You know how PokerStars likes to run tournament series that have two or three different buy-in levels for the same event? Well, call PokerStars Gillette, because fuck everything, they’re doing FOUR buy-in levels! The online poker giant announced the Winter Series on Wednesday, a tournament series which will feature 60 events with four different buy-in levels each. That’s a total of 240 tournaments (I’ve been helping my 4th grader with multiplication this quarter, so I’m on top of the math).
The Winter Series will be held December 23rd through January 7th and will have more than $85 million in guaranteed prize pools. Buy-ins can be as low as just 55 cents and go as high as $5,200. The four buy-in tiers are as follows:
Micro – up to $5.50
Low – up to $55
Medium – up to $530
High – up to $5,200
The four Main Events will be on January 6th and will have buy-ins of $2.20 ($100,000 guaranteed), $22 ($750,000 guaranteed), $215 ($1.5 million guaranteed), and $2,100 ($1.5 million guaranteed).
As often happens during these tournament series, PokerStars will be running special Spin & Go tourneys that have the potential of awarding Winter Series Main Event tickets. These Spin & Go’s have $2.50 and $20 buy-ins.
There is also a $25,000 prize pool freeroll on January 11th for everyone who completes a Winter Series Challenge.
One thing there does not seem to be – unless I am just completely missing it – is any sort of leader board. PokerStars tends to run leader boards during tournament series as a way to encourage people to play in as many tournaments as possible. Players earn leader board points for their tournament cashes and the top finishers earn prizes.
Knowing that much of its customer base is in the northern hemisphere and thus will be cooped up indoors during the holiday season, PokerStars is also hyping up its regularly scheduled tournaments and cash games. During the time frame of the Winter Series, there will be $45 million in guaranteed prize pools in the regular schedule, outside of the Series itself.
Hell, if I lived in a jurisdiction that PokerStars served (the Bible Belt – no online poker, but plenty of voter suppression!), I’d surely hop on some of those micro-stakes events in the Winter Series. It would be an opportunity to teach my son a little something about poker, too. He’s expressed interest in the game, so I could put him in my lap and show him the perfect way to lose disposable income.
“We hope that they will enjoy the schedule that we concocted for them, with more than $85 million guaranteed across the whole of PokerStars during the Series, including $40 million thanks to the Winter Series alone,” said Director of Poker Innovation and Operations at The Stars Group Severin Rasset, referring to PokerStars’ customers. “We have a range of buy-ins suitable for players of all bankrolls, giving everyone the chance to win a huge prize and get 2019 off to a great start.”
