December 19 2011, Brett Collson

On Monday, PokerStars announced the creation of a new tournament series that will leave online grinders drooling all over their keyboard next month. The Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) will kick off on Jan. 19, 2012, and will feature 50 events with a variety of different games in a fast-paced turbo blind structure. The series will conclude on Sunday, Jan. 29, with a $700 buy-in Main Event followed by a $215 Hyper-Turbo “Wrap Party” event.

Buy-ins for the inaugural TCOOP range from $5 all the way to the $2,100 High Roller, which will also take place on Sunday, Jan. 29. Players can find at least four tournaments each day until the series’ completion.

Here’s a look at the full schedule of the Turbo Championship of Online Poker:

Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012
Event 1: $22 NL Hold’em [6-Max]
Event 2: $33 NL Omaha Hi/Lo
Event 3: $134 NL Hold’em [Knockout]
Event 4: $33 NL Hold’em

Friday, Jan. 20, 2012
Event 5: $22 PL Draw
Event 6: $55 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Shootout]
Event 7: $22 NL Hold’em [Rebuys]
Event 8: $55 NL Hold’em [Big Antes, 2x Chance]

Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012
Event 9: $55 PL Omaha [Knockout]
Event 10: $21 NL Hold’em [Rebuys, 3x-Turbo]
Event 11: $109 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up]
Event 12: $33 Triple Stud
Event 13: $33 TCOOP Special – Saturday Speedway

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012
Event 14: $55 NL Omaha Hi/Lo [6-Max, 2R1A]
Event 15: $55 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo]
Event 16: $55 NL Hold’em [Knockout]
Event 17: $109 NL Hold’em [1R1A]
Event 18: $22 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys, 2x Turbo]
Event 19: $215 TCOOP Special – Sunday Supersonic [Hyper-Turbo]

Monday, Jan. 23, 2012
Event 20: $55 PL Omaha [6-Max, 1R1A]
Event 21: $44 NL Hold’em [4-Max]
Event 22: $82 FL Omaha Hi/Lo
Event 23: $153 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo]

Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012
Event 24: $109 PL Omaha Hi/Lo [6-Max]
Event 25: $215 NL Hold’em
Event 26: $22 Stud
Event 27: $22 NL Hold’em [Rebuys, 2x-Turbo]

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012
Event 28: $82 NL Hold’em [2x Chance]
Event 29: $109 NL Hold’em [Shootout]
Event 30: $11 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys, 3x Turbo]
Event 31: $22 Stud Hi/Lo

Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
Event 32: $33 NL Hold’em
Event 33: $55 NL Hold’em [Rebuys, 2x-Turbo]
Event 34: $22 Stud
Event 35: $215 NL Hold’em [2x Chance]

Friday, Jan. 27, 2012
Event 36: $82 NL Hold’em [6-Max]
Event 37: $55 PL Omaha [6-Max, 2R1A]
Event 38: $55 NL Hold’em [Ante Up!]
Event 39: $109 FL Hold’em [6-Max]

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012
Event 40: $109 HORSE
Event 41: $109 PL Omaha [Heads-Up]
Event 42: $33 NL Hold’em [Rebuys, 2x Turbo]
Event 43: $109 NL Omaha Hi/Lo [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo]
Event 44: $33 TCOOP Special – Saturday Speedway

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012
Event 45: $109 NL Hold’em
Event 46: $215 NL Hold’em
Event 47: $2,100 NL Hold’em [High Roller]
Event 48: $320 8-Game
Event 49: $700 NL Hold’em Main Event
Event 50: $215 TCOOP Wrap Party [Hyper-Turbo]

For full information, including a schedule of satellites to each event, visit the Turbo Championship of Online Poker web site.

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October 23 2011, Eric Ramsey

Day 2 of the PokerStars.it European Poker Tour San Remo saw 482 of the original 879 starters return to the Casino di San Remo to try and accumulate a formidable chip stack. The early pace of play was absolutely torrid, and astonishingly, the field nearly reached the money over the course of seven furious levels. More than 300 players were eliminated, just sixteen shy of bursting the bubble. When the bags came out around one o’clock in the morning, Joseph Cheong sat atop the field, thanks to a late surge. He bagged up a whopping 632,000 enough to give him more than 150 big blinds to return to on Day 3.

You’ll know Joseph Cheong best for his place among the 2010 WSOP November Nine, where he finished in third place for more than $4 million. That’s not too shabby, but Cheong is also somewhat familiar with success on the European Poker Tour trail. In Season 7, he finished runner-up to McLean Karr in the £10,000 Turbo High Roller event at EPT London, adding another quarter-million dollars to his bankroll. He has still yet to cash in an EPT Main Event, but that streak is a near-lock to come to an end on Monday in Italy.

Cheong began Day 2 with an above-average stack of 70,000, but Nick Yunis took more than half of those chips during the first level when his turned a flush. A couple of hours later, Cheong was all the way up over 300,000. He and Anatoli Ozhenilok went back and forth for a while, then Cheong was moved to a table that included Shaun Deeb and a few amateur Italians. That’s when he went to work.

During the last level of the night, he broke through the roof when he picked up aces in a huge three-way pot. In an odd spot, Deeb made a squeeze of a four-bet behind Piero Guido’s shove and a Cheong flat-call. But Cheong reraised all-in, and Deeb was forced to abandon his hand and surrender about a third of his chips that were already in the pot. Deeb managed to dodge Cheong’s aces, but Guido and his went broke, and Cheong won a follow-up pot with pocket queens to vault to the top with 650,000 chips.

As the day wore on, the cream really began to rise to the top of the field. While Cheong was busy taking the chip lead, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst was pounding her tough table that included Salman Behbehani and Kevin MacPhee. She had an above-average stack all day long, but she got a big boost during the closing minutes of the day, just as Cheong did.

Behbehani was on the bad end of that clash, and Selbst played the hand like a boss, to be frank. The two of them had been attacking each others’ raises unrelentingly, and this pot was four-bet by Behbehani before the flop. Selbst called, and she called another bet on the flop before things got really serious. On the turn, Behbehani check-shoved with , but Selbst had turned the joint with her unlikely . Behbehani couldn’t pair the board to stay alive, and Selbst doubled up over 400,000. She finished with 497,000 to end the day near the top of the pack heading down the stretch run.

Other notables who found themselves flush with chips include Daniel Neilson (584,500), Mustapha Kanit (577,000), William Thorson (508,500), Sergey Tikhonov (504,500), and start-of-day big stacks Nick Yunis (435,500) and Chris McClung (402,000).

World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champion Elio Fox just missed the overnight top ten, bagging up 346,000 to get well within striking distance in 11th place. He’s on a heater right now on this European vacation, a poker phenomenon that is not to be underestimated. From the Team PokerStars Pros, Lex Veldhuis (341,000), Johnny Lodden (287,000), and the EPT’s founder, John Duthie (147,500) are also still in the hunt.

The 144 who have made Day 3 will return to play on Monday at 1400 CET (0500 PDT). Sixteen will fall without a payday, and the final 128 will all be in the money and onto the next stage of this event – the push to the final table.

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