It has certainly had its issues of late, but the Winning Poker Network (WPN) has been forging ahead undeterred. The latest from the network that includes such online poker rooms as America’s Card Room, BetCRIS, and True Poker: a super-sized Beast promotion for the New Year.
The Beast is a weekly rake race on the Winning Poker Network that, frankly, should probably get more attention than it does because it is quite a generous promo. It is open to anybody playing on real money cash game tables and does not cost anything to enter. Of course, as it is a rake race, there are a select few players who will have a good shot at winning a large chunk of money, but hey, if you play on the network, you’re in the running.
For the promotion, WPN takes a portion of the rake and puts into a progressive jackpot for the Beast. This is not extra rake charged to players, it is a piece of the standard rake set aside for the rake race. With two players at the table, two cents are removed for every six cents in total rake, up to a max of four cents per hand. With three players, the max is eight cents, and with four players or more, the max that can go to the jackpot is 24 cents. One point is earned for the table for every two cents rake that is “fed” to The Beast, so that means a maximum of 12 points can be awarded each hand. Those points are then distributed to the players based on their weighted average contribution to the rake.
Points get added up and tallied on the weekly leader board. At the end of each week, the top points earners win a piece of the jackpot. First prize, according to WPN’s table, equates to 9.75 percent of the total jackpot, capped at $20,000. The total number of places paid out is based on the prize pool. In an example given by WPN, 200 places are paid with a prize pool of $50,000 and 360 places are paid with a prize pool of $90,000. At the moment, there is nearly $23,000 in the cash prize pool (the promo is also awarding a tournament package jackpot) with 69 players getting paid. 69th place currently has 2,427.68 points.
For January, WPN has upped the stakes, elevating The Beast to a promotion called The Beast Roars. It is the same exact promotion, except that each week for the upcoming month, an extra $20,000 will be added to the prize pool, doled out in $1,000 payments to each of the top 20 leader board finishers. Doing the math…carrying the one…that is $80,000 in added cash in January.
A couple weeks ago, WPN made poker headlines when its ambitious $1 million guaranteed tournament was cancelled after several hours because of a DDoS attack. The network had been the victim of similar attacks in the weeks leading up to the tournament, but had thought it was out of the woods when nothing had happened for a couple days preceding the event. The network refunded everyone’s money and rescheduled the tournament for February.
