Guaranteed tournaments are one of the best values in tournament poker. Regardless of how many players enter the event, these tournaments normally will offer either a large prize pool or an excellent overlay. Ultimate Bet, a part of the CEREUS Network, has recently made a change with one of their more popular guaranteed tournaments that should excite the players on the site.
As with most online sites, Ultimate Bet offers a mid-week tournament that, despite its large buy in, normally draws some of the best professional online players, offers top notch competition and a chance to win some serious money. Their normal Wednesday night guaranteed tournament in the past offered a guaranteed pool of $100,000 but, due to a tremendous outpouring of players for the $1000 buy in event, they have upped the stakes another $50,000 and in the future will make the Wednesday night event a $150,000 Guaranteed Tournament.
Poker professional Annie Duke, a Poker News Daily guest columnist and featured player at Ultimate Bet, told Poker News Daily the reasoning behind UB’s move. “The numbers on that tournament have been awesome and definitely support the change to making it a $150,000 Guaranteed Tournament on Wednesdays,” Annie stated. “We’re all about giving players what they want and the players definitely want these bigger buy-in, lower variance tournaments. Ultimate Bet is happy to accommodate that and CEREUS promises to deliver bigger tournaments with bigger guarantees…changes like this back that up.”
A look at the February 4th $150,000 Guaranteed Tournament demonstrated the strength of the field as well as the desire of players to take part in such a tournament. An astounding 216 players ponied up the $1000+$50 buy in and the tables were awash with notable online players, including 2008 Ultimate Bet Yearly Tournament Leaderboard champion Jack “011POKERDR” Pan, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Cliff “JOHNNYBAX” Josephy, 2008 Online Player of the Year Alex “AJKHOOSIER1” Kamberis, and online and live professionals Kevin “BEL0WAB0VE” Saul, Bryan “BADBEATNINJA” Devonshire and Jon “PEARLJAMMED” Turner.
Although none of these great players was able to finish in the top 27 to earn a cash for their time in the tournament, there were still top pros that cracked the money. Adam “ROOTHLUS” Levy was able to come in at 23rd place to get his buy in back and two other Internet veterans made the final table. Denmark’s Soren Kongsgaard finished in ninth for $5400 and UB pro James “P0KERPR033” Campbell took down $9720 for his seventh place showing. The eventual winner of the tournament, online player MIKEIVEY, took down a payday of $56,160 for winning the event.
With a high quality field and a good deal of money on the line, the Wednesday night $150,000 Guaranteed Tournament should be one that many players will mark their calendars for. It starts each Wednesday night at 8:30PM Eastern time and, for further details on the event, visit Ultimate Bet to learn more.
