classic, and Winamax is running Million Week. Partypoker, fresh off the back of its first Powerfest of the year, will host its inaugural Knockout Series—a series of bounty-exclusive tournaments—on February 25. More details on the schedule are expected soon.
The Turbo Series kicks off on February 18 and will run for 16 days.
