PokerStars announced the schedule for the 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker, or SCOOP

One of the largest online poker festivals of the year is less than a month away. And this time around, it’s bigger and better, with over $40 million in guaranteed prize money ripe for the taking.

On Tuesday, PokerStarsannounced the schedule for the 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker, or SCOOP as it’s more commonly known. The series runs for two weeks starting May 8, and this is the eighth installment of PokerStars’ spring festival.

Last year, 46 events ran during the 2015 SCOOP. This year, nine more are on the docket, raising the total to 55. Since every event has a Low, Medium, and High-stakes version, there are actually 165 total tournaments as part of this year’s SCOOP schedule. The guaranteed prize pool is more than $40 million.

Last year’s SCOOP Player of the Series, Jason ‘treysfull21’ Mercier, said, “After a very successful SCOOP last year, winning three titles and the overall Player of the Series, I’m going to be fully focused on defending that title and taking down some more events. There are 165 tournaments and an incredible array of games and formats. It’s just a great time of year for online poker players and I can’t wait for the series to start.”

The 2016 SCOOP Main Event is a monster. Its Low-stakes version carries a $100 buy-in and a $1 million guarantee. Its Medium-stakes version has a $1,000 buy-in and a $2 million guarantee. And the High-stakes SCOOP Main Event has a rich $10,000 buy-in with a $4 million guaranteed prize pool. It should feature the best of the best that the online poker world has to offer. All three SCOOP Main Events begin on Sunday, May 22.

Last year, Mustapha ‘lasagnaaammm’ Kanit won the SCOOP Main Event outright for $1.3 million. It was his second SCOOP title and, at the time, was the sixth largest online cash ever by a member of PocketFives. Kanit defeated Emil ‘Maroonlime’ Patel heads-up, with the runner-up getting over $700,000.

The first-ever Player’s Choice event will run during the 2016 SCOOP. It’s the 13th event on the docket and consists of a $7.50 No Limit Hold’em Hyper-Turbo Progressive Super-Knockout, an $82 No Limit Hold’em Eight-Max Progressive Knockout, and a $700 No Limit Hold’em Progressive Super-Knockout.

The first non-heads-up High-Roller event in SCOOP history will also take place this year. It’s the 24th event on the schedule and takes the form of an Eight-Max No Limit Hold’em event with buy-ins of $215, $2,100, and $21,000.

Also playing out during the 2016 SCOOP will be the first Three-Max event ever (Event 45), the first Mixed-Max event ever (Event 47), and the first Phase event ever (Event 51). “Multiple Phase 1s will take place throughout SCOOP, leading up to the final Phase 1s on May 22,” a PokerStars press release said about Event 51. “Phase 2s (one per stake level) will take place later on May 22.”

The vast majority of SCOOP events – 140 to be exact – are two-day tournaments. Three tournaments will stretch for three days and the rest will take only one day to complete.

Throughout the 2016 SCOOP, a Player of the Series leaderboard will be kept. The winners of the Low, Medium, and High-stakes leaderboards will get a trophy, a WCOOP Main Event ticket, and $5,000 in cash, while the overall leaderboard winner will get a trophy and $20,000 in cash.

Online qualifiers are running now, with satellites starting from $0.11 or 1 StarsCoin.