The maiden Michigan Championship of Online Poker (MICOOP) on PokerStars MI has got off to a solid start.
Guarantees were absolutely smashed across the first ten events as thousands of players flocked to the tables to compete for the first big tournament series on a regulated MI online poker site.
Almost every tournament doubled its guarantee and one even tripled—suggesting that the operator was either being tentative with the guarantees or they turned out to be much more popular than what PokerStars had anticipated when scheduling it.
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PokerStars has put up $1 million in guaranteed prize money for the inaugural Championship series in Michigan. A total of 60 tournaments are part of the series running through March 8.
Ten tournaments are already in the books and each of them crushed their guarantees. These have produced over $400,000 in prize money, decimating the combined $170,000 guaranteed prize pools they had.
Over 6000 entries participated in the first ten events.
Early signs point to the series being a roaring success. With two weeks still remaining, expect the total prize money to sail past $2 million. This would be twice the prize money that the operator had initially guaranteed for the series.
Highlights of the First Weekend of MICOOP 2021
Michiganders who had been patiently waiting for nearly a decade to play the Championship event came out in numbers as the very first tournament of MICOOP: A $100 NLHE Kick Off, Nightly Stars SE with a $30,000 guarantee blew through the prize pool.
The opening event saw a combined field of 883 entries (597 unique entries and 286 re-entries) to build a prize pool of over $80,000—almost three times more than its original guarantee.
The rebuy event with a $20 buy-in attracted 747 players 998 rebuy and 155 add-ons to swell its prize pool to nearly $35k—3.5 times higher than its $10k guarantee.
The PKO edition of the Sunday Warm-Up edition with a modest $10,000 guarantee and $50 buy-in drew a field of 636 runners to smash its guarantee by nearly 200%.
The headliner of the weekend: Sunday Special holding a $40,000 guarantee attracted 289 unique players and 141 re-entries for $200 each to generate an almost $80,000 prize pool.
Its Mini edition proved to be the most popular among the lot, attracting over 1200 entries amounting to a $28k prize pool.
Participation in the Omaha event was lower in comparison to No Limit Hold’em, but guarantees were still doubled.
Key Points of MICOOP Thus Far:
- 10 tournaments have concluded and $400,000 has been paid out in prize money
- A total of 6125 entrants participated over the weekend
- Guarantees thus far have been smashed by 135%
- 50 tournaments still remain with guarantees of nearly $900K
Second Chance Daily Freerolls and Depositor Freeroll
Don’t forget that the MICOOP festival is awarding $20,000 in Second Chance freerolls to players eliminated outside the money of every MICOOP tournament until March 7.
Each of these freerolls runs daily giving away at least $1200 in added prize money with seats to MICOOP events.
Additionally, the operator is also offering a Depositor Freeroll. Players that deposit $30 or more using the code 'MICOOP’ between now and 13:59 ET on March 7 will get a free ticket to the $10,500 MICOOP Main Event Depositor Freeroll.
This freeroll awards 35 tickets to the Main Event, each valued at $300.
Furthermore, MICOOP special Spin & Gos are also running around the clock for a buy-in of just $3, giving away tickets to the Main Event.
PokerStars Could Boost the Guarantees for the Remaining MICOOP Events
The tournament series has been scheduled barely a month after PokerStars launched in Michigan—its third state in the regulated US online poker market—looking to capitalize on the rush of poker players in a newly-launched market.
According to figures tracked by GameIntel, formerly PokerScout, the go-to source for independent tracking of online poker traffic, licensed exclusively by pokerfuse’s Poker Industry PRO, PokerStars Michigan is currently averaging 540 concurrent cash game players.
It makes it the largest regulated real money online poker network in the US—larger than the combined online poker rooms in New Jersey and bigger even than its counterpart, PokerStars PA.
Not surprisingly, the turnout for the MICOOP series has exceeded expectations. The operator might be tempted to pump up the guarantee for the remaining tournaments given the overwhelming response the past weekend.
It did the same in Pennsylvania when it ran its first-ever tournament series PACOOP. It initially had $1 million in guarantees but was boosted by 22% to up the series overall guarantee to $1.225 million following a great turnout.
This week, 25 tournaments are scheduled to run with combined guarantees of $374,000.
Players will get to play a variety of formats including PL 5 Card Draw, 5 Card PLO, HORSE, Limit Hold’em, PLO Hi/Lo, a Big Antes NLHE, a $500 buy-in High Roller.
This week will also see a Super Tuesday and Thursday Thrill both guaranteeing $30,000 for buy-ins of $200. And finally, a boosted Sunday Special edition returning with a $50,000 guarantee on Sunday.
