One of the most anticipated online poker tournament series in the industry is set to take place at PokerStars from January 22^nd to February 1^st. With 50 events and $15 million GTD, the Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) is designed to suit fans of all poker games and formats, with a Main Event guaranteeing $2 million.

Members of the world’s largest online poker site can look forward to anywhere from four to six events every day of the online poker festival. The series kicks off with four events on Thursday, January 22^nd. The first presents one of the best values, featuring a $27 buy-in NLHE 6-Max Turbo tournament with Re-Entry and $500k GTD. The 6-Max and Turbo combination is sure to result in hyper-speed action any grinder can truly appreciate.

PokerStars 2015 TCOOP

Then on Saturday, Jan 24^th, two events should draw a great deal of attention as the TCOOP features a $215 NHLE Turbo Zoom Poker tourney with $400k GTD, followed by a $215 NHLE Heads-Up event with $250k up for grabs. Thursday, Jan 29^th, another high-profile event for Pot Limit Omaha fans will take place, paying $100,000 to the top performers in an $87 4-Max PLO tournament.

The hits keep on coming in the 2015 TCOOP with a $215 H.O.R.S.E. competition guaranteed at $50k and a $215 Super Knockout Heads-Up PLO, both slated for Saturday, Jan 31^st. Then on Sunday, Feb 1^st, not one, but two main events will play out in the 4^th annual PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker. The first is a $320 8-Game Mix with $100k GTD, followed by the more traditional $700 TCOOP NLHE Main Event guaranteeing the largest prize of the series, $2,000,000.

Wrapping things up is the final event of the online poker series, aptly titled the Supersonic TCOOP Wrap-Up. This hyper-turbo tournament carries a $215 buy-in and promises a minimum prize pool of half a million dollars.

Team PokerStars Pros are already gearing up for the Turbo Championship of Online Poker, and will be out in full force to claim their share of the $15 million in guarantees. Pro poker players like Team PokerStars’ Mickey Peterson and Triple Crown winner Jake Cody particularly appreciate the speed at which each event in the ‘Turbo’ series generally concludes.

The TCOOP is “an awesome series because the tournaments are so quick and varied,” said Cody. “You don’t have to be up all night to win some huge money and the range of formats and game choices is so diverse.”

A fan of mobile poker, Peterson chimed in with similar sentiments, saying “I love how most of the events won’t take more than a couple of hours to complete and they are perfect to play on a tablet.” He continued by describing some of his other favorite elements of the Turbo Championship of Online Poker. “Turbo tournaments require a different set of skills compared to other tournament series…they also provide constant action.”

As is customary, PokerStars is running a throng of satellite competitions allowing members to qualify for any of the 50 events on the TCOOP schedule. Satellites can be entered for as little as 1 Frequent Player Point (FPP) or $0.11. See the full schedule of TCOOP Events and Qualifiers here.

When it rains, it pours. There’s a reason that saying became so popular over the centuries, and it couldn’t provide a more appropriate description of the online poker news headlines flooding France at the moment. In the last week alone, Winamax has reclaimed the top spot in the French online poker market, PokerStars has cancelled its intended stop in Paris along the French Poker Series (FPS), and a meeting between players and the state’s internet poker regulator, ARJEL, actually ended on a positive note.

Winamax seizes #1 spot from PokerStars

In what could be the most surprising story of the entire month, Winamax has arrogated the title of #1 French online poker site from PokerStars.fr. The former leader held onto a slight lead for awhile, but a recent dip in activity has dropped PokerStars down to an average of just 900 concurrent players over the last 7 days, while Winamax’s numbers rose to 1,250. The original online poker site of France now maintains a sizable 35% lead over PokerStars in the region.

PokerStars scratches Paris off French Poker Series

The Paris leg of the FPS was set to kick off on November 21^st, 2014 with a series of events leading up to a $1,100 Main Event. Unfortunately for professional poker players all throughout Europe and beyond, legal issues resulted in the closure of the Cercle Cadet, the live poker room where the FPS Paris was slated to take place.

The poker room (among others) was raided by French authorities on October 14^th. With no insight as to when the location will be allowed to reopen, FPS President Cédric Billot said, “it was impossible to find, in such a short time, another trusted partner that would allow us to organize the FPS in Paris and in optimal conditions.”

PokerStars.fr assured live and online poker players who had already qualified via satellites to play in the event that they would receive some form of compensation. “We are really sorry to be forced to cancel this FPS stop,” said a representative of PokerStars.fr, who then alluded to a possible means of recompense when he added, “…we still have some other great events for our players as the ones in Deauville, Namur, Prague, or even the French Championship of Online Poker (FCOOP),” are still scheduled to take place.

Positive Meeting between ARJEL and French Online Poker Players

A long-awaited meeting was held this week that allowed French online poker players to voice their concerns about the ring-fenced market to ARJEL, the state’s regulatory body.  A multitude of issues were discussed, but added to the agenda at the last minute was the collapse of Europoker.fr and the absence of 6-figures worth of player funds. Online poker companies are required to keep segregated accounts, holding all player funds separate from company funds, to ensure that they will be able to fulfill account withdrawals should the company go under. However, when EP MEDIA’s subsidiary, Europoker, went under, only the amounts deposited by players were held in the segregated accounts.

There was no money in the account to cover players who exchanged their bonuses and tournament tickets for cash, nor additional funds to cover the value of bonuses and tournament tickets that had not yet been cashed in. ARJEL assured members of the defunct online poker site that their legal director, Frederick Guerchoun, would be discussing the matter at length with the EP MEDIA’s liquidators.