Online Poker Tournaments Offering Nearly $20 Million in Guaranteed Prize Money This Sunday

This Sunday could be one of the biggest days of the calendar year for online poker as several big tournaments are lined up this weekend.

Leading the pack is PokerStars’ Sunday Million 14th Anniversary edition which will be the biggest highlight of the Sunday grind. With a mammoth guaranteed prize pool of $12.5 million, this will be the operator’s biggest guaranteed online poker tournament in its history as well as the biggest online poker tournament of this year.

Over on partypoker, the operator is running its flagship tournament series, Powerfest. Dozens of big guaranteed tournaments are scheduled this Sunday including a $1 million guaranteed tournament.

Also, joining the party is 888’s Millions SuperStorm promotion which the operator has been running for over two months. The promotion culminates in a $1 million guaranteed tournament on Sunday.

GGPoker will be kicking off its High Rollers Week series this Sunday. $9 million is guaranteed across 96 tournaments that span for a week. Additionally, the network has also upped the guarantee of its biggest tournament, GG Masters. The tournament now boasts a $400,000 guaranteed prize pool—up from $300,000.

All these big events come at a time when the world is going through a global pandemic. The outbreak of coronavirus has sent countries worldwide into lockdown. Online poker traffic is soaring, with many online poker rooms experiencing traffic levels not seen for years.

However, many of these big events were planned well in advance and would have taken place anyway had the outbreak not taken place. But the impact of the outbreak will surely bring more players than a usual Sunday would as people across the globe are self-isolating by staying at home.

In fact, the spike in online poker traffic was already seen last Sunday with most of the online poker rooms reporting a 10% uptick.

If you are looking to play online poker, here are the three big online poker events to watch out for this weekend:

PokerStars – $12.5 Million Guaranteed Sunday Million Anniversary Edition

PokerStars’ longest-running online poker tournament Sunday Million will be celebrating its fourteen-year run and to mark the occasion, PokerStars has announced a record-breaking prize pool of $12.5 million.

The buy-in for this special event will return to the traditional $215 but players will be able to qualify for the event for satellites starting as low as $0.90.

Furthermore, PokerStars is also running nearly a dozen 100+ seats guaranteed satellites to the Anniversary event for a buy-in of just $11.

The tournament will allow up to five re-entries and will play for three days, with Day 1 pausing after running for some 6 hours.

If held successfully, this could become the third-largest poker tournament in the history of online poker.

Highlights of the 14th Anniversary of Sunday Million:

$12.5 million guaranteed prize pool
Scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 22 at 13:00 ET
Comes for a buy-in of $215
5 re-entries allowed and players will be able to enter the tournament up to 24 hours after the start
Set to create two millionaires
Satellites running round the clock starting as low as $0.90 as well as Freebuy satellites
Multiple 100+ seats guaranteed satellites are scheduled ahead of the start of the event

Partypoker – $20+ Million Guaranteed Powerfest Series

Partypoker’s iconic Powerfest series will reach its halfway point this Sunday. Initially guaranteed $20 million, but following the surge in traffic, the operator increased most of the tournaments’ guarantees which as per Rob Yong, partner of GVC, is estimated to likely exceed $30 million.

The coming Sunday will be a big day for the series as nearly three dozen tournaments are scheduled to take place. All in all, nearly $5 million is guaranteed on that day.

Standouts include:

Powerfest #70-SHR guaranteeing $1 million for a buy-in of $530
Powerfest #67A-M guaranteeing $100,000 for a buy-in of $33
Powerfest #74-H, a progressive knockout tournament boasting $400k guarantee for $320 buy-in.

Another tournament to watch out for is the partypoker MILLION tournament. The tournament guarantees $1 million and comes for a buy-in of just $215. Last week, partypoker MILLION saw the biggest turnout throughout its day 1 flights, amassing a total prize pool of $1.08 million.

GGPoker – High Rollers Week and GG Masters

GGPoker will kick off its high-stakes tournament series “High Rollers Week” this Sunday. The series will be guaranteeing at least $9 million spread across 96 tournaments. Buy-ins start at $210 and go up to $5000.

Must play events on Sunday include:

Bounty Warm-Up at 17:30 UTC – $210 buy-in, guaranteeing $150,000
Daily $500 at 18:00 UTC – $500 buy-in, guaranteeing $150,000
Daily Main $1K – $1000 buy-in, guaranteeing $200,000

GGPoker’s biggest guaranteed tournament of the week, GG Masters, will see a new guarantee put on it. After exceeding its $300,000 guaranteed prize pool for the first time last Sunday, the operator has now bumped its guarantee to $400,000.

The buy-in remains the same i.e., $150 to enter and it will continue to be played as a freezeout. More details on the tournament can be found here.