For the last 17 days, the top online poker players in Michigan battled in the first major online poker series since the launch of PokerStars Michigan, the only regulated site currently operating in the state, just over seven weeks ago. The original schedule for the Michigan Championship of Online Poker called for $1 million in guarantees but strong turnouts throughout the series convinced PokerStars to up the guarantees and the total prizepools for the 60 events surpassed $2.2 million.
Not surprisingly, the biggest winner came from the marquee event on the schedule. ‘smftt‘ beat out 1,283 other entries in Event #55 ($300 Main Event) to take home a $56,398.35 payday. Runner-up ‘zscoro‘ had to settle for $40,202.13 while third place finisher ‘cbauer6789‘ walked away with $28,657.44.
The Main Event originally featured a $125,000 guarantee, but after the opening weekend turnout took each tournament prize pool past the guarantees, PokerStars upped the guarantee to $200,000. The final prizepool ended up at $359,520.
The Mini Main Event, with a $50 buy-in and a $50,000 guarantee, had 1,201 runners to build a $54,645.50 prize pool. ‘BiggyBlains22‘ outlasted all of them to win $8,573.25 while ‘smoker364’ came in second place for $6,110.55 and ‘PHV0311’ earned $4,355.80 for coming in third place.
The only event other than the Main Event to eclipse the six-figure prizepool mark was Event #31 ($250 NL Sunday Special SE) which had 461 entrants for a $107,413 prizepool. ‘GmdChalengChmp‘ secured a $19,161.33 score for outlasting the entire field.
Two players each managed to score a pair of MICOOP titles and one of them won both events in a 24-hour span. On Sunday, February 21, ‘sexycaitlyn‘ wound up on top of Event #6 ($200 NL Sunday Special SE) after the final four players agreed to a deal. The next night ‘sexycaitlyn’ scored an outright victory in Event #11 ($100 NL 4-Max). The two wins earned the player $14,923.40.
The second player to secure two victories was ‘Coolriver84‘. On Sunday, February 28, they outlasted 318 entries in Event #34 ($100 NL 6-Max) to win $5,495.38. Then, on the final night of the series, Monday, March 8, they chopped Event #59 ($100 Nightly Stars SE) with two other players to earn $6,629.72 and the title.
While the overall prizepools went well passed the total guarantee, there were three events that failed to meet the guarantee. The first two came on Sunday, February 28. Event #33 ($50 PLO 8-Max Turbo) drew just 191 runners and missed the $10,000 guarantee by $1,309.50 and Event #35 ($75 NL Hyper-Turbo Sunday Supersonic SE) had a $5,265.50 overlay on the $20,000 guarantee after just 209 players entered. The final event with an overlay was Event #57 ($200 NL 6-Max Turbo) which had 109 entries to fall $9,726.00 short of the $30,000 guarantee.
Complete MICOOP Results
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