Each week, several of the largest online poker rooms offer gigantic prize pools as part of their Sunday tournament offering. With the news this week that it would bump up the prize pools of the Sunday Million and Warm-Up starting next week, PokerStars saw a nice bump in traffic for its five major tournaments that kicked off Sunday afternoon. Combined, they offered more than $2 million in guaranteed payouts and more than 15,000 total entrants. In this week’s online tournament roundup, we’ll focus on the online poker action from the largest room in the world, PokerStars.
The Sunday Million was held for the last time with a $1 million guarantee. Starting on August 3rd, the payday will increase to at least $1.5 million every Sunday. The $215 buy-in tournament attracted 8,370 entrants, creating a total prize pool of $1.7 million, which easily covered its guarantee (as is the case every week). Taking home the largest sum from a tournament this weekend was avkid86, who pocketed over $202,000 for winning the Sunday Million. Second place went to strahh25, who cashed for a brisk $136,431. The top five finishers cashed for more than $50,000 and the top 1,260 spots paid out.
The Sunday Warm-Up was held for the last time with a $500,000 guarantee. Next week, $750,000 will be on the line in this $215 buy-in tournament. It’s the same size prize pool as the largest tournament offered on Full Tilt Poker and is nearly four times larger than the weekly guarantee on Ultimate Bet. There were a healthy 4,050 entrants this week. Best among them was richlizard, who emerged victorious from the enormous field and won $144,919 in the process. ShowM4n also cashed for six-figures, taking home $101,106 for second place. The top 630 spots paid out and the top eight took home at least $10,000.
The Sunday Second Chance is a $200,000 guarantee tournament held each week. It remains to be seen if the guarantee will be bumped up, but regardless, it’s an extremely popular tournament. This week, 1,640 poker hopefuls turned out. Each coughed up the $215 buy-in, creating a total prize pool of $328,000. In the end, junior4718 pocketed $55,760 for first place, outpacing AlBrvs4Life heads up. The runner up took home a $41,984 consolation prize. The top 252 finishers cashed and the top six turned their $215 buy-in into at least $10,000.
The $250K Guaranteed Monthly tournament runs, as the name suggests, once per month. It has a colossal $530 buy-in and completely blew away its guarantee. In fact, 1,174 entrants this month meant that the prize pool was nearly $600,000. The large turnout was good news for Benba; the winner walked away with over $100,000. Some of the top names in online poker made the final table of this tournament, including Ozone23, Stammdogg, Dyzalot, and SNo0oWMAN.
Finally, the $150K Guaranteed is a weekly $215 rebuy tournament. It takes a healthy bankroll to afford and, consequently, only the elite players in the online poker world will enter. Although the top finisher this week was poker_lord76, the poker world was buzzing as JohnnyBax, who is one of the legendary names in online poker (and a World Series of Poker bracelet holder), finished second. The top 45 players finished in the money. Other names you might recognize at the final table were SNo0oWMAN (who also made the final table of the $250K), agriffrod, and s00tedj0kers. All three were among six players who cashed for at least $10,000.
So if you’re looking for a challenge, head to PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room. Next week, the prizes will go up, but the buy-ins stay the same.
