888poker’s The Festival Online Smashed All of its Guarantees

With the dog days of August upon us, 888poker’s The Festival Online (TFO) has concluded, and the operator will surely be smiling behind the scenes. When the dust settled, not only did the series break its overall guarantee, but every event managed to meet or beat the promised prize pool.

It is rare for a series to go end-to-end with no missed guarantees, but that’s the situation 888poker finds itself in after completing its TFO series. The 21-game series wrapped up on Aug 1 with the Afterparty and the final day of the $150k guaranteed Main Event.

Throughout the series, which began on July 7, four games ended with more than $100k in prizes. Three of the games — the Opening Event, the Texas Progressive KO, and the Texas 8-Max — all guaranteed $100k, and while the Opening Event hit that number exactly, the other two $100k games collected more.

The $215 Main Event was the other game over $100k, though it would always be at least $150,000. In the end, more than 800 entries brought the Main Event prize pool to $162,600, or about 8.4% above the guaranteed prizes.

888poker’s The Festival Online Summary Results

More than 5,500 Unique Players Across the Series

With all 21 games in TFO now complete, the series was just shy of 7,000 total entries. When registration closed on the Afterparty on Aug 1, a total of 6,942 entries had been recorded in the series, made up of 5,518 unique entries and 1,424 rebuys.

The biggest field size of the whole series came in the $109 Texas Progressive KO on July 17. That game drew 1,072 entries, made up of 879 players with 193 rebuys for a total prize pool of $107,200. That was the biggest prize pool of the series, at least it was up until the closing days.

In the end, the Main Event beat that prize pool size with $162,600 total, but no matter what happened, it was always going to have a prize pool of at least $150k, so that maximum prize pool was always going to be beaten by the Main.

In the end, there was a lot to celebrate from the TFO. Two games in the series more than doubled their guarantees, with the $55 PLO Deepstack and $22 PLO Lowroller hitting 110% and 113.33% of their guarantees, respectively, while two other games drew more than 800 unique entries. A third game, the Opening Event, just missed the 800 mark with 796 individual entries.

Winners of events throughout the series represented a wide range of countries, but it appears that 2022 may be the “Year of Lithuania.” A total of four Festival titles went to the eastern European nation. Five countries won two titles, including Brazil, the UK, and Germany, while seven countries notched single wins, including Canada and Denmark. In the end, 13 countries saw one or more titles won within their borders.

TFO Titles by Country

• Lithuania: 4
• Sweden: 2
• Montenegro: 2
• The United Kingdom: 2
• Germany: 2
• Brazil: 2
• Malta: 1
• Bermuda: 1
• Canada: 1
• Denmark: 1
• Vietnam: 1
• Ukraine: 1
• Argentina: 1

See below for the full final results from 888poker’s TFO, and check out the eMagazine recap of the series for more details on individual winners.

888poker’s The Festival Online Full Results