A weekend is coming up on the calendar, which inevitably means that another poker tournament series is starting on PokerStars, or so it seems. This coming Sunday, though, there really is a series kicking off: Midstakes Madness.
Running August 6-13, Midstakes Madness features 61 events with buy-ins ranging from $11 to $109. Now, for me, $109 is most definitely in the “high stakes” category, but I understand that in the grand scheme of the poker tournament world, loads of people won’t even touch a tournament until the buy-in hits at least three-figures, so midstakes it is.
The highlight event, according to PokerStars, is the $109 Sunday Million Progressive Knockout Main Event, which features a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. As a reminder, in a progressive knockout tournament, everyone has a bounty on their head. When a player eliminates an opponent, they earn half that person’s bounty, while the other half is added to their own bounty.
Among the other tournaments PokerStars wants us to know about:
$11 Sunday Storm Mini Main Event (Sunday, August 13)
$109 Sunday Million Progressive Knockout (Sunday, August 6)
$109 Thursday Thrill Special Edition (Thursday, August 10)
$55 Mini Bounty Builder High Roller Special Edition (Sunday, August 13)
$22 Mini Battle Royale Special Edition (Wednesday, August 9)
Midstakes Madness is one of the first tournament series to make full use of PokerStars’ new Power Path system. Power Path is effectively a “steps” satellite progression, so it should be familiar to most online poker players.
Anyone who rakes at least one cent on Stars gets a free Power Path Step 1 ticket (one per day), though they only cost 50 cents, so it’s not cost prohibitive to start at the bottom. From there, the basics are fairly straightforward, but there are forks in the path along the way. In the simplest path, win a Step 1 Spin & Go and move on to Step 2, which is either a $1 Sit & Go or $1.50 MTT. Win that and advance to Step 3, an $11 MTT. From there, Step 4 is a $109 MTT.
Steps 1-3 can be entered directly without a free ticket or a ticket from the previous step. Step 1, on rare occasions, also awards bigger prizes, like a $109 Bronze Power Pass, a $2,500 Silver Power Pass, or even a $10,300 Gold Power Pass. This all depends on the luck of the prize multiplier.
Step 4 can award all three different Power Passes, which can then be used to enter PokerStars tournaments, like the ones in Midstakes Madness.
