PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB Reduce Sunday Major Guarantees

In light of the developments that took place in the U.S. online poker market last week, the three largest formerly USA-facing online poker rooms each made significant changes to their major tournaments on Sunday. PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UB, all of which had their primary domains seized by the Department of Justice on Friday, sliced the guarantees of their flagship tournaments, some by as much as half.

PokerStars, still the world’s largest online poker room, decreased the guaranteed prize pool of its Sunday Million ($1.5 million previously, now $1 million) and Sunday Warm-Up (now $500,000) by a third and dropped the guarantees of the Sunday 500 (now $250,000) and Sunday Second Chance (now $125,000) by half. While the new guarantees were all met, the fields were noticeably smaller, as expected.

The Sunday Million saw 6,475 players take to the felts, compared to more than 8,200 the previous week. After a six-way chop, the winner took home $121,830, which was the smallest payout the tournament’s champ has seen in quite some time. Last week, Diego “diegoaiz” Aizenberg earned $243,400 for winning his second Sunday Million crown.

In the Sunday 500, PokerStars European Poker Tour Copenhagen champ Michael “Skämmes” Tureniec defeated Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek for the title and $58,000. The Warm-up title went to “campeao200,” who collected $69,000, and “smellmuth” picked up $28,000 for first place in the Second Chance.

Full Tilt Poker made the most drastic change to its Sunday schedule by dropping the guarantee of the 20th Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Event #1 from $3 million to $1 million. A total of 6,953 players participated in the $200 buy-in event, creating a prize pool of $1,390,600. Full Tilt Red Pro Søren Kongsgaard negotiated a three-way chop to collect $172,600, but “DQnk” binked the jersey and the top prize of $175,000.

Also affected were the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl and Sunday Mulligan. The Brawl had its $500,000 guarantee cut in half, while the Mulligan dipped from a $200,000 guarantee all the way down to $50,000. “Flying Smile” collected over $70,000 for their victory in the Brawl, and “virus83” earned over $18,000 for winning the Mulligan.

UB.com, which was the last of the big three to close its doors to new U.S. players, reduced its $200,000 Guaranteed to $75,000. The prize pool ultimately hit $87,000, with “JEANPALSON” collecting $21,800 for the top prize.

Sites that were unaffected by last week’s indictments didn’t make any changes to their Sunday tournaments. PartyPoker’s $250,000 Guarantee remained the same, as did Titan Poker’s $200,000 Guaranteed and Bodog’s $100,000 Guaranteed.

PokerScout.com‘s most recent update reported that PokerStars’ traffic was down 25% since Friday, while Full Tilt Poker’s dropped by 48% and the Cereus Network’s (UB and Absolute Poker) dipped by 39%. Sites still catering to U.S. customers that weren’t shut down have been thriving; the Merge Gaming Network saw traffic increase by 23%, Bodog was up 26%, and the Cake Poker Network had improved by 19%.

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the non-U.S. facing poker operators. PartyPoker’s traffic increased by 9% from the previous week, while the iPoker Network (up 4%), 888 (up 5%), and PKR (up 21%) all saw boosts.

Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for continuing updates on the crackdown of online poker in the U.S.