First MICOOP Concludes at PokerStars MI With Over $2.2 Million Awarded

The first major poker tournament series on PokerStars MI ended its run yesterday, and by all reasonable measures, it was a resounding success.

Players in the first-ever Michigan Championship of Online Poker won just over $2.2 million across 60 events. Given the site’s decision to increase guarantees throughout MICOOP, it appears the result well-exceeded expectations.

Nearly half of MICOOP events featured boosted guarantees

Following a fast start to MICOOP, PokerStars began upping guarantees just before hitting the series’ midpoint. The increases started Feb. 27-28 with a Double Up Weekend. PokerStars MI doubled the guarantees for all 10 tournaments that Saturday and Sunday.

PokerStars additionally increased guarantees for many of the tournaments during MICOOP’s final week. Most notably, the Main Event for which the guarantee was boosted from $125,000 to $200,000. In the end 26 of the 60 tournaments ran with higher guaranteed prize pools than originally planned.

The increases pushed what had been just over $1 million in total guaranteed prize pools to almost $1.43 million. In the end, only four of the 60 tournaments had overlays, the largest being just over $9,700 in a $200 6-Max Turbo event on Sunday.

In all, there were almost 32,000 total entries in MICOOP, including re-entries and rebuys and add-ons in three rebuy events.

Business at PokerStars Michigan challenging PA and NJ

The $2,208,002.20 awarded to MICOOP players at PokerStars MI well exceeded what the Pennsylvania Championship of Online Poker awarded during the first PACOOP in November-December 2019. Players won almost $1.56 million. It even bested what PACOOP gave out during its second running in October 2020 when players won almost $2.04 million.

The total also easily exceeds what New Jersey players have been winning in the NJCOOP. Last fall, NJCOOP won just over $1.12 million.

Speaking of comparisons, both PokerStars PA and PokerStars NJ ran Bounty Builder Series during the same Feb. 20-Mar. 8 period of MICOOP.

The PokerStars PA Bounty Builder Series awarded just over $2 million in 75 events. Meanwhile, the PokerStars NJ Bounty Builder Series featured 58 events and awarded a little less than $700,000.

It’s worth noting that PokerStars currently enjoys monopolies in both Michigan and Pennsylvania as the only online poker site up and running in those states. Meanwhile PokerStars NJ has competition from multiple other online poker sites.

MICOOP Main draws nearly 1,300 entries, prize pool of $360K

That $300 buy-in MICOOP Main Event ultimately attracted 1,284 total entries, pushing the overall prize pool up to $359,520 and crushing that $200K guarantee. Player “smftt” walked away with the title, earning a first prize of more than $56,000.

The MICOOP Main Event was obviously the largest tournament yet in the short history of PokerStars MI. It also rivals some of the largest events that have taken place on PokerStars PA since its November 2019 launch.

The MICOOP Main Event topped the PACOOP Main Event from last October, a similarly-structured $300 buy-in tournament with re-entries. The 2020 PACOOP Main Event drew just over 1,000 total entries to build a prize pool of a little more than $283,000.

Meanwhile, PokerStars PA has staged three one-off Pennsyl-MANIA tournaments with large guarantees that have built bigger prize pools.

The first Pennsyl-MANIA in May 2020 ranks as the largest tournament in PokerStars PA history with a prize pool of almost $516,000. The second installment had a smaller turnout and prize pool of about $377,000. Meanwhile, the third had a $500,000 guarantee and ended up having an overlay.

Don’t be surprised to see PokerStars MI offer its own version of a Pennsyl-MANIA-style special event. Then we’ll see if PokerStars MI can stage a larger event than PokerStars PA has thus far achieved.

Here’s a look at the fields and prize pools for all 60 events of the first MICOOP.

2021 MICOOP by the numbers

Event	Buy-in	Guarantee	Entries	Re-Entries	Prize Pool
1: NLHE [MICOOP Kick Off, Nightly Stars SE]	$100	$30,000	597	286	$81,059.40
2: NLHE [Rebuy]	$20	$10,000	747	1,153**	$34,580.00
3: NLHE [8-Max]	$50	$20,000	548	229	$35,353.50
4: NLHE [8-Max, Deepstacks]	$100	$25,000	430	226	$60,220.80
5: NLHE [Progressive KO, Sunday Warm Up SE]	$50	$10,000	430	206	$28,938.00
6: NLHE [Sunday Special SE]	$200	$40,000	289	141	$79,980.00
7: NLHE [Sunday Special Mini]	$25	$12,500	820	409	$27,959.75
8: PLO	$100	$10,000	146	72	$20,012.40
9: NLHE [Second Chance]	$75	$7,500	223	76	$20,406.75
10: NLHE [8-Max, Hyper-Turbo, Sunday Supersonic SE]	$50	$5,000	199	51	$11,750.00
11: NLHE [4-Max]	$100	$15,000	206	106	$28,641.60
12: NLHE [6-Max, Progressive KO, Battle Royale SE]	$50	$20,000	443	203	$29,393.00
13: PLO8	$50	$7,500	193	87	$12,740.00
14: NLHE [Super Tuesday SE]	$200	$30,000	189	109	$55,428.00
15: NLHE [Super Tuesday Mini]	$30	$15,000	624	326	$25,935.00
16: PL 5-Card Draw [Turbo]	$50	$3,000	81	14	$4,322.50
17: PLO [6-Max]	$100	$7,500	114	44	$14,504.40
18: NLHE [6-Max, High Roller]	$500	$35,000	90	41	$61,570.00
19: NLHE	$50	$20,000	382	180	$25,571.00
20: NLHE [Progressive KO, Thursday Thrill SE]	$200	$30,000	171	85	$47,616.00
21: NLHE [Progressive KO, Thursday Thrill Mini]	$30	$15,000	556	276	$22,713.60
22: 5-Card PLO [6-Max, Turbo]	$30	$3,000	135	63	$5,405.40
23: FLHE	$100	$5,000	71	16	$7,986.60
24: NLHE [Big Antes]	$100	$7,500	230	112	$31,395.60
25: NLHE	$150	$10,000	109	27	$18,727.20
26: HORSE	$50	$6,000	194	84	$12,649.00
27: NLHE	$50	$20,000	394	439**	$37,901.50
28: NLHE [Turbo, Saturday Speedway SE]	$100	$20,000	222	65	$26,346.60
29: NLHE [8-Max, Marathon]	$100	$50,000	382	193	$52,785.00
30: NLHE [Sunday Warm Up SE]	$50	$25,000	442	160	$27,391.00
31: NLHE	$250	$100,000	332	129	$107,413.00
32: NLHE	$30	$30,000	768	369	$31,040.10
33: PLO [8-Max, Turbo]	$50	$10,000	156	35	$10,000.00*
34: NLHE	$100	$20,000	215	104	$29,284.20
35: NLHE [Hyper-Turbo, Sunday Supersonic SE]	$75	$20,000	168	41	$20,000.00*
36: NLHE	$50	$15,000	301	151	$20,566.00
37: NLHE	$100	$25,000	273	141	$38,005.20
38: NLHE	$250	$50,000	171	86	$59,881.00
39: NLHE	$50	$25,000	437	207	$29,302.00
40: Stud Hi-Lo	$50	$5,000	112	22	$6,097.00
41: PLO	$250	$20,000	78	30	$25,164.00
42: PLO	$30	$5,000	255	130	$10,510.50
43: NLHE	$100	$20,000	215	107	$29,559.60
44: NLHE	$250	$50,000	178	98	$64,308.00
45: NLHE	$50	$25,000	444	190	$28,847.00
46: NLHE	$20	$15,000	538	235	$15,000.00*
47: NLHE [6-Max, Rebuy]	$10	$15,000	760	1,565**	$21,157.50
48: NLHE	$75	$15,000	381	177	$38,083.50
49: NLHE	$20	$5,000	408	190	$10,883.60
50: 8-Game	$50	$10,000	199	77	$12,558.00
51: NLHE [6-Max, Turbo, Zoom]	$50	$15,000	331	189	$23,660.00
52: NLHE	$50	$10,000	291	83	$17,017.00
53: NLHE	$50	$35,000	533	238	$35,080.50
54: NLHE [Progressive KO]	$100	$40,000	336	124	$42,228.00
55: NLHE [Main Event]	$300	$200,000	882	402	$359,520.00
56: NLHE [Main Event Mini]	$50	$50,000	813	388	$54,645.50
57: NLHE	$200	$30,000	84	25	$30,000.00*
58: NLHE	$100	$15,000	186	61	$23,465.00
59: NLHE [Nightly Stars SE]	$100	$30,000	358	182	$49,572.00
60: NLHE [Heads-Up, Turbo, Progressive KO, Zoom]	$20	$10,000	484	388	$15,870.40
TOTALS		$1,429,500	20,344	11,643	$2,208,002.20

*Events with overlays: Event No. 33 — $1,309.05; Event No. 35 — $5,265.50; Event No. 46 — $931.40; Event No. 57 — $9,726.00; **total rebuys and add-ons; bold = increased guarantees