The 2021 Turbo Series is in the books, at the end of two-and-a-bit weeks of the most rapid tournament poker. In all, 134 tournaments whizzed past, crowning 134 separate champions, with prize pools topping $29 million.

Here’s a look at all the Turbo Series numbers, from the biggest winners to the quickest tournaments; the players with the highest hourly rate and the perennial bridesmaids.

Top level stats

Turbo Series guaranteed $25,220,000 in prize pools and, when all was said and done, that number was comfortably surpassed. Here are the top-line stats, with a deeper dive to follow.

Tournaments completed: 134
Entries: 500,114 (inc. 107,964 re-entries)
Prize pools: $29,156,565.12
First place payouts: $4,040,981.76 (inc. $761,643.50 in bounties)

Biggest prize pools

Turbo Series this year had three tournaments with guarantees of $1 million or more. Each of them broke that guarantee and were the three richest events held across the series. Conveniently enough, the next two biggest tournaments had the next two biggest guarantees, and all the way down through the schedule. Here’s the top eight tournaments from the 134 on offer this time around:

$2,244,000 – Event #127 $1,050 NLHE, Main Event – High, $2M Gtd
$1,125,000 – Event #64 $1,050 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $1M Gtd
$1,093,250 – Event #128 $55 NLHE, Main Event – Low, $1M Gtd
$935,000 – Event #126 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $750K Gtd
$830,000 – Event #126 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $750K Gtd
$687,500 – Event #66 $109 NLHE, PKO, $500K Gtd
$662,400 – Event #130 $109 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $500K Gtd
$542,400 – Event #4 $215 NLHE, $500K Gtd

Biggest first prizes

It tends to follow that the winner of the Main Event picks up the biggest first prize, and so it proved this time around in Turbo Series. But the two $5K buy-in events also offered great riches, particularly to David “MissOracle” Yan, who won the $5K PKO and picked up heaps of bounties too — $128,437.49 worth, to be precise. That bounty haul alone would have been in the top five winner’s prizes handed out during turbo series. Here are the top 10, where the † symbol indicates bounties are included:

$332,163.90 – gusmaa (Brazil), $1,050 NLHE, Main Event – High
$210,787.20† – MissOracle (New Zealand), $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO
$168,468.10† – Biceps82 (UK), $1,050 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO
$152,743.58 – FreeLancerZZ (Malta), $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max
$81,133.85 – AdrianoK20 (Belarus), $55 NLHE, Main Event – Low
$79,274.22 – WATnlos (Austria), $215 NLHE
$73,553.47 – ShipitFTW911 (Sweden), $530 NLHE, 8-Max
$68,932.61 – AxelwOw~ (Russia), NLHE, 6-Max, Sunday Supersonic SE, Hyper
$65,034.19† – Internett93o (Brazil), $1,050 NLHE, PKO, $400K Gtd
$64,172.19† – Sullo88 (Ireland), $1,050 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, Daily Cooldown SE

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Biggest fields…

Phase events offer multiple chances for players to get involved and tend to run throughout a series’ duration. It follows that the field sizes are almost always the biggest. The two phase events in Turbo Series had $11 buy-ins and attracted more than 40,000 entries to each of them. It wasn’t quite enough to reach the $500K guarantees, but certainly made for some still competition.

In all, 10 tournaments had more than 10,000 entries. They were:

44,452 – Event #65 $11 NLHE, Phase 2, $500K Gtd
40,808 – Event #129 $11 NLHE, 8-Max, Phase 2, $500K Gtd
21,865 – Event #128 $55 NLHE, Main Event – Low, $1M Gtd
14,534 – Event #63 $22 NLHE, Double Deuce SE, $200K Gtd
14,081 – Event #125 $22 NLHE, 8-Max, Double Deuce SE, $200K Gtd
12,091 – Event #2 $11 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, Hyper, $100K Gtd
11,410 – Event #123 $22 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO, $125K Gtd
10,887 – Event #108 $11 NLHE, 8-Max, Big Spider, $100K Gtd
10,632 – Event #132 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, Sunday Supersonic SE, $275K Gtd
10,016 – Event #70 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO, Sunday Supersonic SE, $400K Gtd

It’s worth singling out Event #2 in that list, which was the only freezeout tournament to make its way on there. Its 12,091 were all unique entries.

…and the smallest

Another well-established pattern repeated during Turbo Series, governing the smallest field sizes. By and large, two things ensure exclusive fields: high buy-ins and unfamiliar variants. The Venn diagram overlaps perfectly in the $530 8-Game, where 88 entries was the fewest of the series, while the two $5K events also feature. Here are the top five smallest fields:

88 – Event #28 $530 8-Game, 6-Max, $50K Gtd
166 – Event #3 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, $750K Gtd
187 – Event #126 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $750K Gtd
218 – Event #90 $530 PLO, 6-Max, $100K Gtd
220 – Event #98 $109 FLHE, 6-Max, $30K Gtd

Turbo? Turbo.

It’s right there in the title: Turbo Series. This is the perfect schedule of events for people who don’t like to hang around. But just how quick is Turbo Series? Here are some numbers to give you an idea.

Seven events in the series were played as “Time” tournaments, where the action stops after a predetermined number of minutes and the prize pool is chopped among those players still remaining. One of them was a mere 30 minutes long (or 37 minutes if you include breaks) and that was the quickest event of the series. The other six were 67 minutes long, including breaks.

If we ignore these events, here are the next five quickest tournaments:

2hrs 3mins: Event #111 $55 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO, Short PKO
2hrs 21mins: Event #50 $530 NLHE, 6-Max, Daily Supersonic SE, Hyper
2hrs 22mins: Event #95 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO
2hrs 23mins: Event #112 $530 NLHE, 6-Max, Daily Supersonic SE
2hrs 25mins: Event #110 $215 NLO8, 6-Max, PKO

And here are the five longest tournaments:

8hrs 22mins: Event #128 $55 NLHE, Main Event – Low
8hrs 12mins: Event #63 $22 NLHE, Double Deuce SE
7hrs 56mins: Event #125 $22 NLHE, 8-Max, Double Deuce SE
7hrs 43mins: Event #123 $22 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO
7hrs 37mins: Event #52 $11 NLHE

In total, the 134 tournaments of Turbo Series ran for 40,551 minutes, or 675 hours and 51 minutes.

The average duration of a Turbo Series tournament was 303 minutes, or a little over 5 hours. That’s from the moment the first card was dealt to the very last.

What does all that mean for the hourly rate? Well, let’s take a look. It took Pedro “gusmaa” Madeira 6hrs 43mins to win the Main Event and pick up $332,163.90. That works out as an hourly rate of $49,453.68. That’s the highest of the series.

Here are the top money earners by hourly rate:

$49,453.68 p/h: gusmaa – Event #127 $1,050 NLHE, Main Event – High
$47,367.91 p/h: MissOracle – Event #126 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO
$33,085.25 p/h: FreeLancerZZ – Event #3 $5,200 NLHE, 8-Max
$27,542.47 p/h: Biceps82 – Event #64 $1,050 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO
$26,856.86 p/h: AxelwOw~ – Event #8 $530 NLHE, 6-Max, Sunday Supersonic SE

Multiple titles

In most tournament series on PokerStars, there are usually at least a handful of players who manage to win multiple titles. But it didn’t happen this year in Turbo Series. Even considering the volatility inherent in turbo format events, it’s actually quite surprising that we can report no double champions through the 134 events.

There were, however, a few near misses. Four players who won titles also came second in another event, and Jans “Graftekkel” Arends did it in the same night. However Arends, like the other three players who finished first and second, got his silver medal first, so was never actually playing to become a two-time champion.

Three other players played heads-up for a title twice, but finished second on both occasions.

Won one, runner up in another:

DubbCitySauce
1st – Event #84 $215 NLHE, Fat Tuesday SE
2nd – Event #25 $109 NLHE

Graftekkel
1st – Event #95 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO
2nd – Event #92 $1,050 NLHE, PKO

Internett93o
1st – Event #92 $1,050 NLHE, PKO
2nd – Event #82 $215 NLHE, 4-Max

pantanal
1st – Event #87 $109 NLHE
2nd – Event #43 $22 NLHE

Two-time runner-ups:

JackRipperJr
Event #40 $530 NLHE, 6-Max, $250K Gtd
Event #90 $530 PLO, 6-Max, $100K Gtd

looserfl
Event #130 $109 NLHE, 8-Max, PKO, $500K Gtd
Event #49 $22 NLHE, 8-Max, Time KO, Hyper, $25K Gtd

N1ce Clunge
Event #132 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, Sunday Supersonic SE, $275K Gtd
Event #70 $215 NLHE, 6-Max, PKO, Sunday Supersonic SE, $400K Gtd

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The best in the world

Every day in our morning reports, we update a countries leader board listing where all the titles are going. Brazil almost always comes out on top in these major series races, and this time was no different — although the South Americans needed three titles on the final day to win through this time around. Brazil ended with 18 titles to the UK’s 17.

Brazil had been trailing the UK until the final day and put on a spectacular last push to win it. It would have been anomalous, however, if the title had gone anywhere else: Brazilians also finished second in 21 events, while Brits massively overachieved in heads-up play. UK-based players finished second only 12 times.

Here’s the completed countries leader board, followed by the leader board for runners-up. As you can see, Canadians again need to work on their heads-up game. Players from Canada won seven titles, but were beaten heads up 14 times, the second most of any nation (after Brazil).

Winning countries:

18 titles – Brazil
17 – UK
13 – Netherlands
12 – Russia
7 – Canada
5 – Germany, Poland, Sweden
4 – Austria, Estonia, Greece, Romania, Ukraine
3 – Hungary, Moldova
2 – Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway
1 – Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Thailand.

Second place finishes:

21 – Brazil
14 – Canada
12 – Netherlands, UK
11 – Russia
9 – Germany
6 – Norway, Ukraine
5 – Finland
4 – Argentina, Denmark
3 – Austria, Poland, Romania
2 – Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta
1 – Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Czech Republic, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Peru, Sweden.

Players from Thailand and Slovenia won titles the only time they got heads up, and New Zealanders won both times they were in the final two. The heads-up beasts are Moldovans, however. They picked up three titles but never finished runner up.

*****

That brings us to the end of another thrilling Turbo Series. You can find all the reports on the Turbo Series page, and check out the full results on the results page.

The next major tournament series on PokerStars is SCOOP, which will run from
April 4-28, 2021. Look out for our daily update.

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