Has it been that long already? It has been seven years since the world’s largest internet poker room, PokerStars, introduced its now-famous Sunday Million tournament. To celebrate, Stars is hosting a special Sunday Million 7th Anniversary tourney and for this party, it’s the host that is giving the gifts.
The Sunday Million 7th Anniversary tournament will be held on Sunday (obviously), March 3rd at 2:30pm ET. PokerStars is guaranteeing a prize pool of $7 million as well as guaranteeing at least $1 million to the winner. The direct buy-in for the huge event is $215. Warning: if you plan on making a deep run, expect a long, long day.
Of course, not everyone can just plunk down $215 that easily, so PokerStars is running all sorts of satellites in the days leading up to the tournament. On the day of the 7th Anniversary tournament, there will be an $11 “Deadline Satellite,” which will award a minimum of 1,000 seats into the highlight event. Its name is quite apt, as the satellite starts just five minutes before the Sunday Million 7th Anniversary tournament. But no worries, there will be plenty of time for the satellite winners to hop over to the $215 tournament and enter late.
There are also “Feeder Satellites” into the $11 Deadline Satellite. Both types will cost just $1 with one batch starting hourly from February 24th at midnight and the other starting every 30 minutes from March 1st at midnight.
Players can also use Frequent Player Points (FPP) in a series of satellites to qualify for the Sunday Million 7th Anniversary tournament. For 50 FPPs, players can enter either a standard satellite on March 2nd at 12:30pm ET or a turbo satellite on the same day at 2:00pm ET (or both). The former guarantees at least 300 seats into a Round 2 satellite, while the latter guarantees 150 seats. Round 2 will take place at 2:30pm ET that day and guarantees at least 200 entries into the 7th Anniversary tournament. Players can also buy-in to Round 2 directly for 500 FPPs.
There are also regular daily qualifiers into the Sunday Million.
Last year’s Sunday Million 6th Anniversary tournament saw 33,732 players compete for a prize pool of $6,746,400, three-quarters of a million dollars above the guarantee. 4,392 made the money, with $1,064,737.08 allocated for first place. “slyfox151” was the eventual winner, taking home $480,761.38 after an eight-way deal in which the final eight players agreed to a chip count chop, setting an extra $120,000 aside for the winner. “toode” was actually the biggest money winner, cashing for $590,482.92.
The largest Sunday Million in PokerStars’ history was a little over a year ago, on December 8, 2011, when 62,116 entered the competition. Canada’s “First-Eagle” won $1,146,574.65 from a total prize pool of $12,423,200.
