Another Anniversary edition of the world’s most popular online poker tournament has ended, with the 17th Anniversary Sunday Million final table ending late last night over at PokerStars.
With 39,500 entries, the tournament exceeded its original $7.5 million guaranteed prize pool, although by a much smaller margin than many anticipated.
The final $7.9 million prize pool was the smallest we have seen in many years, with PokerStars’ 6th Anniversary Sunday Million being the last to have a similar turnout.
Compared to recent years, the Anniversary edition of Sunday Million saw a significant decline in numbers, with the operator’s exit from markets such as Russia, the Netherlands, and the Ontario grey market over the last year certainly having an impact.
Yet, the event was another major success when all was said and done, with tens of thousands of people coming out to play for the $1,000,000 first-place prize, eventually won by Brazilian player “RFN1968,” whose second entry ended up being the lucky one.
Much like the eventual champion, many players in the tournament opted to use the re-entry option, with every third entry being a re-entry. Up to five re-entries were allowed to players before the start of Day 2, which significantly contributed to the final numbers.
- Deposit $20 and get $30 worth of free play
- One of the best mobile apps
- Biggest MTT guarantees
Brazilian Players Dominate the Final Table
While the Sunday Million has been played in the $109 PKO format for some time now, the operator reverted to the classic $215 re-entry format for this iteration to boost the prize pool and ensure that million dollar prize for the winner.
Among the tens of thousands of entries, thousands had won their seats through a satellite or one of the many promotions PokerStars ran in the days leading up to the big show.
Only a handful of the 39,500 entries returned for the final Day 3 of the event on Tuesday evening, with everyone hoping to make their dream come true and take down the $1 million first-place prize.
By the time the final table was set, four Brazilian players were still left in the mix, joined by one player each from Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, and Romania.
Despite that, three of the four Brazilians were eliminated early, leaving RFN1986 as the only one representing his country.
After Romanian “dariepoker,” Lithuanian “songoks,” and Pole “PAX176” fell in fifth, fourth, and third place, respectively, the Brazilian was left to play heads up with “roflcopter88” with over $733,000 in cash already guaranteed to both.
The Brazilian grinder, who has had plenty of success in online poker in the past, won a million dollars for his efforts, three times more than the entirety of all cashes he had accumulated over the 12,611 tournaments he played before his big Sunday Million success.
While the 17th Anniversary Sunday Million was undoubtedly successful, the relatively low number of entries compared to previous years will remain a problem for PokerStars to look into and try to tackle in the future.
- Deposit $20 and get $30 worth of free play
- One of the best mobile apps
- Biggest MTT guarantees
What’s Next for PokerStars?
With another Anniversary Sunday Million in the books, PokerStars will be looking ahead and preparing for what is to come in the rest of 2023. It will certainly aim to keep up the fight for that number one spot in online poker with GGPoker.
The online poker world will be waiting for news of upcoming tournament series from one of the world’s biggest online poker operators, as satellites for live tournaments such as EPT Monte Carlo are running on a daily basis.
The incredible daily offering of exciting poker tournaments and cash games at PokerStars remains unchanged as we await the announcement of this year’s edition of SCOOP (in May) and any other events that the operator might be hiding up the sleeve for the time being. If you’re looking for some action while you wait for the next big series, head over to PokerStars and start building that bankroll.
