PokerStars is set to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Sunday Storm with a special $500,000 guaranteed edition played in a Progressive Knockout (PKO) phased format. The anniversary series features dozens of Phase 1 flights beginning Friday, April 17, with Phase 2 scheduled for May 10.

Players can enter as many Phase 1 flights as they wish until they qualify for the money, with surviving stacks advancing to the final phase. For this special anniversary edition, the operator is using a multi-flight structure, a departure from the tournament’s usual single-day format and reserved specifically for this commemorative run.

While the anniversary edition highlights the longevity of the tournament, it also serves as a reminder of how much the online poker landscape has changed since the Sunday Storm first appeared.

Sunday Storm 15th Anniversary Details:

  • $11 buy-in, $500,000 GTE
  • PKO, with multiple flights/phases
  • Phase 1 kicks off April 17
  • Phase 2 on May 10 (2-Day event)
  • Winner to be crowned on May 11

Interestingly, the tournament made its debut in March 2011 as the Sunday 1/4 Million before later being rebranded as the Sunday Storm. It featured an $11 buy-in and a $300,000 guarantee, regularly drawing fields exceeding 30,000 entries. Its first edition was temporarily boosted to a $1 million guaranteed event, before settling into its regular Sunday schedule and becoming one of online poker’s most recognizable low-stakes tournaments.

However, its launch came just days before Black Friday in April 2011, a day that changed online poker not just for US players but also for those around the world. The shutdown affected major US-facing operators, including PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet, following the DOJ notices.

While Full Tilt and Absolute Poker ultimately ceased operations, PokerStars remained open, though its US player pool exited almost overnight, causing a significant contraction in liquidity across the industry. The effects of that shift continue to be felt even today.

Despite those changes, the Sunday Storm has remained a fixture on the PokerStars schedule. Its regular guarantee has gradually declined over time, from around $200,000 for many years, to $150,000, then $100,000, and now closer to the $75,000 range.

The decline has largely followed a shrinking dot-com player pool, particularly as PokerStars has withdrawn from a number of grey markets over time.

The $500,000 anniversary edition marks a temporary return to the tournament’s more ambitious early-era scale, though the format and structure have changed over time.

One notable absence from the 2026 calendar so far is the Sunday Million Anniversary edition. Traditionally held between February and April, the anniversary edition of the Sunday Million has not yet run this year. The Sunday Million remains PokerStars’ most iconic online event, but its frequency and guarantees have become less consistent in recent seasons.

In earlier years, the anniversary edition regularly featured guarantees between $8 million and $10 million. Last year, that figure dropped to around $6 million, as online tournament liquidity continued to thin. In fact, the Sunday Million has not been running on a guaranteed weekly scale as of these days, with overlays becoming more common when it does appear on the schedule.

Whether PokerStars chooses to run a standalone Sunday Million Anniversary later this year remains uncertain. It could follow the Sunday Storm celebration or potentially be deferred entirely, depending on scheduling priorities and market conditions.

While the Sunday Storm anniversary draws attention to PokerStars’ long-running flagship weekly series, it is not the only major online festival currently underway.

Irish Open Online in Full Swing

The Irish Open Online Afterparty Series is also in full swing, running until April 20 with more than $3 million in guaranteed prize pools across 69 events. The series follows the live Irish Open in Dublin and continues the festival’s momentum online, featuring buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $530 and a wide mix of formats, including PKO, mystery bounty, and mixed games.

The $500,000 guaranteed Irish Open Online Main Event is the centerpiece of the series, alongside other notable events such as The Craic, scheduled for April 19 with a $100,000 guarantee on a $55 buy-in. A similar tournament, Fáilte, runs on opening day with the same buy-in and guarantee.

While it is not a flagship series on the scale of WCOOP or SCOOP, the schedule still features a wide mix of formats. These include mixed games such as 8-Game and HORSE, as well as niche variants like 2-7 Triple Draw, No-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, and 5 Card Omaha.

There is also a strong variety in tournament structures, ranging from mystery bounties and progressive knockouts to Zoom heads-up total knockouts, alongside 3-handed events, turbos, hypers, and other fast-paced formats.

Players can qualify through satellites already running in the PokerStars client, with buy-ins starting from just $0.55.