While the eyes of the entire poker world were fixed squarely on Las Vegas, online poker tournaments across the major sites continued as normal. The highlight of the week came on PokerStars, where every guarantee was doubled. Who needs the World Series of Poker when you have double guarantees on PokerStars? This meant the Sunday Million, a weekly tournament with a one million dollar guarantee, was actually the Sunday Two Million. The buy-in remained $215, attracting a ridiculously large field as you might expect. Three total tournaments on PokerStars this week offered $2.4 million in guarantees, much larger than twice the total tournament prize pool of the Full Tilt Poker $750K Guaranteed, UB $200K Guaranteed, and Bodog $100K Guaranteed combined. Let’s find the poker star in us this week in the online tournament roundup.
First and foremost, the marquee tournament this week was the PokerStars Sunday Million. In any other week, we’d be raving about the million dollar prize pool. With seven digits on the line each and every Sunday, this tournament attracts the very best tournament poker players on the planet along with your Average Joe trying to cash in on satellites or tournament dollars. This week, the normal 7,000 player field was not present. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even close. Instead, the guarantee of the Sunday Million was doubled, attracting a rousing 14,181 players. That’s more than double the size of the Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Let that sentence sink in for a second.
This week, timdawg888 took down the Sunday (Two) Million, winning $297,801. The tournament shattered its guarantee, much to the delight of xanja, who took home a rousing $198,534 for second place. PokerMurphy1 took third for $141,810. Rounding out the final nine were kpax22 (4th for $113,448), KAG1 (5th for $85,086), Roundhauskik (6th for $63,815), sjoko (7th for $45,379), Bumper111 (8th for $29,496), and funplay800 (9th for $21,272).
The Sunday Warm-Up offered up a million dollar guarantee this week. It’s normally a $500K guarantee, making this week’s tournament another popular affair. There were 5,357 entrants this week, creating a $1.07 million prize pool. Winning $137,675 for first place was Parnish, who outlasted Benjaphon heads up. Second place was worth $94,926. Rounding out the top three was Tgonz, who pocketed $62,677. The top eight finishers took home over $10,000, a solid return on a $215 investment.
Finally, the end of the top-tier tournaments at PokerStars every week is the Second Chance. Regularly offering up a $200,000 guarantee, the prize pool was doubled this week to $400K. Taking home $73,618 was donnysack, who took down the event, outlasting a field of 2,302 entrants. Coming in second place was hookembaby83, who cashed for $52,946. CPT CRUX was captain of third place, winning $38,213. Needless to say, these three tournaments generated a ton of interest in PokerStars this weekend. What else would you expect from the most popular online poker site around?
The guarantees return to normal next week on PokerStars. However, the Sunday Million, Sunday Warm-Up and Second Chance should be on your list of tournaments to play in every week. Visit PokerStars today and get yourself signed up.
