TCOOP is here. It’s almost as if a siren should go off or something.
There’s no great cause for alarm, but TCOOP brings with it an unavoidable sense of urgency. For this is a turbo series, no hanging about, no second days, no long first days, just a few hours of high tempo poker and a big payday at the end — poker for the modern generation.
It all kicks off tomorrow with the first of 50 events, spread out over 11 days, combining for a guaranteed prize pool of $15 million. Event #1, one of four tournaments tomorrow, is a $27 no-limit hold’em 6-max re-entry, which begins at 12:00 ET*. It has a $500,000 guarantee, a share of which will set you up nicely for the rest of the Championship.
It’s not all about hold’em, and while things may move fast TCOOP features all the poker variants and buy-ins you would expect from either SCOOP or WCOOP. It’s just a little quicker. So you can expect to find Omaha, Stud, Razz and even an 8-game in the schedule somewhere, which you can see for yourself on the TCOOP homepage.
It’ll be a time for great stories, and maybe even a little history. Some 56 players — among them names like Shaun Deeb, George Danzer, Jason Mercier, Stephen Chidwick and ElkY – are just a TCOOP win away form a “Triple Coop”.
What’s more five players — David “Gunslinger3” Bach, Andrey “Kroko-dill” Zaichenko, Shawn “buck21” Buchanan, Paul “paulgees81” Volpe and James “Andy McLEOD” Obst need only a TCOOP title (“only”) to become the first Stars Slam winner, an honour which requires a player to win one of each ‘COOP Championship as well as a Sunday Million.
But then, even with the kind of talent those players possess; it remains devilishly hard to win one. For poof look no further than Alex “AlexKP” Petersen, of Denmark, who remains the only player to have won two TCOOP titles. But then records are there to be broken.
If you fancy breaking a few records, or maybe even setting a few, then the TCOOP homepage will give you all the details you need. There are also satellites running for the entire series, offering you the opportunity to win your seat for as little as $0.11, or even a single FPP if you’re the type who likes good stories.
For now, stock up on food and drink, keep it within arm’s length of your monitor at all times and start getting familiar with power naps. TCOOP is here. Blinking is for wimps.
* In a previous version of this post, this time was incorrectly listed as 5.20pm ET. Apologies for any confusion.
Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.
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