The 888poker XL Retro Series is Off to a Smashing Start

The XL Retro Series on 888poker is off to a roaring start with four days of action and smashing guarantees daily. Only a single event has failed to meet its guarantee, and that one was only missed by a hair.

The opening games of 888poker’s XL Retro Series are already complete, and it has been a strong one so far. Of the nine games to run by Oct 12, eight broke their guarantees, while the 9th game — the biggest guarantee of the series thus far — barely missed its $120,000 promise.

There was more than $250k guaranteed to date, but that number is in the rearview mirror with more than $290k collected so far. On Day 1 alone, there were $198,670 in total prizes handed out, significantly above the $180k guaranteed for the opening day.

It was the opening day that saw the single miss in the guarantee department, but, despite the fact it came in the biggest game of the series so far, the difference was minimal, with $116,200 collected on the guarantee of $120k so it came short by less than $4,000. In comparison, that tournament alone collected more than $10k in fees.

XL Retro by the Numbers

At the time of writing, there were four days complete in the XL Retro Series from 888poker, with nine events in the books. The series has come out over 15% above the guarantees, with nearly every event beating its promised prize pool.

2022 XL Retro Series Summary Data

There have been nearly 3000 players in action in the series, and they have combined for almost 3700 entries. That means there has been $295,530 awarded to players in the four days of action, which is nearly 16% up on the $252k in guarantees.

So far, the best performer of the series was XL Retro #05: $3000 Blowfish 8-Max. The $11 event beat its $3k guarantee by 77%, with $5310 collected from 531 entries. That was only the third-best tournament in terms of total entries, however, with XL Retro #01: $120,000 Mega Deep Opening Event (1162) and XL Retro #03: $15,000 Mini Mega Deep Opening Event (639) coming in even stronger.

The Opening Event drew the biggest crowd, with 909 players and 253 re-entries, but that was not quite enough to make it to the $120k guarantee. The difference ended up being negligible, though, as the $3800 loss was more than compensated for by $10,458 in entry fees.

The other standout game so far was the $33 XL Retro #07: $8,000 Swordfish PKO. While the 432 entries were fourth in total numbers, the $12,960 prize pool was 62% over the $8k guarantee for the second-best increase on guarantee so far.

There is still lots of action upcoming in the XL Retro series. On Oct 17, 888pokerTV will broadcast the Mystery Bounty event, and they will be back on Oct 25 for the final table of the XL Retro Main Event. Day 1 flights of the massive $200k guaranteed Main Event start on Oct 20, with Day 2 playing out on Oct 24. Freeroll satellites are running daily to win a seat for one of the Day 1 flights.

See below for a look at the results so far.

2022 XL Retro Series to Date