888poker’s Knockout Games finished on May 10 and, in the end, more than 20,000 unique players hit the virtual felt looking to collect the bounties on their fellow players’ heads. With more than 25,000 total entries, the series came in more than 10% above the original guarantee of $1.26 million.
The Knockout Games kicked off on 888poker on Apr 24 with the first of 44 games scheduled through May 10. In the end, more than 20.5k unique players combined for just over 25k total entries to push past the initial series guarantee by more than 12%.
In 44 total games, the series only missed the guarantee seven times but, taken as a whole, the seven games collected significantly more total fees than the overlay required. In the end, the total prizes were more than $150k higher than originally promised before the series began.
888poker Knockout Games Summary
- Total Games: 44
- Total Guarantees: $1,260,000
- Total Prizes: $1,414,425
- Extra Prizes: $154,425
- Beat Guarantee by: 12.26%
KO Games Blow-by-Blow
While the very first game of the series saw the second biggest overlay, the series really got off on a high note. The $2,800 overlay in the $125k Opening Event PKO aside, the other two games on opening day beat their guarantees by a combined $7k.
After that, it was mostly green prize pools for the rest of the series compared to the guarantees. There were seven games that missed their guarantees by nearly $13.5k combined, but those games collected nearly $35k in fees between them, so the small overlays through the series were easily covered.
Of the 37 games that broke their guarantees, The Main Event shone brightest. More than 1,650 entries were recorded for the $300k Main Event PKO bringing the total prize pool to $331,600. The $50k Mini Main Event was also very attractive to players with total prizes of about 34% over the guarantee.
The best performing game was Event #35: $10,000 Mini PKO Freezeout. The not-so-classic freezeout game got 313 entries for a total prize pool of $15,650, 56.50% over the $10k guarantee.
- Max Prize Diff: $31,600
- Event #43: $300,000 Main Event PKO
- Max Prize Diff: 56.5%
- Event #35: $10,000 Mini PKO Freezeout
- Min Prize Diff: -$6,300
- Event #22: $150,000 Tune Up PKO
- Min Prize Diff: -32.2%
- Event #27: $5,000 Late PKOmaha 6-Max
Generally, the series did very well with more than $100k in profit on almost $122k in fees. That made the $13.5k total overlays a lot easier to handle with a six-figure profit still in hand.
- Missed Guarantee: 7
- Hit Guarantee: 37
- Total Fees Collected: $121,780
- Total Overlay Paid: $13,490
- Total Entries: 25,035
- Total Unique Players: 20,529
The International Battle
It was an international series for 888poker, but Brazilians crushed the rest of the world with 8 titles going there. A total of 15 countries were represented among the winners of this series, with nine countries hosting more than one winner.
Romania and Ukraine both tied for second with five titles, while Denmark and Germany tied for third with four apiece.
Top Five National Titles
- Brazil — 8
- Romania — 5
- Ukraine — 5
- Denmark — 4
- Germany — 4
The operator will now look forward to hosting its XL Spring Series, which usually runs in May. Nothing has been officially announced yet but 888 has deployed the Main Event on its client with its Day 2 scheduled to run on June 6. Expect the overall guarantees to be around $1.5 million for this year’s edition.
