Four players have a shot at first PokerStars 'Grand Slam' during TCOOP 2016

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Four players have the chance to make history at PokerStars, an Amaya Inc. brand, during the next two weeks, as the 2016 Turbo Championship of Online Poker affords each member of the quartet the opportunity to become the first PokerStars Grand Slam winner (TCOOP, SCOOP, WCOOP and Sunday Million titles).

With Sunday Million, SCOOP and WCOOP wins already under their belts, David "Gunslinger3" Bach, Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov, Paul "paulgees81" Volpe, and Andrey "Kroko-dill" Zaichenko need just a TCOOP victory to win "Triple COOP" and "Grand Slam" honors in one fell swoop. TCOOP, which features 50 events, starts tomorrow and runs for 11 days until Jan. 31.

In addition to the Grand Slam, other honours are up for grabs this Championship. To date only two players – James "Andy McLEOD" Obst and Shawn "buck21" Buchanan – hold "Triple COOP" honours (TCOOP, SCOOP and WCOOP titles), but a further 55 players could join that exclusive club by capturing a TCOOP title this month.

FIRST EVENT
TCOOP kicks off tomorrow with Event 1, which has the potential to be the biggest field ever for a Turbo Championship event, with a three-phase structure, the first two phases of which have been running for nearly two weeks. The final Phase 1 and Phase 2 tournaments take place at 10 a.m. 11:30 a.m. ET tomorrow, with Phase 3 beginning at 1 p.m. ET when TCOOP begins in earnest. Players must have qualified through Phases 1 and 2 to play in Phase 3 where the guaranteed prize pool of $1.5 million awaits. Players can play as many Phase 1s as they want until they qualify for Phase 2.

Important note: at the time of this press release, TCOOP-01 is forecasted to have an overlay (guarantee exceeding buy-in prize pool) of approximately $500,000. Of course, PokerStars will pay out the full guarantee amount regardless of the buy-in prize pool, so players who qualify for Phase 3 will likely enjoy a huge slice of extra tournament value.

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
As for the rest of TCOOP, the focal point is the $700 No Limit Hold'em Main Event, which takes place on Jan. 31 at 3:30 p.m. ET, and has a $2 million guarantee, but there are some new and exciting events for players to take part in, including:

-- The first three-phase tournament in PokerStars "COOP" history (see above)
-- Progressive Ultra-Knockout tournaments in TCOOP for the first time (Events 03 and 34, where 75% of each buy-in goes to KO prize money)
-- Debut of 4x-Turbo tournaments in TCOOP (Event 10)
-- A Hyper-Turbo, Deep, 1 Rebuy 1 Add-on tournament (Event 50), which has only previously been deployed for satellites

PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Additional prizes are awarded for players who do consistently well throughout the championship. Here is the list of prizes for the top 100 finishers on the leaderboard:

-- 1st: Champion's Trophy and 2015 SCOOP [H] Main Event ticket
-- 2nd: 2015 SCOOP $5,200 ticket
-- 3rd-5th: 2015 SCOOP $2,100 ticket
-- 6th-10th: 2015 SCOOP [M] Main Event ticket worth $1,050
-- 11th-100th: 2015 SCOOP [L] Main Event ticket worth $109

ONLINE SATELLITES
PokerStars is running online qualifiers to every event in TCOOP, with cash buy-ins starting from just $0.11 and StarsCoin satellites from 1 StarsCoin. Log in to the PokerStars client and click on "All Games" > "Online Events" > "TCOOP" > "All" to find the full range of satellites.